BBC boss defends enormous licence payment improve as Brits compelled to pay £180 further
Departing Director General Tim Davie has defended the BBC licence fee increase to £180 — now more expensive than Netflix — as he warns the broadcaster and other institutions are in ‘crisis’
The licence fee is going up(Image: georgeclerk via Getty Images)
The BBC faces a “crisis,” outgoing Director General Tim Davie has declared. The corporation has faced criticism over its planned licence fee hike, which will climb to £180 from April 1.
The rise, mandated by the 2022 Licence Fee Settlement, will increase by £5.50 annually. This means a standard colour television licence will now cost households £15 monthly – exceeding subscriptions to numerous streaming services.
Speaking on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, Davie acknowledged that the BBC – alongside other institutions – is undoubtedly in “crisis”. He explained: “Trust is built and I’m semi-obsessed by this – trust is built by people absolutely believing that someone is acting in their interest and that they listen to them. And if you think about an old-school broadcaster, it broadcasts.
“I think there have been too many instances where institutions and the BBC is definitely not exempt from this – where, call it what you will, metropolitan, a certain lens on life.”
According to Davie, provided the BBC delivers value, concerns about licence fee increases should be unfounded, reports the Mirror.
“We’re at a consultation phase, but we have set out a very clear preference which is and I would do this to the point about restarting where we’re at – I think there is a model which says: look, if we can deliver value for every household and really work at that, then everyone contributes fairly, and I think that is a model that’s worth fighting for,” he stated.
“I don’t see it as something potentially trapped in the past. I actually think it could be something exciting for the future – quite enlightened. You don’t have to go exactly where the market is going currently. You have to make markets, and I think we can do that.”
The BBC has faced severe accusations that one of their Panorama documentaries deceived audiences by manipulating a speech from Donald Trump. The corporation’s director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness both stepped down in November.
It was claimed in a leaked internal BBC document that staff working on the Panorama programme spliced two sections of the address together so that Trump seemed to directly incite the Capitol Hill uprising in 2021. Trump has subsequently filed a multi-billion dollar legal action against the BBC, which is set for trial in February 2027.
He avoided explicitly mentioning any particular blunders the BBC had committed during his leadership but stated the world was experiencing an era of “weaponisation”, where the broadcaster faced intense examination over one matter – whilst ignoring all the excellent work they’ve accomplished.
“We’ve made mistakes, sometimes serious mistakes, which we regret. But weaponisation is selectively taking one fact – it may be a fact, so you’re standing on a fact – but what you’re not standing on is any effort to be proportionate,” he says. “You’re not saying, look, a thousand stories run, we’re running, and one didn’t get it right, or overall this is where there’s no balance of data. It’s literally just selecting a fact to make a case.”
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