The BBC licence fee is on track to skyrocket towards £200, while the number of paying households is expected to drop by nearly 5%. The Office for Budget Responsibility's official forecasts suggest that the annual charge, currently at £174.50, could rise to just shy of £197 by the end of the decade if it continues to follow inflation.

Meanwhile, the number of fee-payers is predicted to decrease by over a million, dropping to around 21 million, as viewers switch to streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+. This has been exacerbated by increasing evasion and cancellations. Last year, the BBC lost over £1 billion due to households abandoning the levy or refusing to pay.

In 2024 alone, an additional 300,000 stopped paying. A report by the Public Accounts Committee found that 3.

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