LMSC Taxes, excise duties and other fripperies that generate revenue for the “state” (in the broadest possible sense, and including many private corporations) tend to be forgotten and fossilise. In Italy, there is an excise duty on petrol “for the Abyssinian war”. The war ended in 1936, and Ethiopia was de-conlonised and awarded war damages for the invasion in 1947… the tax is still there (or was in 2021).
There was a rationale for the licence fee when it was set up, and there was a rationale for sustaining it until relatively recently (in my personal opinion); far less so nowadays, with the proliferation of channels and content (and revenue) generation streams. I have to say, though, that the documentaries of David Attenborough, starting with Life on Earth, would probably not have been possible without the licence fee, and it would have been a real shame if they had not been made.