BBC Licence Fee To Increase In April

BBC Licence Fee To Increase In April from £157.50 to £159

It has been announced that the annual BBC television licence fee, from April 1, will increase from £157.50 to £159.

The licence fee, which pays for the tens of thousands of hours of local and national BBC broadcasting as well as online services, has become a particular point of contention in recent years, with the advent of more and more paid online subscription services appearing.

The Government is responsible for setting the level of the licence fee and announced in 2016 that from April 1, 2017, it would rise in line with inflation for five years.

The latest increase comes after the BBC had last year scrapped the free licences for most of the over 75s, with a recent investigation by the Sunday Mirror revealing that there are around 750,000 OAP’s believed to be resisting reminders to pay the current annual fee of £157.50, meaning the corporation could be losing out on around £118million every year.

Anybody refusing to pay when sent the reminder could be taken to court, and fined up to £1,000, then jailed if they refuse to pay the penalty.

Many members of the public were quick to respond to the announcement of the increase, with one saying, “£8 per month for Netflix but £13 a month for the BBC”, another said, “It’s very rare for me to watch anything on the BBC. It’s not worth me paying £159”.

Others said the increase amounted to only £1.49 each year, so couldn’t see what all the bother was about.

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