BBC missing out on £1.1bn in licence fees – because people won’t answer their doors
BBC missing out on £1.1bn in licence fees – because people won’t answer their doors
Posted by scramblingrivet
BBC missing out on £1.1bn in licence fees – because people won’t answer their doors
BBC missing out on £1.1bn in licence fees – because people won’t answer their doors
Posted by scramblingrivet
37 Comments
I’ve had a million letters, never once had anyone at my door.
The adage goes “speak softly and carry a big stick”. BBC licensing is the most annoying entity in the country but has no power. Of course nobody will open the door for them.
“This one trick could save us billions! Click to find out how!”
Rookie numbers. It should be missing out on £4bn more
How much are they missing out on by exempting the elderly from paying the licence fee?
The BBC is a public service, and much like other public services it’s paid for by the young to subsidise the old.
Ooooor, maybe stop trying to charge people for watching non-bbc shows?
I’m sure many would be happy to pay for BBC as a streaming service, but I’m not paying them to watch other live shows and events 😂
License fee is weird. It’s even weirder in Jersey in the Channel Islands where I used to live.
You are suppose to pay the license fee there, but you don’t live in the UK or get to vote in UK elections. So why do they have jurisdiction? Even weirder is enforcement comes from the UK, I have never heard of anyone there having the BBC come to their door because they would have to take a boat or a plane over to do that.
Bizarre to include £600m+ of revenue from people who have declared they don’t need the license automatically into the headline.
I’m sure some are evading but plenty will just genuinely not require one.
Lmao. Careful, you’ll get a scary red letter from them.
If the BBC went behind a paywall how many would still pay and how many would stop instantly?
Probably save more on paper and ink costs if they didn’t send out (or contract out) the letters about imaginary investigations.
I wonder how much they would save if they believed people when they say they don’t need one? And then didn’t waste a tree, ink, energy, postal capacity, peoples time, and money chasing innocent people.
I’m certain smart doorbells have a role in this. You can ask someone why they’re visiting before opening the door, so no inspector can say “I saw/heard the TV on when they opened the door”.
I’m not surprised. This probably isn’t even specific to TV licensing, it seems some people don’t answer their door to anyone, unless they’ve made prior arrangements with their visitors.
I find the figure a bit suspect, in 2024/25, the total UK TV licence fee income was approximately £3.8 billion, I don’t believe they could increase that by over 25% if people answered their door.
People are just not watching live TV anymore, with internet services being what they’re no one needs to pay the BBC for content. And also, importantly, the BBC are a mouth piece for the state, they basically feed us bullshit routinely. Who would want to pay for it?!
I have a doorbell cam now because I was tired of unsolicited visits. If I see someone I don’t recognise or wasn’t expecting I don’t answer.
How much of that deficit is from the cost of sending billions of letters to people.
I don’t need a license so I don’t have one. I also refuse to tell them I don’t need their service because the Onus should be on me telling them that I DO need their service.
How muxh would they save if they didn’t send out letters or employ enforcement agents?
The ridiculously aggressive letters lead to a lot of people adopting a policy of hostility and distrust towards TV licencing out of principle. If you want people to be more amenable to the idea of talking to TV licencing inspectors maybe stop harassing them with empty threats through the post for years beforehand.
I think Rupert Lowe put in an FOI about the letters they send and it turns out they sent 72 million in 2024.
I’m trying to read the page that was linked to it, but it seems down and has been for a while.
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-administering-the-licence-fee-AB20
ETA:
Heres the response to the FOI
https://ibb.co/xt9VkG74
I’ve just cancelled mine after realising that the last thing I watched on iPlayer was the Queen’s funeral.
The I don’t need a licence page is quite funny, it requires a date, which is automatically populated to 2026, I updated it to 2076 instead. The confirmation email stated
We won’t be in touch now until your claim is about to expire.
I hope it’ll be 2076
Had tonnes of letters, only one visit from an “Officer” I caught trying to peep through the guest bedroom window who promptly shat himself when I yelled from the upstairs window that I’d taken a photo of him and was calling the police on him for voyerism. He tried to use the fact he could see the person in the room watching something on the TV as a justification, my reply was we don’t need a TV licence to watch fucking YouTube. Don’t think they’ve come back since
I like to open the door just to tell them no, they can’t come in, and no I won’t bother my arse to register an exemption either because if they’re going to send out scary letters to bully demented wee grannies then I’m quite happy to have them come out and waste their time and money chapping my door and being told to beat it
Just cancelled mine, not sure why I’ve paid for so many years and never even watched anything on live tv
I expect video doorbells have decimated their visits success rates too. Fuck them.
What they actually need to do is utilise the available infrastructure. If I don’t pay my license take BBC away from me. If I want it make me pay and give it back. Netflix doesn’t have to send people to my door they utilise the infrastructure to put controls in place.
Yes TV is slightly different to an application but there are mechanisms.
From the article “Evasion is now running at 12.5 per cent (£550m) with 3.6m households declaring they did not need a licence (£617 million).”
How do they know evasion is running at 12.5%? Like many families we know the kids are busy during the week after school or doing homework and when they do watch something it’s on demand.
