The Household Licence

A key piece of the puzzle is how people pay. When the public is asked in the abstract which funding model they prefer, no single option has significant support. Advertising, government grants, subscriptions, a reformed licence fee and a mixed model all have backers but also substantial opposition. What cuts through in the focus groups is a desire for fairness, choice and modernity. Focus group participants asked why they should pay a flat fee to fund services they never touch. “It’s going to have to change,” one man (Labour-Reform Switcher, Coleshill South) said.

“I’m not having these channels just to be told that I need to pay for a license … when I’m already paying for my Sky.”

 - Man, Labour-Reform Switcher, Bolton South and Walkden

Our proposed Household Licence is designed to answer those concerns. Instead of relying on an outdated, television‑set based levy, it treats the BBC as what it has become: a universal digital service accessed on phones, tablets, laptops and smart TVs. The Household Licence keeps the fee at the same annual rate but collects it through a mandatory household portal account, with every UK household that uses any BBC digital service - from BBC News and BBC Weather to BBC Sounds and BBC Bitesize - registering a free verified Household Account. Those who also watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer upgrade to a Paid Household Licence at the current rate, with all existing concessions such as for older viewers or low‑income households preserved and administered through the same simple interface.

This reform goes to the heart of the “value for money” question. Today, evasion has reached a record 12.5%, costing £550 million a year, while 3.6 million households have declared that they do not need a TV licence.[4] At the same time, the BBC acknowledges that 94% of people use its services each month, yet fewer than 80% of households contribute to its funding.[5] That asymmetry corrodes trust: people feel they are paying for something others get for free, while those who do not pay can insist - largely unverifiably - that they never use the BBC. Under the Household Licence, access to BBC content at any level requires a valid account, transforming the licence from a passive, honour‑system obligation into an active, digitally gated access right. A free account user trying to access a paid service such as iPlayer would be prompted to upgrade, making the boundary between “free” and “paid” transparent.

The household portal itself makes the social contract more concrete. More people who benefit from the BBC would contribute to its upkeep, easing the burden on those who currently pay and strengthening the legitimacy of the settlement. Crucially, the Household Licence is not just a compliance tool; it is also a way to show people what they are getting. The Annual Letter to the Nation and the Public Service Broadcasting Impact Report would be distributed not only through the post but also directly to each household’s digital account. When a family logs in to manage their payments or register a new device, they would also see a clear, personalised breakdown of where their money goes - how their contribution supports local news in their region, pays for trusted children’s content, sustains the World Service or funds training for young creatives. In an age where people can see at a glance how much they spend on Netflix, Spotify or Sky, the BBC must meet the same standard of clarity.

The Letter to the Nation

Finally, if people are to feel they are getting a fair return, the BBC must demystify its finances and treat licence-fee payers as stakeholders in a shared civic asset rather than passive consumers of a product. An Annual Letter to the Nation would do this in everyday language, placing viewers as co-owners of an institution. Instead of expecting viewers to wade through dense corporate accounts, the BBC would send every household a clear breakdown of how each pound is spent: how much goes on local radio and regional reporting; how much funds children’s content; how much sustains the World Service; how much supports independent producers across the UK.

The Letter would be backed by a more technical Public Service Broadcasting Impact Report, laid before Parliament each year. That report would quantify the wider benefits: the 21,500 staff the BBC employs, the nearly £5 billion it injects into the creative economy annually, and the estimated £15-17 billion in economic value it underpins through commissions, supply chains and training.[6] It would show how BBC spending supports jobs in Salford, Cardiff, Glasgow and beyond, and how the World Service and BBC Media Action project the UK’s values overseas. The aim is to move the conversation from “What does it cost?” to “What does it generate?”

How the Household Licence Would Work

The Household Licence replaces the existing television licence fee as a modernised, digitally administered flat-fee obligation at the same annual rate, collected through a mandatory household portal account. The free Household Account is for those who use any BBC digital service, and a Paid Household Licence for those who watch live TV or use iPlayer.

This is not a departure from the BBC's current direction of travel - it is an acceleration and formalisation of it. Since 2017, iPlayer has required users to sign in with a BBC Account. Smart TVs and streaming devices already support account pairing.[7] The BBC is now actively developing ways to link its approximately 40 million online accounts to home addresses, with the explicit aim of identifying households that access BBC services without holding a valid licence.[8] The Household Licence consolidates these steps into a single, coherent framework.

The case for reform is clear. Evasion has reached a record 12.5% in 2024/25, costing over £550 million a year, while 3.6 million households have declared they do not need a licence. Combined losses exceed £1 billion annually.[9] Yet the BBC itself acknowledges that 94% of people use its services each month - fewer than 80% of households contribute to its funding.[10]

The Two Types of Account

Free Household Account: Every UK household that accesses any BBC digital service - including BBC News, BBC Sounds, BBC Weather and BBC Bitesize - must register a free verified Household Account. This is free, and always will be.

