Blow for millions of families as BBC licence fee is set to be hiked to more than £180 a YEAR
The BBC license fee will rise to more than £180 next year in a fresh blow to millions of households struggling with rising costs.
TV viewers currently pay £174.50 a year and that figure is expected to rise by almost £7 in the spring.
Next year’s license fee is expected to be determined based on this September’s annual inflation reading of 3.8 percent. As a result, the current fee will rise to over £181.
The increase, which is likely to be approved later this month, would see the £175 level breached two years earlier than expected.
It will be linked to inflation until at least 2027, after the BBC and the Conservative Party reach an agreement in 2022.
When the agreement was reached the license fee was £159 and the cost was estimated to be less than £175 in the final year.
However, high inflation caused the fee charged to TV viewers to increase. In November last year the Government announced that this figure would increase from £169.50 to £174.50 in April.
The company earned almost £4bn in tax revenue last year. But as viewers continue to turn to streaming services such as Netflix and Prime Video, the future of the license fee has been put under the spotlight due to a sharp decline in the number of people watching traditional TV channels.
The BBC license fee will rise to more than £180 next year in a fresh blow to millions of households struggling with rising costs (stock)
The number of licenses purchased fell from 24.1 million to 23.8 million last year, affecting the BBC’s income in real terms.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has insisted she will stick to the current deal but wants to change the way the BBC is funded in the future. He called for a ‘mixed funding model’ that would combine the license fee with other revenue streams.
It comes as the broadcaster faces criticism for spending more than £200,000 of taxpayers’ money on transport, hotel bookings that were never used, as well as private healthcare.
A BBC spokesman said: ‘As a 24-hour global media organisation, a significant amount of travel is inevitable and due to the nature of our business, plans can often change at short notice.
‘We are always mindful of costs, we have strict policies to help keep costs to a minimum and we will cover costs wherever possible.’
