Woe to the BBC as another 270,000 viewers waived their television license fees last year
- The number of customers who say they don’t have to pay rose from 1.69 million to 1.96 million last year
- As the annual report revealed, the number of licenses “in force” dropped by 300,000
- BBC has seen viewers being seduced by Netflix and Disney+
The number of households who say they no longer need a TV license has increased by 270,000 over the past year, the figures show BBC faces competition from US streaming giants.
Domestic customers, who said they would not have to pay the fee required to watch or record live TV, rose from 1.69 million to 1.96 million last year.
It comes after the BBC’s annual report revealed this week that the number of licenses “in force” fell by 300,000 from 25.2 million to 24.9 million.
The BBC has seen large numbers of viewers seduced by people like NetflixAmazon Prime Video and Disney+, which do not require a TV license.
Figures released this week also showed that the television license circumvention rate rose to 8.9 percent from 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent.
A BBC spokesman said: “The overwhelming majority of households are licensed, sales have increased this year and 90 per cent of people use the BBC every week.”
The number of households that say they no longer need a TV license has increased by 270,000 in the past year
The Television License Fee Trust statement released this week said: “The number of domestic customers who declared they did not need a license reached 1.96 million in 2021-22.
“Despite higher sales, the number of domestic customers who declared that they no longer needed a license increased by 270,000 by the end of 2021-22 from 1.69 million in 2020-21.”
The number of households that require a license fell to 92.2 percent last year. This compared to a figure of 93.8 percent two years ago in 2019-20.