Paid Household Licence: Households that watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer upgrade to a Paid Household Licence at the current annual rate. All existing statutory concessions - including for older and low-income households - are preserved and administered through the same portal.

The Household Portal

Both tiers are managed through a single Household Portal: a one-stop shop replacing the fragmented landscape of the existing TV Licensing website, the BBC Account sign-in system and standalone concession application processes. Accounts are created here, payments managed, concessions applied and device access controlled.[11]

Devices are registered to the household account and verified through a combination of IP address matching, Wi-Fi network association and periodic re-verification. Devices used away from the household for an extended period will be prompted to reverify or lose access to BBC services.[12]

To ensure no households, especially elderly or vulnerable users, are excluded by the shift to digital, phone and postal channels for account creation, payment and concession applications will remain available in full, with agents able to create and manage accounts on behalf of those who need assistance.

Modern televisions, TV boxes and streaming devices already support internet connectivity and run the BBC iPlayer app, and would require sign-in to access. The Government should consider requiring, through Ofcom or primary legislation, that manufacturers and platform operators make BBC app sign-in mandatory on all new connected TVs and set-top boxes sold in the UK. For those using traditional broadcast equipment, current enforcement techniques would continue to apply but could be far more targeted due to the BBC’s enhanced data collection.

Revenue Generation

Access-gating BBC services through the Household Licence is projected to generate up to £202 million in additional annual revenue, based on our conservative modelling anchored to Netflix's 2023 crackdown on password sharing. With evasion at a record 12.5% and the BBC's statutory footing meaning non-payers cannot simply switch to an alternative, the true figure is likely higher. Full modelling is set out in the Appendix.

Yet, visibility is not just about platforms; it is also about place. When participants were asked whether they felt represented on screen, their answers were divided by where they lived. Those in cities like Liverpool and Bradford, where filming is visible, spoke of the pride that comes from seeing their streets in popular dramas - even when the stories are dark. One woman (Labour-Reform Switcher, Wirral South) spoke highly of the gritty drama ‘This City is Ours’ set in Liverpool. “It kind of opened my eyes… I want the truth of it.” Others worried about how “hard working class … stories of poverty” (Man, Labour-Reform Switcher, Stratford Welcombe) look to overseas audiences and preferred the aspirational worlds of Downton Abbey or Pride and Prejudice. But beyond these big centres, there was a recurring sense of being left out. “We’re just not really represented anywhere,” one woman in Hilsea (Labour-Left Switcher) said. “There’s just so many other cities… they’re much more represented, much more livelier cities … I don’t feel our city is represented at all.”

The BBC On Your High Street vision is an answer to that absence. It starts from a simple question: what would it mean for the BBC to be encountered not only on screens, but in the everyday civic spaces people use - libraries, high streets, town squares, nurseries? One strand focuses on libraries and early‑years settings. CBeebies already reaches more than half of under‑6‑year‑olds each week and is among the most trusted children’s brands in the UK. Parents who use BBC children’s content are the only audience group to give the Corporation a positive net score on quality over the last decade, with 41% saying it has improved. They also voice deep concern about what commercial algorithms serve their children and relief that the BBC offers a safe, ad‑free alternative.

BBC Library Hubs and CBeebies Library Corners

BBC Library Hubs would turn that trust into a tangible presence. Permanent BBC corners in public libraries, branded with CBeebies and CBBC characters, would host regular story‑time sessions, screenings, craft activities and digital literacy workshops. These spaces would make BBC content part of the everyday experience of raising a child: somewhere to go on a rainy afternoon, a free place to gather with other parents, a visible sign that the licence fee - or its successor - is buying something rooted in the community. BBC studios could also be established in major libraries, ranging from radio newsrooms to vodcast facilities – some of which can be shared with the local community. The Boston public service broadcaster GBH News, for instance, takes hyperlocal broadcasting to a new level, both in terms of public engagement and transparency, broadcasting regularly from Boston Public Library.[13]

Live in the Town Square

Beyond libraries, the BBC can reclaim its role as a convenor of national moments. People instinctively understand its power to bring the country together for elections, Royal events, World Cups and big football matches, charity appeals and landmark dramas. Our polling shows that while Netflix is now seen as more important than the BBC to day‑to‑day life among those who use both, the BBC still outpaces it in importance to British culture and our economy. A programme of ‘Town Square Moments’ - live screenings in partnership with councils and cultural venues - would bring that convening power down to the level of towns and small cities. Big‑screen broadcasts of football, premieres or national ceremonies in town squares could echo the communal Wimbledon screenings that have become a summer fixture, but extended beyond London and major festival sites.

Retail presence

Finally, retail partnerships would bring the BBC into shopping on the high street. Building on the existing BBC Shop, which already sells merchandise for brands like Doctor Who, the Corporation could work more closely with high‑street chains to create BBC‑branded sections or pop‑ups offering children’s books, educational kits, local‑heritage materials and interactive displays. In places where participants currently feel not represented, a BBC corner in the library and a BBC presence in the shopping centre would be physical reminders that the national broadcaster is investing in their high street, not just broadcasting from elsewhere.

