The licence fee gives the BBC an income of around £3.75 billion, with another £1.25 billion added through sales of its shows abroad and merchandising, giving it an overall budget which is larger than that of the Foreign Office, Defra, HM Treasury and the Department for International Trade combined.

But it is dwarfed by the budget of Netflix, which spends £12.4 billion making programmes and films, funded by subscribers worldwide and which does not have the financial drain of 24-hour news provision, 62 radio stations or a website covering news, sport, culture and features.

Netflix is able to spend a whopping $13 million (£9.5m) per episode on The Crown, which swept the board at the Emmy awards last year, putting it in the budget bracket of movies, rather than one-hour TV episodes.

Not to be outdone, Amazon Prime is making the most expensive television series in history, a $1 billion (£732 million) five-season adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Netflix charges £5.99 per month for its most basic package, while Amazon Prime costs £7.99, but also includes free next-day delivery of goods from its online store.

At £13.25 per month, the BBC licence fee starts to look expensive by comparison, particularly when viewers have to go elsewhere (and pay others) if they want to watch most live sports or award-winning drama like The Crown (Netflix), Succession (Sky), Ted Lasso (Apple TV+), Mare of Easttown (Sky), The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix) or The Mandalorian (Disney+).

Broughton argues that the BBC can only remain relevant to younger audiences if it concentrates on making particular programmes for a particular audience, rather than making shows that appeal to the broadest possible base.

“It’s about picking off niche audiences,” he said. “You need to ensure fresh new content that is relevant to that audience.” In other words, older people might be content to watch repeats of Dad’s Army, but that does not constitute a plan for a future where TV schedules may no longer exist.

Former Cabinet minister Damian Green, however, points out that the BBC is one of the UK’s defining institutions, particularly in the eyes of the rest of the world, and needs to be treated differently to commercial rivals.

The BBC World Service is not only a noble institution in its own right, as the only reliable news source for millions of people living under oppressive regimes, but is also a valuable “soft power” asset, he says, of such strategic importance that it was, until recently, funded by the Foreign Office.

So the question for politicians and BBC bosses as the Government reviews the funding model is whether they can find a replacement that retains everything the public loves about the BBC, while giving them the choice of whether or not they want to access it.

Aside from a subscription model, the alternatives include advertising (seen as a non-starter as the UK advertising market would have to double in size to sustain another major channel), a tax on broadband services (which would still effectively be a compulsory tax) or a broadcasting levy paid for out of general taxation, which would increase with income rather than being a flat fee that hits poorest people the hardest.

David Elstein, former chief executive of Channel 5, has suggested that the BBC could be funded through a hybrid of subscriptions for drama and entertainment, and a small public service broadcasting tax to pay for news, current affairs, arts, religion, regional programmes, the World Service, some other radio stations and some documentaries.

Any form of tax, however, could make the BBC even more beholden to the Government. And that is a solution which is unlikely to appeal to anyone.

Five bits of the BBC worth saving

Our family assembles in delight for Attenborough and Strictly. But in my years abroad for this paper, I came to appreciate – and realise how much many millions of others appreciate – the World Service. That gentle, imperturbable connection to Britain provides valuable reassurance… and great-value soft power.

Harry de Quetteville