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The BBC is considering blocking iPlayer for viewers who do not pay the licence fee.
Putting the on-demand service behind a paywall is thought to be an “opportunity” the broadcaster could pursue in the years ahead.
Kerris Bright, the BBC’s chief customer officer, raised the prospect during an all-staff call on Monday.
The proposed clampdown comes as the corporation grapples with growing licence fee evasion and significant job cuts.
Under current rules, anyone who watches or records live TV on any channel or uses BBC iPlayer must have a valid TV licence, costing £180 a year. Around 12.5pc of households are thought to evade the bill.
In a recording obtained by Deadline, Ms Bright told BBC staff that the broadcaster should “absolutely keep looking” at putting iPlayer behind a paywall, but conceded that such action was not yet viable.
“iPlayer is the only service really that’s licensable where you could actually decide to put a gate in front of it, but the data today says that actually [there’s] not really the return on investment for doing that,” she said.
“The data says ... [it] is not the silver bullet to generating more revenue. There’s probably more cost in it than revenue, but it is something we should absolutely keep looking at because it might be something that you actually would want to do in the future.”
A source confirmed to The Telegraph that while blocking iPlayer was not currently viable, staff were informed that the BBC would keep the idea under review as streaming technology continued to improve.
iPlayer has long been easily accessible for those who do not pay the fee. The platform occasionally asks users whether they have a licence fee, though it does not require proof.
The BBC took in £3.8bn from the licence fee in 2024-25, but up to £550m is estimated to have been lost through evasion.
A damning report by the public accounts committee in November accused it of “not doing enough” to enforce the requirement.
Ms Bright told staff that the “vast majority” of evasion is not on iPlayer. As a result, she was wary of putting the service behind a paywall and making it a “very difficult experience for people that are paying for the licence”.
The maximum fine for watching live television without a licence is £1,000. In 2024, just more than 25,000 people were handed a penalty – marking a dramatic decrease from the 75,000 dished out in 2020, yet 46 million warning letters were issued to households in 2024-25.
This week, the BBC claimed TV licence sales had increased as a result of a World Cup advertising campaign advising people to scan an on-screen QR code and pay the fee.
The campaign was launched as the BBC confronted the figures in its most recent annual report, which revealed that the corporation had lost half a million licence fee payers in a year beset by scandal.
The broadcaster also used the half-time break in its coverage of the Spain vs Argentina final to promote the value of its own programming.
The four-minute musical advert featured Romesh Ranganathan and more than 100 celebrities, including some of the BBC’s highest-paid stars, singing the praises of their employer.
TV Licensing guidelines stipulate that officers have no legal powers to enter your home without a search warrant granted by a magistrate. Residents, therefore, have no obligation to grant entry to a visiting officer, who must be accompanied by a police officer if executing a search warrant.
Anyone wishing to access BBC television and radio programmes on iPlayer must provide an email address, date of birth and postcode.
The BBC declined to comment.
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