BBC licence fee overhaul as 300,000 more Brit households stop paying it

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/bbc-licence-fee-overhaul-300000-35559265

Posted by dailystar_news

35 comments

  1. https://archive.is/www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/bbc-licence-fee-overhaul-300000-35559265

    “The BBC has confessed to considering a revamp of the licence fee as an additional 300,000 households have ceased paying it. Today’s annual report reveals that the corporation’s struggle with streaming competitors such as Netflix has led to “a moment of real jeopardy for the sector”.
    ‌
    The report discloses that there were 23.8m licences in effect at the end of the year, a decrease from 24.1m in 2023-24. This decline equates to a loss of approximately £50m in revenue for the BBC. ”

    Edit: I don’t pay for a TV licence, I don’t watch live broadcasts, I don’t watch BBC content. There were two BBC programs I would consider watching, Top Gear with Clarkson because I watched it for years with my dad and Dr Who, for the same reason.

    They sacked Clarkson and Dr Who hasn’t been the same for a few years, so I no longer want to view any content on BBC channels, why should we be forced to pay for a service that doesn’t entertain us. We’re not forced to subsidise all of the other channels broadcast in the UK.

  2. I definitely wouldn’t pay it if I could stop my wife watching EastEnders.

  5. With how tight things are, the last thing I want is to be forced to pay for a tv licence. I can see more people not paying which will cost the bbc more, less money and paying to track people watching tv who don’t pay.

  6. Only 23.8mill to go before people realise it’s a bullshit and nonsensical cost.

    Also the companies that go out their way to try and terrify you into submitting with red legal letters and threats of warrants to enter your home from ‘The sheriff of Scotland’ should be illegal.

    I can’t imagine how many older people that has terrified into submission.

  7. I pay the bbc tax every month on direct debit. Don’t watch live tv at all. Don’t even know how to get ‘onto’ live tv on my tv. My gf pays for Disney and I get the prime and Netflix .

    Do we actually need to to keep paying ? Occasionally I want to watch sky news and spend 15 mins trying to remember how to put the freebies channels on.

  8. Not paid in 5 years.

    5 years ago people thought it was strange, now more and more people i know are doing the same thing.

    I get enough propaganda forced into my eyes from reddit and facebook, i don’t want to pay monthly for it too.

    I do miss homes under the hammer, just not £25 a month worth.

  9. BBC studios has just recorded record profits. In that area they’re doing something right.

  10. Let me guess – overhaul means force people to pay for it whether they watch it or not. I am one of those currently planning to drop my Sky subscription at contract end in a month and dump the licence fee. We mostly stream stuff anyway.

  11. I don’t want the BBC to die, I think it has a significant and important contribution to British Arts and culture, and our global soft power. A lot of well known British Actors and comedians, as well as camera operators and all the backstage, behind the scene technicians, started in the BBC, so I think it has an important role to play, and a positive contribution to our culture and economy. But it does need to adapt.

    I do think it should have forced subscription, but if it does, it needs to provide a lot more content.

    I’d love it if it ran a similar platform like Youtube that featured independent British content creators, that they’d select, that can feature there content on it where we can watch it without ads. And they get financial support from the BBC.

    My 70 year old father loves watching a lot of British Farmers, Car enthusiasts and Mechanics on Youtube. But its constant ads. If the BBC could have their content featured on a ‘BBC youtube’ like platform, as well as help fund them, it’d make the subscription more worthwhile, and help fund British Content Creators to grow and do projects they may not have ever been able to do before.

    Channels that do content like Thom Scott, CruisingTheCut, Chris Spargo, Map Men, Auto Shenanigans, DIY Perks, Fully Charged Show, The B1M, Charlie Hopkinson, Mat Armstrong, Alec Steele, Leave Curious, Tom Pemberton Farm Life, Modern History TV, History Hit, J. Draper, Cambrian Chronicles

    And so so many more amazing channels that cover a wide range of genres that would give so much more entertainment and variety than their current stuff provides, with little needs to blow thousands on huge TV shows, if they let them run independently and still post on other platforms.

    It’d at least also give them independence and security from foreign own websites.

    China does a similar thing at the moment. Funding pro chinese culture content creators (you’ve probably seen some). The BBC should do the same.

  12. Too many people who don’t pay the licence fee have a say or have content made for them by the bbc. This needs to be scaled back and the focus should be on the ones who pay. World service, minority language channels, local radio, some national radio, websites and regional channels etc. There should be a paywall for the content too so anyone who pays their way can enjoy it worldwide.

  13. We don’t have to pay a licence fee for the ABC in Australia. Their budget is probably nothing compared to the BBC of course but the quality of the ABC is fairly good for a free service. it comes out of our taxes instead.

  15. It could save some money by selling off national radio stations like R1 and R3 that are duplicated by commercial stations now. Sell off all of the local radio stations to new local independents. Merge the two childrens channels. Merge BBC News and Parliament. There are savings to be had…if that’s the objective.

