Mass revolt as 2.8 million claim they don’t need to pay BBC licence fee

The BBC is facing a revolt from millions of television viewers who are no longer willing to pay the tV licence fee.

A record 2.84 million people now insist they are no longer obliged to fork out £159 for the annual charge because they don’t watch BBC channels or any kind of live TV.

This figure is an increase of more than 360,000 on the previous twelve months

This abandonment of the BBC will exacerbate the debate about the future of both the broadcaster and the licence fee.

Toby Young of the Free Speech Union said: ‘These figures show that the TV licence fee is not a viable funding model for the BBC going forward.’

He added: ‘The obvious alternative is to become a subscription-based service like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Given the BBC’s global brand recognition and its reputation for producing premium content, it could become the largest and most profitable streaming service in the world.’

The increase in the number of people claiming they are not liable to pay the charge is one of the factors driving a fall in the number of licences sold.