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More than 10 million people watched Spain beat Argentina in the World Cup final on Britain’s public broadcaster on Sunday – and they also saw Louis Theroux stand next to a lever implying the BBC could be switched off without their support.
The scene, part of a new campaign, was an attempt to remind viewers of what could be lost if they take the BBC for granted. Airing the night before Andy Burnham became PM, it also served as a reminder of the stakes at a critical moment for the corporation’s future – one where, insiders say, no part of the organisation will be immune from what’s coming.
A new Prime Minister taking office during negotiations for the broadcaster’s future funding model is hardly ideal for the BBC, but Burnham has a track record in being a vocal supporter, which may go some way to reassure people on the inside.
As culture secretary in 2009 he backed the licence fee, telling the Culture Media and Sport Committee: “I cannot see other options that will provide that solid support for public service broadcasting.”
Yet, in the 17 years since Burnham was last in government, the television landscape has changed considerably. The licence fee model is no longer providing the sustainable income the BBC needs. Netflix, which didn’t exist as a streamer in 2009, now has 17 million subscribers in the UK.
Broadcast television viewing has fallen away across British broadcasting as a whole, not just at the BBC – with the exception of hits like The Traitors and major sporting events like the World Cup. More than half of 16-24-year-olds do not watch any live broadcast television each week, according to Ofcom.
The licence fee is a ‘straitjacket’
Here’s why that matters: the TV licence currently costs £180 a year and is legally required to watch or record any live broadcast, or to use BBC iPlayer. With the current funding model still built around that, even the new BBC Director-General Matt Brittin has said in its current form it is “no longer fit for purpose,” describing it as a “straitjacket” that leaves the corporation “held back.”
The BBC has also been arguing that the number of households paying it has fallen well behind the number using BBC services. 94 per cent of adults still use its services each week, the BBC says, but fewer than 80 per cent of households now pay for a licence.
The maths behind that gap is stark. The BBC’s own annual report, published in mid-July, showed licence fee paying numbers fell by 539,000 in the 2025-26 financial year – more than double the roughly 300,000 lost the year before.
The last licence fee deal is also playing out to the BBC’s detriment: the broadcaster’s licence fee income has fallen by roughly a quarter in real terms since 2017. Last month, it announced a string of cuts as it works towards saving £500 million over the next two to three years, with 1,800-2,000 jobs to go.
Among the first casualties: Radio 4’s The World Tonight, after nearly 70 years on air. Sunday morning BBC Breakfast is being scrapped and the Today programme is losing one of its five permanent presenters.
“The current proposed cuts suggest the BBC doesn’t think the Government is going to come galloping to the rescue with a significant financial boost,” says Roger Mosey, former BBC director of news.
Licence fee increases to cover the gap also feel out of the question.
“The BBC’s cash shortage is coinciding with both the outgoing Starmer administration and even more the incoming Burnham government having a big focus on the cost of living,” Mosey adds.
“Morale is pretty low,” a BBC News correspondent says. “There is a feeling that, this time, no one in the organisation will be immune from the changes that are coming.”
‘A much smaller BBC’
For viewers, the alternatives on the table all have different pros and cons. “A subscription BBC would not work,” says Niamh Burns, Senior Media Analyst at Enders Analysis. She says that 80 per cent of households would need to voluntarily sign up to maintain the BBC’s current income, a market rate that has never been seen in the UK, with Netflix only at 60 per cent.
“If that can’t be achieved, and realistically it can’t, the only options are either a much higher price than the current licence fee, or a much smaller BBC.”
The BBC has dealt with nine culture secretaries in the last ten years, along with seven different prime ministers. Lisa Nandy – now the longest-serving Culture Secretary since Jeremy Hunt in 2010 – has received criticism for the frontline cuts to BBC services under her watch, but her survival in Burnham’s reshuffle could provide some much-needed continuity for negotiations.
According to Deadline, even Brittin told staff he expected a change in the role. Then there’s James Purnell, Burnham’s new Chief of Staff. Also a former culture secretary, Purnell is the ex-BBC executive behind the launch of BBC Sounds, and was on the other side of the table negotiating for Charter Renewal for the broadcaster back in 2015.
“He has huge amounts of creative sector experience, and the BBC practically runs through his veins,” says media policy expert Giles Winn, who has recently spoken to people who have worked for Purnell for his Screenpower Substack. “No 10 will be far more tuned-in to Charter Renewal than would have been the case under Starmer.”
“[Purnell] believes in the BBC, but he isn’t afraid to challenge their thinking, or suggest big ideas that the current management may not like,” he adds. “It does though create an interesting tension at the heart of government, since Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy will need to navigate her relationship with a Chief of Staff who will almost certainly have strong views on Charter Renewal, and whose voice inside Downing Street may ultimately carry more weight than her own.”
Purnell has previously touted bold changes to BBC funding.
In 2022, he wrote a column for The Times arguing that the licence fee should be replaced with a household levy – a flat charge added to bills, like a water rate, paid whether or not you ever watch the BBC. That would mean the millions of households who’ve already cancelled their TV licence could end up paying for the BBC again anyway.
It’s a policy that has been backed by parts of the television industry and already exists in Germany. Yet ministers ruled it out in their Green Paper in December. Has the moment passed? Burns is also sceptical whether such a policy could be introduced by the end of next year anyway. “It is tricky to get that over the line in time for Charter renewal; a lot of stakeholders would need to be consulted and the practicalities of how it would be collected would be complex,” she says. “Perhaps next time around.”
The most likely option is one that Nandy herself has recently hinted: telling the Culture, Media and Sport Committee last week that the licence fee could remain but broaden to include streamers like Netflix and Disney+, with those who watch both the BBC and streamers paying the full £180 ($240) annual fee, streaming-only viewers paying less, and “targeted concessions for people who need them”. She’s suggested this could even let the fee be cut “for everybody”.
At the end of the corporation’s World Cup advert, the “there’s a BBC for each of us, funded by all of us” strapline appears. Yet are viewers who have stopped paying really going to be willing to pay again, in some new form, even if they’re not watching any of its content?
