Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The BBC plans to cut 500 jobs as the UK national broadcaster seeks more cost savings after a savage real-term decline in its funding from the licence fee over the past decade.
Samir Shah, who became chair of the corporation this year, on Tuesday warned the funding squeeze meant its “content budgets are now impacted, which in turn will have a significant impact on the wider creative sector across the UK”.
The publicly funded broadcaster has registered a real-term fall in income of close to a third since 2010 — a difference of more than £1bn a year.
Under the previous Conservative government, the licence fee was frozen in 2022 and then set from this year at the lowest possible rate of inflation. The BBC has already been forced to cut jobs and curtail programmes, such as flagship current affairs programme Newsnight.
The television market has also become increasingly challenging for the corporation, with the rise in popularity of US streamers and younger people shunning broadcast TV for digital platforms.
In 2023, about 500,000 households cancelled their licence fee, which is payable by all households that watch live TV, according to the BBC’s annual report, which was published on Tuesday.
About 23.9mn licence fees were in force at the end of the year, it said.
The broadcaster, which employs 21,795 people, promised to “accelerate the pace of change to increase relevance and value”. The pledge will mean less focus on traditional broadcasting and more investment in digital services.
Director-general Tim Davie, who in March called for reform of the licence fee as part of a push to turn the BBC into a more commercial operation, said: “What’s under way is a total reshaping . . . for the future and a massive transfer of resources from linear to digital.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s government will lead negotiations over the licence fee, which is due for renewal in 2027. BBC executives see a Labour administration as a boost for its future funding prospects; many Conservative politicians were opposed to the compulsory payment.
Davie welcomed Labour’s commitment to public service broadcasting after the prime minister said on a trip to Washington, DC this month that his party was committed “to the BBC and to the licensing scheme”.
He also promised that the next season of Strictly Come Dancing, the corporation’s flagship weekend primetime show, would go ahead after the BBC put in place measures to protect celebrity contestants.
Davie said he was “disappointed” by allegations of abusive behaviour on the show but said he was confident the BBC could deliver it “successfully” later this year.
The BBC has launched a review into the allegations and its response, which Davie said would be “resolved soon”.
Complaints made by former contestants on Strictly Come Dancing mark the latest crisis in another bruising year for the BBC, which has faced questions over presenters’ behaviour and criticism over its impartiality as a public sector broadcaster.
In its accounts for 2023-24, the corporation confirmed Huw Edwards remained its best-paid news reader, although he was on medical leave for much of the year.
The veteran broadcaster, who quit in April after he was alleged to have paid for sexually explicit images, earned more than £475,000, up from £435,000 in 2022-23.
Gary Lineker, the presenter of Match of the Day who has been at the centre of disputes over impartiality, was the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, taking home more than £1.3mn.
Football pundits Alan Shearer and Alex Scott were paid more than £380,000 and £220,000 respectively, while Radio 2 host Zoe Ball earned close to £1mn.
Davie was the top-paid executive, earning £525,000 compared with the BBC’s median pay of £52,000.
