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The BBC is staring down the barrel of another real terms funding cut after the UK government signaled its intention to renege on the 2022 license fee deal.
Culture secretary Lucy Frazer told BBC Radio 4’s Today show that the government would announce the new level of the license fee “very soon.”
Under a deal struck with the BBC in 2022, the broadcaster’s funding was frozen for two years, but ministers agreed it could rise with inflation from April 2024.
This would guarantee the BBC a funding increase of around 9%, pushing the annual household fee up £15 to £173.30 ($219.53) — the biggest single increase for nearly 40 years.
Asked if the government will halt the 9% increase, Frazer told Today: “I think that is a lot of money and that is one of the things that we are considering.”
The culture secretary said she disagreed with the suggestion that the government was ripping up the deal agreed with BBC executives in January 2022.
“I wouldn’t put it like that at all,” she said. “As the government we have taken a number of steps to protect people from the rise of the cost of living over the course of the last few years … we froze the license fee for two years, and it is now due to rise with inflation. And what we’re looking at is the appropriate rate of inflation.”
The two-year license freeze left a £1.4 billion shortfall in the corporation’s finances. Any deal below the level of inflation will result in a further hole in the BBC’s budget.
As it seeks to plug the gap, the broadcaster has been forced into making content cuts, including announcing plans last week to scale back flagship current affairs show Newsnight.
More follows.
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