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0 pointsbmsleight_10y ago0 comments

BBC is not funded by government. It is a separate licence fee and have governance in place to keep it at a very long arm length away from government. Which may be a reason why the current government want to change/destroy/modernise ot so that it can influence output.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

jobu10y ago· 2 in thread

The BBC is funded by a government tax on TVs [1], and to an outsider this looks an awful lot like government funding.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

teh_klev10y ago

> The BBC is funded by a government tax on TVs

It's not a tax on TV's. It's a license you pay only if you watch live broadcast television. It is not funded through normal taxation mechanisms such as PAYE, VAT etc. Individuals and organisations decide whether they need to pay the TV License or not depending on whether they need to or not.

The license fee is collected by the BBC via private contractors (the major one being Capita) under the umbrella of the TV Licensing Authority. This money is paid to the UK government which then pays out to the BBC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

DanBC10y ago

Compare how the World Service used to be funded to how the rest of the BBC is funded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_World_Service

> Like the rest of the BBC, the World Service is a Crown corporation of the UK Government. Until 2014, unlike the rest of the corporation, which is funded through a television licence fee, the World Service was funded through a Parliamentary grant-in-aid given by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In 2008/9 the BBC World Service received 12.4% of the department's £2.2 billion budget[37][38] and in the financial year 2011/12, the service received £255.2 million from this grant.[39]

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