Did you know the BBC has 59 different radio stations?
No, nor did I until I started researching this article! Based on recent search engine arrivals, it would appear that there is some recent confusion over whether people are required to pay to listen to BBC Radio. If you want to save yourself the ball ache of reading to the end, the answer is short no. If you have a few minutes to spare, please humour me by sticking with it.
As readers will undoubtedly be aware, a TV licence is legally required for every property where equipment is installed or used to receive TV programmes at their time of broadcast (or virtually the same time) or BBC on-demand programmes via the iPlayer. You can read a lot more about the legislation pertaining to the TV licence in our numerous earlier articles on the matter.
Revenue generated by the TV licence, some £3.8bn per annum, is used exclusively to fund the operations and creative output of the BBC. A significant proportion of that creative output is broadcast via the BBC's network of national, regional and local radio stations - all 59 of them. BBC Radio Bognor Regis isn't part of the network just yet, but given the way the Corporation squanders public money don't rule it out in the future.
According to the BBC Annual Report 2020/21 the cost of BBC Radio was just shy of £500m for the year.
I think that's where the confusion arises - most people realise that the TV licence funds the BBC (although few realise the true relationship between the BBC and TV Licensing), so they wrongly assume that a TV licence is needed to listen to BBC Radio. It isn't - that is even the case if using the BBC iPlayer to listen to BBC Radio 1 or using a TV set to listen only to radio programmes (we recommend you read more in our article about using a TV for listening to radio).
The TV licence: the clue's in the name.
1 comment:
The Radio Licence was abolished in Feb '71, same time as we introduced today's bottle-top decimal coinage. The reason? The mass use of pocket transistor sets encouraged by the arrival of Radio Caroline during the Sixties together with the other pirates (Luxembourg 208 was only on air in the evening with reception depending on the weather.) The GPO (Post Office) had no rights to detain, interrogate and search an individual for an unlicenced pocket tranny despite the wearer usually using an earpiece, which led to eventual abolishment. I was a teenager at the time.
Post a Comment