I will say up front I’m not an expert in tv production - I imagine most of aren’t, apart from those working in or close to the field. But as far as I’m aware, a) the BBC is not the sole supplier of British-made television content, and b) the BBC doesn’t single handedly create every show on its channels, there are companies and creators that approach them/they approach to produce something. Hence sometimes other tv channels can buy the show. The most recent/well known example I can think of is Bake Off, mainly because I haven’t watched broadcast tv in years so not aware when shows move, and also not being in this field I don’t know how much bargaining with different channels might take place before an agreement to produce/screen the show is reached with one particular television company.
I agree that they might have or had the flexibility to produce shows that otherwise wouldn’t have been produced under a strictly for-profit/advertiser-friendly model. But I stopped watching a long time ago and haven’t felt that I have missed out on quality content. The issue, at least in part, is a lack of evolution of the model. I’m happy to pay for the content I access. But I don’t have a schedule that remains the same every day, like many people, eg I’m not in by 6pm and specifically turning to a particular channel at 7pm to watch a favourite show, and I don’t have the tv in just ‘because’ which is what I grew up with, going through the channels to see what’s on. A lot of people are like this now. You want to watch something specific rather than channel surfing, so you find that content directly. We have Netflix and Spotify, an Amazon Kids account, and we also watch smaller creators on YouTube. These pretty much get used daily - Netflix is great for children’s tv and Amazon Kids get used a lot for tablet games, we watch films and shows on Netflix and can regularly find something we like (funnily enough, no BBC content except for sometimes rewatching The Thick Of It which we have on DVD anyway!). I would happily pay to watch a series on iPlayer if that was an option and I thought it looked interesting, for instance, but I’m not paying £154.50 a year to be able to access a couple of decent looking shows.
Bit of a tangent I appreciate but there’s a lot of debate on here around British television so I thought I’d chip in my two pennies.
OP I left home at 19 (nearly 12 years ago) and have never had a licence. It started with not being able to get a proper aerial connection in my first place, and then realising I didn’t miss it because I just streamed on demand anyway. DH was the same. Over the years we’ve checked what BBC is offering and have never been tempted. We get the occasional letter every few years or so, we just go online to confirm we don’t need one.