BBC boss Tony Hall has warned the corporation is at "a crossroads" and that the licence fee should be updated.
In a speech, the director general argued that adapting the levy for the internet age is "vital".
Mr Hall highlighted a recent report by MPs which called for changes to the licence fee to include its catch-up iPlayer service and also suggested an alternative to the current system.
The preferred option of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is for a universal household levy, regardless of whether people watched television or not.
Mr Hall told his audience at New Broadcasting House in central London: "We've always said that the licence fee should be updated to reflect changing times.
"I welcome the committee's endorsement of our proposal to make people pay the licence fee even if they only watch catch-up television.
"The committee has suggested another route to modernising the licence fee - a universal household levy.
"Both proposals have the same goal in mind: adapting the licence fee for the internet age.
"This is vital. Because I believe we need and we will need what the licence fee - in whatever form - makes happen more than ever."
In their report, members of the select committee said the licence fee, which is not currently required to watch iPlayer, must be changed to cover "catch-up television as soon as possible".
It went on: "The German model of a broadcasting levy on all households is our preferred alternative to the TV licence".
Opponents of the licence fee have likened to a poll tax because every household with a television set has to pay it, even if they rarely or never use BBC services.
Mr Hall said that "people increasingly prefer the licence fee to other models of funding" and warned that scaling back the BBC too far will leave a nation dominated by "global gatekeepers and American taste-makers".
"The BBC has never been afraid of debates about its future. What we do is undeniably good for Britain and the British public. And will become even more so in the internet age."
