BBC director-general calls for funding flexibility
BBC director-general Matt Brittin has stated that the corporation needs to be “open to all options” for funding, including a household levy. This comes as the BBC’s licence fee income has fallen by more than £1 billion in real terms over the past decade, with the 2026 annual report revealing a drop of over half a million TV licences in the 2025/26 financial year.
Appearing before the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee as part of the BBC charter review, Brittin said: “What I’ve looked at with Dr Shah and with colleagues is, what do you need in order to maintain that universal remit under charter, with a level of funding that is sustainable.” He warned that “it’s very, very hard to run an organisation that can attract the best creative, journalistic and technical people if you’re going to have to cut costs every year, it’s an unpredictable but downward spiral.”
Household levy under consideration
Brittin highlighted the household levy as a possible solution, noting that the committee had heard from witnesses who pointed to it. He said: “We talk particularly about the household levy because the committee had heard from various witnesses who had pointed at that as something that might be a solution, and I think we should be open to all options that could deliver that sort of set of outcomes.”
However, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy appeared to rule out the levy earlier this month, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think there are different ways of doing a household levy. But every time I have a discussion about the BBC licence fee, if an option is put to me, people assume if I don’t rule it out that the Government has some kind of secret plot to introduce it. I can tell you, hand on heart, that we have made no decisions about this.” Nandy stressed that “what is not negotiable is that we will fund the BBC properly,” but added that how to do so is “up for negotiation.”
Financial challenges and the need for reinvention
The BBC’s annual report noted that its financial outlook “deteriorated” in the second half of 2025. BBC chairman Samir Shah said ahead of the report’s release that the current funding model means the corporation “cannot maintain its public service mission.”
Brittin, a former Google executive who took over as director-general in May, emphasised the need for the BBC to reinvent itself. “I think the onus on us is to reinvent the BBC for the world we’re now in,” he told the committee. He cited the BBC’s economic impact, its role in portraying British values globally, and its reach of over half a billion people worldwide as key strengths. “The opportunity, I think, for us is to reinterpret the BBC’s mission with today’s technology and today’s setting – that will imply quite a lot of change, and as we discussed last week, also a rethink of the funding mechanism, if we’re to have a BBC that has sufficient universality, scale and sustainability,” he added.
