NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, has revealed it will lower its reception fee for its satellite viewers who watch satellite and terrestrial TV. NHK’s president Terunobu Maeda said that the company is preparing to lower the licence fee by roughly 10 per cent as early as October 2023. An NHK senior management meeting is due on […]

The BBC World Service has outlined plans to accelerate its digital offering and increase impact with audiences around the globe. The broadcaster says this supports its strategy, announced earlier this year, to “create a modern, digital-led and streamlined organisation that drives the most value from the licence fee and delivers more for audiences”. Changing audience […]

Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, has acknowledged that the Licence Fee is the ‘least bad’ option for funding the Corporation, an observation made by current BBC Chairman Richard Sharp before taking up his post and repeated by former Broadcast Minister John Whittingdale earlier in 2022. “If you believe in universal broadcasting, the pressure is on […]

The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the UK House of Commons is to question senior BBC figures on the licence fee, impartiality, and earnings. The Committee will quiz Tim Davie CBE, Director General, BBC, Richard Sharp, Chair, and Leigh Tavaziva, Chief Operating Officer, BBC on how the broadcaster plans to remain relevant and […]

French deputies have voted to end the licence fee financing PSB groups, a project that was examined as part of the corrective finance bill for 2022. The Assembly replaced its funding by a percentage of VAT for a total amount of €3.7 billion. This element of VAT will be determined annually as part of the […]

The BBC says its new Annual Plan reveals creative highlights for the year ahead, and explains how the broadcaster will continue reforming to deliver maximum value to all audiences. The plan is published at a time when record numbers globally are tuning into the BBC for impartial news coverage of the war in Ukraine. During […]

The Communications and Digital Committee of the House of Lords, the UK’s upper legislative chamber, has launched a new inquiry into the future funding of the BBC. The BBC gets roughly £3.6 billion of its current £5 billion annual income from the television licence fee. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said recently that it was time […]

James Purnell, a former Director of Radio at the BBC, as well as its Director of Strategy and Digital, has suggested that the Corporation be funded by a household fee, also proposing that the BBC buy fellow public service broadcaster Chanel 4, whose future ownership is being considered by the Government. Writing in the Sunday […]

According to Richard Broughton, Director at Ampere Analysis, the UK government’s plan to freeze the BBC licence fee for two years – and to look at the abolition of the fee in 2027 – is just the latest in a number of major structural and political challenges facing the UK television sector. In a blog […]

Rishi Sunak, UK finance secretary, has led a cabinet pushback against calls by culture secretary Nadine Dorries for an end to the BBC licence fee from 2027. Sunak told Dorries there had not been any cabinet discussion, a view shared by colleagues, according to the FT. On January 17th Dorries tweeted that funding would be […]