TV Licensing's ads have always been threatening in nature, but in recent years the stick they use to coerce people to cough up seems to have grown out of proportion.
It's easy to understand why - the proliferation of media channels means that the Corporation is aware that the tax is unpopular and difficult to justify when there is so much choice elsewhere. A stick showing the consequences of non-compliance, as well as desperate attempts to engage with audiences who are served elsewhere by employing people such as Russell Brand, has been the BBC's remedy.
Sadly, the Corporation has managed to get both of these tactics wrong as shown by the sacking of Proximity London for sending out inaccurate warning letters to members of the public that over-claimed on the number of evaders that had been caught in their localities.
It's striking how swiftly the BBC has moved following the breaking of the story in the Sunday Telegraph; perhaps the BBC management has learnt from the dithering over the Brand affair. However this is another example of just how the BBC's Board of Governors failed to govern during Gilligan, the BBC Trust has got a lot to do to restore that particular virtue in the Corporation.
Only then can Proximity's replacement adopt a strategy that describes why the licence fee is worth paying rather than threatens the consequences of not.