“I think it’s always been a British institution.”

- Man, Labour-Reform Switcher, Coleshill South

Audiences are explicit about why. They believe BBC content has become less distinctive, less relevant, and less convenient to access than what is on offer elsewhere. A plurality (42%) say BBC content is worse than it was ten years ago; only 20% say it is better. The only group to buck this trend are users of BBC children’s programming, who give a positive net score of +13. In discussions, people talk about being spoiled for choice across platforms and about discovering shows through social media buzz rather than broadcast schedules. Some still love BBC dramas and nature programmes; others explain that even when they watch BBC channels, they are doing so via streaming apps on smart TVs rather than through linear broadcast.

To compete in this landscape, the BBC has to think like both a public service and a global technology company. It already sits on world‑class assets: the filming techniques of the Natural History Unit, archive content that spans nearly a century, user data and streaming infrastructure built up through iPlayer and BBC Sounds. 

BBC Creative Enterprises

We propose the formation of BBC Creative Enterprises - a dedicated vehicle, modelled on university spin-outs, which gets first refusal on innovations and technologies developed within the BBC.  By attracting private capital to carry the financial risk, it allows the development and backing of new creative technologies without the BBC bearing the cost itself.

When a BBC innovation is selected for spin-out, the BBC contributes its intellectual property - the technology, the format, the research - to a newly formed company. The BBC receives a founding equity stake in the company before any outside investors arrive. BBC Creative Enterprises then raises private capital to fund and grow the business. Those private investors carry the financial risk. As the founding stakeholder, if the company succeeds, is sold or floats, the BBC receives a return proportional to that stake. The BBC never writes a cheque; its contribution is the IP it already owns.

This model is already well-established in the university sector and has allowed for university innovations to flourish. Oxford Science Enterprises (University of Oxford)[14] and Northern Gritstone (Universities of Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield)[15] were founded on exactly this principle, ensuring that world-class research coming out of the universities could be commercialised without the university bearing the risk or losing the upside. BBC Creative Enterprises would do the same for the BBC, treating its technological and creative innovations not as incidental byproducts of public service broadcasting, but as assets in their own right.

The BBC's existing innovations offer an immediate pipeline. BBC Creative Enterprises would invest in technologies (not programming or scripted content): its market-leading C2PA deepfake detector technology, specialist techniques developed within the Natural History Unit, and 'speech in noise' technology are all candidates for spin-out. In effect, BBC Creative Enterprises turns innovations that would otherwise sit dormant into a funding stream that flows directly back into the BBC's public service content - without putting a penny of licence fee money at risk.

Archive Innovation Fund

Furthermore, the BBC’s archive is a treasure‑trove of British cultural heritage, from early television drama and landmark documentaries to historic news footage and children’s programmes. Yet much of this material remains under‑used. A dedicated Archive Innovation Fund would unlock the creative use of this archive by supporting educators, artists and independent producers to reuse archival content in new ways - for learning, community storytelling and cultural experimentation.

The fund could build on initiatives such as Make Film History, which has already licensed hundreds of BBC archive titles to young UK filmmakers for educational and creative projects. By lowering barriers - for example, simplifying rights clearance and providing clearer routes to access - and actively promoting archival materials, the BBC can stimulate the creative economy, support digital literacy and ensure that past content continues to generate public value for new generations.

Global BBC iPlayer

Alongside this, a unified Global BBC iPlayer would bring international distribution under one roof. Today, the BBC sells rights to its programmes in a patchwork of deals, often granting exclusivity to global platforms that then rebrand British hits as their own. Revenues from international subscribers and adverts would be ploughed back into the platform itself and the domestic services that sit behind it. Other UK public broadcasters could be invited to host their content on the platform, sharing infrastructure costs and strengthening Britain’s collective streaming presence.

​For audiences, this offers a clearly branded home for British storytelling that can stand toe‑to‑toe with Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon, while still feeling different. For the BBC, it creates a virtuous circle in which global commercial success pays directly for public‑service ambition at home.

National Live-Streaming Service for Arts and Culture

The third strand of competitiveness concerns culture. A national live‑streaming service for arts and culture, hosted on the new iPlayer and potentially on other third parties such as YouTube, could be a new platform that would act as a public‑service version of YouTube for British theatre, dance, music and community arts. It would bring live performances and recorded content from across the country under one banner, alongside behind‑the‑scenes documentaries and educational materials.

Such a service would not compete with the National Theatre’s or West End’s own commercial offerings; instead, it would amplify them, particularly during events like a proposed National Arts Week, when access to certain archives could be made free or low‑cost nationwide. For towns that currently feel culturally invisible, seeing their local theatre or festival alongside London’s flagships would be a powerful signal. For the BBC, this platform would also be a testbed for impact‑driven commissioning, where metrics go beyond views to include participation, debate and policy change.

Together, these platforms would champion the BBC’s role as a driver of economic growth, cultural capital and social cohesion, demonstrating that what is funded at home generates benefits far beyond the UK’s borders.