BBC licence fee WILL rise next year – check to see exact amount you’ll be paying
THE BBC licence fee will rise from £159 to £169.50 next year - but furious critics want the whole levy AXED.
Bosses hoped to hike the £159 levy by nearly £15 — but ministers pressed them to settle in line with September’s 6.7 per cent inflation rate.
PM Rishi Sunak previously told MPs the BBC must be “realistic” to help hard-up households.
But campaigners want the current funding model to be ripped up.
Ex-Minister and Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns said: "Licence fee rise! Instead we should defund the BBC!"
The Defund The BBC campaign said it was time the public stopped paying the wages of its talent who "despise" the public.
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The group said: "The BBC has shown the public what they really think of us, giving viewers the middle finger live on air as they raise the cost of the licence fee during a cost of living crisis.
"Stop paying the salaries of the people that despise you. It’s time to ".
The announcement today - first revealed by The Sun - comes as Ms Frazer has launched a review into how the BBC should be funded in the future, as new action is taken to reduce the impact of price rises on licence fee payers.
The BBC’s annual report showed the number of Brits choosing to pay the licence fee plummeted by 500,000 to 24.3 million.
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They blamed the increase in competition in the TV market from streaming giants such as Netflix and Amazon Prime and the cost of living crisis.
With less households paying the fee, their funding dropped from £3.8 billion to £3.74 billion.
The review, supported by a panel of independent experts soon to be announced from across the broadcasting sector and wider business world, will assess a range of options for funding the BBC.
It will look at how alternative models could help secure the broadcaster’s long-term sustainability amid an evolving media landscape, increased competition and changing audience behaviour, while reducing the burden on licence fee payers.
The licence fee will also rise by less than previously expected next year following changes brought in by the government to minimise the cost to households.
In 2022, the government froze the licence fee for two years to protect families from the sharp rise in the cost of living.
It was agreed that the current annual fee of £159 would remain unchanged until April 2024, before rising by inflation for the following four years.
How the BBC could be funded in the future
The Government has announced a review into how sustainable the BBC licence fee will be in the future.
If you watch or record broadcasted TV programmes, you must have a TV licence either through purchase or given free to those receiving pension credit and 75 years or older.
All forms of transmission include using the BBC iPlayer on a smart television, laptops and tablets.
The licence fee had been frozen at £159 over the last two years and the Government has announced it will now rise by £10.50 to £169.50 from April 2024.
However, this is a reduced amount as the planned rise had been around £15 next year.
The licence fee pays for TV, radio and online programmes and services including iPlayer, Radio 1, CBeebies and the World Service.
It also funds Welsh language TV channel S4C and local TV channels.
It is reported to be worth more than £3billion to the BBC.
What will the review do?
The Government said there are "challenges around the sustainability of the current licence fee funding model" due to fewer people taking up the licence fee and watching broadcasted television.
It also thinks that enforcement on people not paying the fee is "increasingly disproportionate in a modern public service broadcasting system".
The review will be led by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which will take evidence from stakeholders and create a panel of experts to help with the findings.
The report, which will look at making the BBC more commercial, alternative funding models and how the corporation could transition, will inform the Charter Review and report in Autumn 2024.
What are the alternative options?
Alternatives to the licence fee could include a broadband levy, advertising or a subscription model.
A subscription model, as used by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, which have already announced price increases, has long been touted as an alternative to the licence fee.
For Netflix's most expensive ad-free service, the price will go up to £17.99 per month in the UK (£215.88 a year). The basic plan is rising by £1 a month to £7.99 a month.
Disney+ also recently announced a major restructuring of its subscription plans, with an ad-supported tier introduced in the UK from November 1.
All existing Disney+ customers have automatically been moved to its top-tier premium subscription package, priced at £10.99 per month or £109.90 per year, unless they actively switch to another plan.
Apple TV+ currently costs £8.99 a month, after an increase of £2 from £6.99 a month.
Currently, the BBC does not have advert breaks on its domestic TV channels and its website is free from advertising.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said: “This is a fair deal that provides value for money for the licence fee payer while also ensuring that the BBC can continue to produce world leading content.
“We know family budgets are stretched, which is why we have stepped in again – following two years of licence fee freezes – to reduce this year’s increase to less than a £1 a month.
“But this settlement has highlighted other challenges faced by the BBC with the changing media landscape making the battle for audiences more competitive and the number of people paying the licence fee decreasing.
“This raises fundamental questions as to sustainability of the current licence fee system.
“So we are also launching a funding review of the BBC that will take a forensic look at the licence fee, and whether a reformed funding model could better support our national broadcaster to remain sustainable and affordable for audiences while driving growth in our creative industries.
“I want a thriving BBC, supported to inform, educate and entertain and this funding review will help us make sure we can deliver this for decades to come.”
Ex-Cabinet Minister David Jones previously told The Sun said: “We are living in a completely different age from when the licence fee was first imposed, because of the rise of streaming services.
“And not only is the licence fee a tax, but it is a very regressive tax so it is completely right to look at it.”
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Earlier this year, the government handed over an extra £20m to the BBC World Service as part of the refresh of the Integrated Review.
The money, which is on top of £94m provided annually, was to protect all 42 World Service language services over the next two years, support English-language broadcasting, and counter disinformation.
