BBC’s £159-a-year licence fee will NOT increase in line with inflation over next five years as corporation bosses lose cash battle with ministers
- Talks between the Government and the BBC are set to conclude in coming weeks
- The BBC reportedly claimed that this could lead to cuts to ‘quality’ programming
- The £159 annual TV licence fee currently earns the corporation £3.2billion a year
The BBC licence fee will increase by less than inflation over the next five years as ministers are concerned over the rising costs of households bills.
Talks between the government and the BBC over the £159-a-year TV licence are set to conclude in the coming weeks.
And ministers are said to have rejected calls from the corporation for the cost to increase in line with inflation like previous years, according to The Times.
A government source said: ‘The BBC is a hugely important national institution. But equally these are hard times.
‘Nobody wants to punish the BBC but it’s got to be subject to the same efficiency savings as everyone else.’
While another source said the BBC had warned that not raising the licence fee in line with inflation could lead to significant cuts to ‘quality’ programming.
The BBC licence fee will increase by less than inflation over the next five years, reports suggest
The fee currently earns the corporation £3.2billion a year.
But there are calls from Tory MPs to reduce it as they point to the success of paid-for streaming services such as Netflix.
‘It doesn’t play well in the red wall,’ one Tory MP said. ‘I don’t think they should be getting any extra when they pay Gary Lineker God knows how much.’
Ministers have so far resisted suggestions that the licence fee should be frozen or cut.
Former Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke the BBC’s quality dramas, such as record-breaking Line of Duty (pictured), is expensive and so needs to be ‘properly funded’
They are likely to take a ‘mixed’ approach with below-inflation rises over a few years before it increases in line with inflation near the end of the five-year period, according to a source.
Greg Dyke, former director-general of the BBC, said: ‘It’s hard to see why it shouldn’t increase with inflation given the competition it now faces.
‘The BBC has had a good run in terms of quality drama, for example, but that costs a lot of money. A lot of the money goes on news. It needs to be properly funded.’
While Lord Grade of Yarmouth, a former chairman of the BBC, said: ‘These are hard times. The BBC is not immune from what’s going on in the rest of the country.’
The government is said to be concerned about rises in the cost of living.