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
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Read more about the TV licence
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.
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Commercial services
Our commercial operations generate income to invest in new programmes and content
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.](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/400xn/p0d2rr1t.jpg)
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Read the important update