(Facebook/Doctor Who) "Doctor Who" is one of the BBC's flagship programs.

The epic rise of "over-the-top" streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant Video is posing a serious threat to the way the BBC and other public broadcasters are funded, according to the new five-year global media and entertainment outlook from PwC.

Residents across some parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa are required to pay an annual licence fee for access to public TV and radio broadcasting.

In the UK, residents pay £145.50 ($222.38) for a television licence each year — the equivalent of £12.13 ($18.54) a month and just under 40 pence a day. It pays for access to the BBC's UK services, including its TV channels, radio stations, website, and on-demand service the BBC iPlayer. It's like a tax, and residents are required by law to pay it if they watch live broadcasts from the BBC, on either their TV or the internet.

While the BBC has a commercial arm — BBC Worldwide, which makes money internationally from selling broadcast rights (to companies like Netflix!) and advertising, and from events and merchandising — it heavily relies on the licence fee to keep running.

But the very notion of public licence fees is under "unprecedented pressure" from the growth of streaming services, PwC says in its report. Viewers want high-quality, original programming they can watch whenever they want, across numerous devices. The BBC already does a great job of this with iPlayer, but a subscription to a service like Netflix (£5.99 a month) costs less than half of the licence fee (not to mention the programming and films viewers can pay for on-demand or find free — sometimes illegally — online.)

Global public-licence-fee revenue is set to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of just 0.7% between now and 2019. People are doing away with the need for a licence and finding their content elsewhere. The licence fee revenue growth rate is also well below the 3.5% CAGR of TV subscription revenues (via cable, satellite, or the internet.)

(PwC)

PwC says the downward trend for licence-fee money can be directly attributed to the growth of over-the-top video as well as government austerity measures.

A PwC spokesman told Business Insider: "The observation that public-licence fees for media are under unprecedented pressure is a clear global trend, drawn from research across many countries and territories. The maturity of individual markets, and pressures from austerity and technological developments all influence which territories are facing most pressure. Globally, media consumption patterns are changing, and some upcoming markets are bypassing public licence fees entirely. The UK context, where a licence fee is payable for the BBC, will continue to be determined at each charter renewal date."

The BBC is now preparing to renegotiate the licence fee with the newly elected Conservative UK government. Critics of the licence fee have called for it to be abolished altogether, with a voluntary subscription system put in its place. BBC executive Danny Cohen has previously warned that a reduction in the licence fee would see the corporation forced to axe programs or channels.

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