±«Óãtv

Licence fee and funding

The ±«Óãtv is primarily funded by the licence fee, supplemented by income from our commercial subsidiaries

Funding through the TV licence

A standard TV licence is currently £169.50

Your TV Licence lets you enjoy a huge range of TV. It covers you for:

  • All TV channels, like ±«Óãtv, ITV, Channel 4, Dave and international channels
  • Pay TV services, like Sky, Virgin Media and BT
  • Live TV on streaming services, like YouTube and Amazon Prime Video
  • Everything on ±«Óãtv iPlayer

This includes recording and downloading. On any device, including a TV, laptop, tablet or phone

What the licence fee pays for

Funding from the licence fee allows the ±«Óãtv to provide an unparalleled range of programmes and services across TV, radio and online. More information about the breadth of content the ±«Óãtv produces can be found here: 

In addition to funding programmes and services, a proportion of the licence fee funds the ±«Óãtv World Service broadcasting in 42 languages including English globally, as well as funding the Welsh Language TV channel S4C and . 

The licence fee allows the ±«Óãtv's UK services to remain free of advertisements and independent of shareholder and political interest.

Commercial income

The licence fee is supplemented by income from the activities of our three commercial subsidiaries - ±«Óãtv Studios and ±«Óãtv Studioworks.

Ensuring value for money

The ±«Óãtv is focussed on delivering value for all audiences. In a world of rapidly increasing choice the ±«Óãtv continues to reach 90% of UK adults on average each week, rising to 97% over a month, and is the nation’s number one media brand.

  • Reduction in overheads
    Overheads remain at industry-leading levels, at only 5% of our total costs, with 95% directed to audience-facing content and services
  • UK economy
    The ±«Óãtv has wide ranging impacts on the UK economy. For every £1 of the ±«Óãtv’s economic activity, £2.63 is generated in the economy.
  • Commercial income
    £1,384 million in 2021/22.
  • Culminative savings
    £1 billion worth of savings delivered since 2016/17.

In 2021/22 this is how your monthly licence fee was spent:

Graph to show how the monthly licence fee is spent in 2021/22.
How your monthly licence fee is spent
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