We subscribe to Netflix, Disney etc but don’t watch live tv, is our household included in this figure?
There’s a presumption of guilt in the letters that we receive regularly. I don’t see the need to prove we don’t watch live tv as a household and legally I’m not required to do so.
maybe if they didn’t spend £1.1bn on pointless letters they would save a bit of money to save their dying television channels?
Cry me a river.
I came home from work once and a massive bouncer looking dude was stood on my front garden trying to peer into my front window.
I startled him. Told him, fairly politely, to do one. He tried to argue with me, I got pissed off, marched him to the front door, opened it and introduced him to a back to brick renovation mid rewire. That stopped the letters for a bit.
Years later, after a stream of threatening letters, I called their hotline telling them in no uncertain terms that I don’t and will never require their services, and to remove me from their listing. The call han dler apologised, and told me they’d check in with me in a year. FFS…
Had a final warning, active investigation opened letter arrive this morning as it happens.
What an absolute waste of time and resources.
It’s really that simple. I ignore the letters and i’d close the door on the workers. Unless they have police with a warrant, I wouldn’t give them the time of day.
I’ve been receiving letters for 2 years in my house and I’ve never had someone chap at my door to “bEgiN tHeIr InVeStIgAtIoN”.
Let’s face it also, the moment they click you aren’t a vulnerable person/pensioner/stressed frightened woman, they don’t pursue you.
I wouldn’t be expected to be hounded for a driving licence etc so why do they see fit to interrogate me about whether or not I watch live telly or their terrible platform
Maybe they should stop wasting money hounding people via letters and coming to their doors, and just put ads on the BBC for those who don’t want to pay. Or making it a general tax.
It’s insane how simple a thing this is to fix…
I like the BBC, but it lost its credibility a long, long time ago with the constant scandals and obvious bias. Which is one of the reasons I stopped paying and watching their stuff.
I hope trump sues them into the ground at this point
This article assumes that everyone who doesn’t answer their door is illegally watching TV. Most people who don’t have one simply watch streaming services instead
The problem is the threatening letters they send cause worry to some disabled folk or those with mental health issues. Needs to be stopped its barbaric.
But they don’t need people to open their doors, they have these wonderful high tech vans that can see what you are watching and just issue fines straight from the court, oh wait a minute if they knew I was watching something illegally would they not fine me straight away and not come out for a little chat about needing a license
I call bullshit on this reporting.
“Licence fee evasion and households not purchasing a licence together represented over £1.1bn in potential lost income in 2024–25, the PAC report into the BBC’s accounts found.”
And households not purchasting a licence…
Having an ‘unlicensed’ home is costing them money, rolling people realising they don’t need one into the numbers for people who should have one but don’t is disingenuous.
People aren’t buying a licence, because they are more aware of their /lack of a need to buy one/, disagree with aspects of the service or find the bbc’s output is shit compared to what’s on offer on other services which those people are likely also paying for.
This has been on the cards for years and the bbc knows this, hence the changes in the licencing opt-out and increasing the number of situations where you still need one (including live programming from any source, such as live sport on amazon or netflix).
The evasion rate itself is an estimate.
The number of ‘licensable places’ (ie the total number of homes the bbc assumes it should have a paid licence in place for) is an estimate.
Not needing and therefore choosing not to buy a license is costing the bbc money and will continue to do so, evasion has always been cost into their operating expenditure.
This isn’t about evasion.
>Evasion is now running at 12.5 per cent (£550m) with 3.6m households declaring they did not need a licence (£617 million).
Reading between the lines, they seem to be assuming that anyone who doesn’t have a licence, but hasn’t contacted them to say that they don’t need a licence, must be evading the licence.
I can only speak for myself, I don’t need a licence so I don’t purchase a licence, and that is that. I’m not going to waste my time writing to them to tell them I don’t need a licence, not least because they currently don’t know my name and I am quite happy to keep it that way. Last thing I need is personally addressed threatening letters.
It is the equivalent of Tesco assuming I am a shoplifter because I don’t spend any money there and I haven’t written to them to inform them that I shop at Aldi. And then turning up at my house wanting to search my fridge.
At this rate they should call it precisely what as there’s scope creep.
A live TV tax
I don’t agree with the scope creep that’s happened over time.
Pay for subs should be the only way forward and then they wouldn’t need Crapita and antiquated enforcement methods but then gov would loose a propaganda tool.
It’s the usual paradox; if it was significantly cheaper more people would pay and less would opt out.
If they made effort to make content for other demographics and interests then people would engage.
Again why should i pay for something I don’t use argument which i get but the same could be said of a lot of things society benefits from. I do pay because someone in family occasionally watches iplayer. If this wasn’t the case i would opt out in a heartbeat.
Can’t recall the last time i watched live tv for anything other than the odd football match which is rare.
The content on the bbc or any other terrestrial channels isn’t really made for my demographic or interests, it’s for infants, old people and people who like the odd soap.
Viewing habits and content has changed significantly over the last decade.
Terrestrial tv pretty much only caters to pensioners and reality tv junkies.