TV licence fee frozen for two years
Date published: 19 January 2022
The TV licence fee has been frozen for two years, remaining at £159 until 2024 and then rise in line with inflation for the following four years.
The TV licence fee has been frozen for two years, and will remain at £159 per year until 2024 and then rise in line with inflation for the following four years.
The plans for the new licence fee settlement cover a period of six years and will take effect from 1 April 2022 until 31 March 2028.
A TV licence currently costs £159, which the BBC uses to fund services like TV, radio, the BBC website, podcasts, iPlayer and apps.
The BBC wanted the charge to rise with inflation for the remainder of the charter. Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, director general of the BBC Tim Davie said the resulting funding gap "will affect our frontline output."
He said the resulting funding gap would be £285m in the final year and that "inevitably, if you don't have £285m, you will get less services and less programmes."
The settlement will mean the BBC is expected to receive around £3.7 billion in licence fee funding in 2022 and £23 billion over the duration of the settlement period. The BBC also receives more than £90 million per year from the government to support the BBC World Service.
Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said: “The BBC is a great national institution with a unique place in our cultural heritage. It broadcasts British values and identities all over the world and reaches hundreds of millions of people every day.
“But at a time when families are facing a sharp increase in their living costs we simply could not justify asking hard-working households to pay even more for their TV licence.
“This is a fair settlement for the BBC and for licence fee payers. The BBC must support people at a time when their finances are strained, make savings and efficiencies, and use the billions in public funding it receives to deliver for viewers, listeners and users.”
The BBC’s Royal Charter sets out that the current licence fee model should remain in place until the Charter concludes on 31 December 2027 and the Culture Secretary is required to set out funding for the corporation for the remainder of the period.
Using current economic estimates, it is expected that under this settlement the cost of the licence fee will increase by only around £3.50 in 2024 to £162.50. While inflation can change, it is anticipated the licence fee will cost less than £175 by the final year of the settlement.
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