BBC Faces Mass Revolt From Television Viewers

The BBC is facing a revolt from millions of television viewers who are no longer willing to pay the television licence fee.

The Daily Mail reports a record 2.84 million people now insist they are no longer obliged to fork out £159 ($200) for the annual charge because they don’t watch BBC channels or any kind of live TV. This figure is an increase of more than 360,000 on the previous twelve months.

This abandonment of the BBC will exacerbate the debate about the future of both the broadcaster and the licence fee.

Toby Young, the Founder and Director of the Free Speech Union said: ‘These figures show that the TV licence fee is not a viable funding model for the BBC going forward.’ He added: ‘The obvious alternative is to become a subscription-based service like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Given the BBC’s global brand recognition and its reputation for producing premium content, it could become the largest and most profitable streaming service in the world.’

The increase in the number of people claiming they are not liable to pay the charge is one of the factors driving a fall in the number of licenses sold.

Last year TV Licensing (TVL) which collects the license fee on behalf of the BBC sold 23.50 million licences.  That was a drop of around 420,000 on the previous year’s figure.

Of course, any reduction in the number of licenses sold has implications for the BBC’s finances.

The Corporation is already having to cut services following the government’s decision in 2022 to freeze the license fee for two years.

At the same time the public service broadcaster is also having to deal with an increase in license fee evasion from people who are eligible to pay but don’t.  The estimated evasion rate, which in part is being driven by the cost-of-living crisis, has increased to over ten per cent for the first time since 1995.

It is believed the current rate of license fee evasion is costing the BBC £430 a million a year.