BBC licence fee to rise to £174.50 from April in line with inflation
The BBC licence fee will increase in line with inflation each year until 2027, rising in April to £174.50, the Government has announced.
It will be an increase of £5, or an extra 42p a month, after the last £10.50 rise brought the charge to £169.50 in April.
The annual fee faced years of scrutiny under the Conservative government, with it being frozen for two years at £159 before it was increased at a lower rate than the corporation expected.
Statement
Review
The Government will use a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which will include a public consultation, to consider funding options to support the broadcaster’s long-term future.
To help households struggling with financial pressures, the Government set up the Simple Payment Plan (SPP), which it will be expanding.
It says the expansion will allow an estimated additional 9,000 unlicensed households experiencing financial difficulty per month to split up the annual payment into more manageable fortnightly and monthly instalments.
The BBC has been under increasing financial pressure and last month revealed a raft of planned changes, including the axing of in-depth interview show Hardtalk, as it looks at reducing more than 100 news roles.
A BBC spokesperson said: “We welcome confirmation that the licence fee will increase in line with inflation next year.
“We want everyone to get value from the licence fee and we are committed to delivering trusted news, the best homegrown storytelling and those special moments that bring us together.
“We also look forward to the debate about the future and working with the Government to ensure sustainable, long-term public funding.
“As part of these discussions we will run our biggest ever public engagement exercise in 2025 so that audiences are at the heart of shaping our future.”
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Last government (from Cameron on) tried to wreck the BBC with many bad decisions (dorries in charge of decisions for hecks sake). I hope it continues to survive. Review of the charter is most certainly required especially when non BBC orgs get a say in what it can and cannot do.
They also need to remove many of the tory plants at the top to reform the political dept and direction they go from now on.
I object to this it is already too high.
So we are going to have to pay even more for the privilege of having British state propaganda pumped into our homes 24/7.
More like English state propaganda, considering how biased sports reports are.
Now is the time to send in the letters saying you no longer watch live TV and no longer need to pay a license fee that will shake their tree for sure…
Be good if the quality of output increased at the same rate!
They gave up on that a long time ago. Now in a race to the bottom with all the “commercial” channels and on-demand peddlers of mostly rubbish.
Strickly speaking, we have to pay Dwr Cymru to take the sewage away from our homes but we also then have to pay for the BBC to pump it back in again.
Happy to say that none of my money has ever gone to the Jimmy Saville and Huw Edwards club.