  16. The article implies it’s the recent scandals that has caused people to not take out a licence. But honestly, for me, there’s very little I want to watch on the BBC.

    I think the world service is an absolute asset to the UK and provides the uk government with a lot of soft power. This shouldn’t be funded by the BBC

  17. I use their threatening under investigation letters as fire starters for my log burner

  18. Media consumption has moved on and they can no longer get by with the lie that if you have a TV you need a TV Licence. This has never been the case. I’m surprised it’s taken this long for people to catch on. Why would I waste £12 a month on a TV licence instead of spending that on Netflix or Disney Plus, or none at all?

  19. If the BBC want to continue in a sustainable form, they need to get with the times. Either change from the roots up and behave like a public service broadcaster, or go all in with a subscription model. There’s a reason other countries that had a similar model all dunked it. The media landscape has been turned on its head in the streaming era.

    As Channel 4 honchos said a number of years ago; the BBC is irrelevant.

  20. I noticed recently that more BBC content was appearing on streaming services like Netflix etc

    The optimist in me thinks its because the can get money back from lost license fees by leasing programmes out to other providers.

    However the Cynic in me thinks they are doing it so they can try and argue that people are “watching BBC content” via these apps and therefore all must pay the license fee.

    I’m sure it’s the first reason but the way all corps are mercilessly gouging people these days I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried the second way.

  21. They can fuck right off I’m not paying Tory donors to feed the world bullshit

  23. There should be a much smaller license fee to cover national services that no commercial broadcaster would ever do, due to there being no profit in it

    The rest should be funded by subscription services in the market, and if that fails, they will reduce the scale of the BBC.

    They are an arrogant and unaccountable organisation that has had no challenge to funding for decades, and it needs to change

  24. Haven’t given them scumbags a penny in years – who wants to watch their shit?

    Then we find out Lineker gets 1.3m per year for being a mug

  25. Why are the BBC trying to compete with Netflix? The biggest streaming company in the world. It’s an unachievable goal. Focus on making smaller amounts of good quality programmes. That will keep people coming back.

    We also don’t need 10 different celebrity ‘chefs’ back-to-back on a Saturday morning. Or paying football pundits obscene fees. Cut the crap and save some money.

  26. Really what the bbc should have done is just monopolised the streaming market in the UK with government bans on other streaming services forcing networks to sell their licenses to the bbc

  27. Do what they do here in Ireland and charge us all anyway for absolute drivelly shite just because our microwave has a screen showing the time!

    /s

  28. I’m not a fan of capitalism, but I really hope they don’t go down an anti-capitalist route on this by forcing everyone to pay it regardless of the value the BBC brings to the person paying the bill.

    The whole point is for people to want to pay the license fee because the BBC offer a good service. Poor service = no customers.

    Have a better service, and you’ll get people paying for it.

  29. Let’s all stop paying council tax.

    More money in your pocket

  30. I hope they can figure something out for the long term.

    The BBC is not flawless of course, but it still sets a high standard of quality for British news, TV and film; it has a remote to produce things that benefit society, not just profit; and launches the careers of thousands of people who go on to make stuff all over the world, on both sides of the camera.

    Regardless of your feelings about the BBC or not, the consequences of losing it will hurt us all.

    What fills the void would almost certainly be a lot worse.

  31. Make BBC1 the only publically funded channel with News, current affairs programs, documentaries, QT, that sort of thing as a “public interest” channel.

    Fund it through a flat council tax portion of a significantly reduced amount vs the current license fee.

    Move everything else to a subscription based streaming model: BBC Entertainment; BBC Sport; BBC Film; etc

    Bonus points if they can knock together some common streaming bundle that comes with Netflix / limited Sky channels / etc via a single subscription.

  32. Honestly I’d sooner BBC just have ads. Than have to pay for the liscence.

  33. Nobody should pay that licence fee, it’s an abomination.

    If I had to watch anything the BBC has to offer I would expect recompense.

  34. They have a history of protecting pedophiles who work for them, waste a fortune on bottom of the barrel shows. Their news programs are heavily biased, seldom reflect public interest. The higher ups are completely disconnected from reality and the whole organisation is wasteful and archaic, it needs gutting and its services reduced.

  35. Honestly the license fee needs to be scrapped at this point and have the BBC run as a subscription service for iPlayer and with ads on TV, for the News and World Service, roll those into the DCMS budget and have them funded through taxation, with the public funding being exclusively for News and World Service production.

    Why does the government produce Great British Bake Off and Mrs Browns Boys? We would all think it was mental if the government announced they were going to start making phones, running shoes or handbags and that everyone would have to pay a license fee to fund it, so why do we all accept that it’s sensible for the government to make tv shows?

    We live in an insane country where the water, the number one necessity for life itself is privatised but cooking competition shows and “comedy” shows are made by the government as a national priority.

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