Report Overview

BBC licence fee settlement : Further cuts will wound the sector

On 10 November, Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State (SoS) for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) wrote to the BBC to confirm the scope and the timing of the next licence fee settlement, which will cover the period from 2022 to 2027. Previous settlements, conducted without public pressure or scrutiny, have left the BBC with more obligations and less to spend on them, at a time when licence fee income is already around 30% lower than it would have been had it kept pace with inflation and not been given additional spending obligations.

Contents

The BBC’s revenue streams: less flowing to PSB

The BBC’s cost base: no fat left to trim

Looking forward

List of charts/tables

Figure 1: BBC PSB income (£m)

Figure 2: BBC licence fee income with/without interventions (£m)

Figure 3: PSB expenditure, 2015 vs 2020 (£m)

Figure 4: Pension deficit payments schedule, 2021-2029 (£m)

Figure 5: Annual running cost of the BBC’s largest leasehold sites, 2013/14 (£m)