Households are being bombarded with millions of enforcement letters sent by the BBC as its TV licence revenues fall.Over 36 million licence enforcement letters were sent to addresses that do not have a licence in the last financial year, The Telegraph can reveal.It comes as the broadcaster faces soaring numbers of people evading the £159 annual payment, while the corporation attempts to compete with online streaming services.Enforcement letters from TV Licensing are known to warn recipients that they could be falling foul of the law by not paying and warn them an officer may visit their address.TV Licensing, which operates the income-generating licence fee for the BBC, has been steadily increasing the number of letters it sends out enforcing the legal requirement for viewers to pay to watch live television programmes and catch-up on iPlayer.
In the financial year from 2022 to 2023 the BBC sent 36,166,582 letters to households, up just over 1pc on the 35,695,538 sent between 2021 and 2022 and approximately 6pc on the 34 million reportedly sent between 2020 and 2021.
The broadcaster, which faced criticism for announcing it will withdraw free licences for the over 75s in 2020, has reported falling revenues from TV licences as viewers turn to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, a report from TV Licensing warned last year.
The same report revealed that almost two million households informed the BBC that they did not watch live television and therefore did not require a licence, equating to £42m in lost revenue.
The number of people failing to pay for the licence while potentially still watching live television and using iPlayer also hit record levels this year.
The latest figures show that licence fee evasion hit 10.31pc between 2022 and 2023, the highest levels since 1995, costing the corporation £430m, according to annual statements.
A spokesman for TV Licensing said: “The overwhelming majority of households are correctly licensed. TV Licensing has a responsibility to communicate with unlicensed households to support the collection of the licence fee. The letters generate more funds than they cost to send, so more money can be spent on programmes and services.”
We are going through probate at the minute and we’ve told them that the owner of the house has passed away.
We still get letters “dear occupier”
The BBC have decided to continue the best argument against the licence fee, starting next week.
A new series of Mrs Browns Boys.
Haven’t paid it for 5 years now. Haven’t watched live TV for 5 years too. No regrets.
This just in, right wing newspaper dislikes left leaning state media.
Unfortunately for the BBC, they do themselves no favours with a regressive tax they aggressively enforce in a way no other organisation does. The license fee should be dropped, but this isn’t the issue here, it’s that the Torygraph doesn’t like the Beeb.
I think I’ve received about a third of those letters.
I love how they consider people without licenses as “lost revenue” rathr than ever considering that some folks might, in fact, not watch broadcast television or iPlayer
They’re wasting their time – I haven’t owned or watched television for over ten years now.
There’s nothing that will make me come back.
They do spam them quite alot, pretty much every time I’ve moved or looked at empty houses there’s these letters & god forbid you don’t respond, it only gets worse.
Seems like an awful waste of paper to me.
They need to give a monthly option like all other streaming services. Then people might be inclined to subscribe for a month or two on the odd occasion they release something worth watching
BBC use to make really good shows. League of Gentlemen, Monkey Dust, Keeping up Appearances, Only fools and horses, I could list for ages.
Now other than Inside No 9 or Cunk they pump out woke shite , push narratives on the news then have the audacity to crown themselves fact checkers when they push misinformation.
Their time is up, the licence fee needs to end.
Except it’s not the BBC who sends them is it, they outsource licence fee collection.
They even changed it so if you watch iplayer you need a licence now, they know paying for live TV is done.
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original text:
Households are being bombarded with millions of enforcement letters sent by the BBC as its TV licence revenues fall.Over 36 million licence enforcement letters were sent to addresses that do not have a licence in the last financial year, The Telegraph can reveal.It comes as the broadcaster faces soaring numbers of people evading the £159 annual payment, while the corporation attempts to compete with online streaming services.Enforcement letters from TV Licensing are known to warn recipients that they could be falling foul of the law by not paying and warn them an officer may visit their address.TV Licensing, which operates the income-generating licence fee for the BBC, has been steadily increasing the number of letters it sends out enforcing the legal requirement for viewers to pay to watch live television programmes and catch-up on iPlayer.
In the financial year from 2022 to 2023 the BBC sent 36,166,582 letters to households, up just over 1pc on the 35,695,538 sent between 2021 and 2022 and approximately 6pc on the 34 million reportedly sent between 2020 and 2021.
The broadcaster, which faced criticism for announcing it will withdraw free licences for the over 75s in 2020, has reported falling revenues from TV licences as viewers turn to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, a report from TV Licensing warned last year.
The same report revealed that almost two million households informed the BBC that they did not watch live television and therefore did not require a licence, equating to £42m in lost revenue.
The number of people failing to pay for the licence while potentially still watching live television and using iPlayer also hit record levels this year.
The latest figures show that licence fee evasion hit 10.31pc between 2022 and 2023, the highest levels since 1995, costing the corporation £430m, according to annual statements.
A spokesman for TV Licensing said: “The overwhelming majority of households are correctly licensed. TV Licensing has a responsibility to communicate with unlicensed households to support the collection of the licence fee. The letters generate more funds than they cost to send, so more money can be spent on programmes and services.”
We are going through probate at the minute and we’ve told them that the owner of the house has passed away.
We still get letters “dear occupier”
The BBC have decided to continue the best argument against the licence fee, starting next week.
A new series of Mrs Browns Boys.
Haven’t paid it for 5 years now. Haven’t watched live TV for 5 years too. No regrets.
This just in, right wing newspaper dislikes left leaning state media.
Unfortunately for the BBC, they do themselves no favours with a regressive tax they aggressively enforce in a way no other organisation does. The license fee should be dropped, but this isn’t the issue here, it’s that the Torygraph doesn’t like the Beeb.
I think I’ve received about a third of those letters.
I love how they consider people without licenses as “lost revenue” rathr than ever considering that some folks might, in fact, not watch broadcast television or iPlayer
They’re wasting their time – I haven’t owned or watched television for over ten years now.
There’s nothing that will make me come back.
They do spam them quite alot, pretty much every time I’ve moved or looked at empty houses there’s these letters & god forbid you don’t respond, it only gets worse.
Seems like an awful waste of paper to me.
They need to give a monthly option like all other streaming services. Then people might be inclined to subscribe for a month or two on the odd occasion they release something worth watching
BBC use to make really good shows. League of Gentlemen, Monkey Dust, Keeping up Appearances, Only fools and horses, I could list for ages.
Now other than Inside No 9 or Cunk they pump out woke shite , push narratives on the news then have the audacity to crown themselves fact checkers when they push misinformation.
Their time is up, the licence fee needs to end.
Except it’s not the BBC who sends them is it, they outsource licence fee collection.
They even changed it so if you watch iplayer you need a licence now, they know paying for live TV is done.