MPs Tell BBC: Track iPlayer To Catch TV Licence Dodgers

The BBC can’t seem to catch licence fee dodgers anymore – and MPs say it’s time to start tracking people watching iPlayer instead.

A major new report published by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last week has torn apart the BBC’s enforcement strategy, revealing that traditional doorstep visits have collapsed as people simply refuse to answer the door.

Despite nearly 2 million home visits last year – a 50% increase – prosecutions have plummeted by 17%, and the BBC is losing over £1.1 billion annually from non-payment.

Now MPs want the corporation to embrace digital enforcement, using online viewing data to catch non-payers. But the BBC insists this would betray its public service mission.

The committee also slammed the BBC for still sending 40% of licences by post, allowing its main contractor to run nearly two years late on a an IT upgrade, and failing to set any targets for tackling the crisis.

The report lands at a precarious moment for the BBC. Its Royal Charter expires in December 2027, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has promised the review will begin “imminently,” and the corporation is still reeling from the resignation of Director-General Tim Davie earlier this month over the Trump documentary editing scandal.

Davie himself gave evidence to the committee for this report back in September, warning MPs that the current funding model was unsustainable – a view the committee’s findings now strongly reinforce.

Knocking On Doors Nobody Answers

The BBC’s traditional TV Licence enforcement approach is apparently dying on its feet.

In 2024-25, TV Licensing officers made nearly 2 million visits to unlicensed households – a staggering 50% increase compared to the previous year.

They increased the number of visiting officers from 172 to 229, and each officer made more visits than before.

But it hasn’t worked. Despite this massive surge in activity, there hasn’t been a corresponding increase in licence sales or successful prosecutions.

Shirley Cameron, the BBC’s Director of Revenue Management, told MPs the problem bluntly: “It can be harder to get an answer these days than, say, five years ago.”

People simply aren’t opening their doors anymore.

Even worse for the BBC, prosecutions for licence fee evasion fell by 17% year-on-year, continuing a long-term decline since 2017. The BBC expects prosecutions to fall even further.

The committee warned that “without visible enforcement, licence fee payers who do comply may start to question the fairness of the system.”

If you’re one of the 23.8 million households dutifully paying £174.50 each year, watching enforcement collapse while over £1 billion slips through the cracks isn’t exactly encouraging.

The iPlayer Enforcement Battle

Labour MP Chris Kane pressed the BBC on why it can’t use digital data to improve enforcement, particularly given that viewers must log in to use BBC iPlayer.

“If someone is watching iPlayer, do you know whether they have a licence, given that they have logged in and provided you with information on who they are?” Kane asked.

The answer was revealing: “There is not a match for that. The licence is based on a household and an address, and a BBC account is a different form of information without an address,” Cameron replied.

Kane pushed further: “What I am hearing is that it is not yet part of your arsenal of licence-evasion tools. It seems that you are not exploiting the digital information, even if it is just to help you to target the visits and the letters.”

Davie defended the BBC’s approach: “We could gate the iPlayer tomorrow, but I do not think that is the right thing to do.”

In other words, unlike Netflix or Disney+, which simply block non-paying users, the BBC says its public service remit means it won’t easily restrict access.

But the committee isn’t buying it. Their first recommendation explicitly demands the BBC “modernise licence fee collection and enforcement by developing and implementing approaches suited to monitoring online viewing.”

If implemented, this means that – instead of just getting a banner on iPlayer asking you if you have a TV Licence, data about your usage could be sent back to the BBC for TV Licence verification. Or they could simply disable the login for anyone who doesn’t have a recorded TV Licence.

The committee also want the BBC to start reporting annually on progress against targets for reducing both evasion and “no licence needed” declarations – targets that currently don’t exist publicly.

As more viewing shifts online, the BBC’s household-based licensing system looks increasingly outdated, yet the corporation resists the kind of digital enforcement that streaming services take for granted.

The Paper Licence Absurdity

Here’s another surprising fact: around 40% of TV Licences are still issued on paper by default.

Physical licences are sent out unless customers specifically opt into an electronic version. And the BBC has no target whatsoever to increase take-up of paperless licences.

This matters because postal costs are soaring – they jumped 14.4% last year alone. The cost of collecting the licence fee rose to £166 million in 2024-25, up from £143 million the previous year.

Enforcement also relies heavily on letters sent to households without a licence or those declaring they don’t need one, which adds to costs and is far less efficient than digital methods.

When MPs asked why such a large minority still received paper licences, the BBC explained that many households don’t provide email addresses and aren’t obliged to do so.

The committee wasn’t impressed. They’ve told the BBC to set a timeframe for moving to digital licences and to capture customer email addresses to enhance digital engagement.

Capita’s IT Disaster

Speaking of digital failures, the BBC’s main enforcement contractor Capita has experienced massive delays in upgrading its IT systems – delays that were meant to improve the website and customer experience to support digital engagement.

The upgrade is now running nearly two years late, with only 10 of 13 milestones completed by September, when the BBC gave evidence.

The BBC blamed the delays on “the complexity of legacy systems and supply chain” and the need to avoid risks to licence fee collection during the transition.

But here’s the kicker: the BBC only switched to “payment by milestone” partway through the programme, after delays had already occurred.

When MPs asked about this, the BBC acknowledged it should have adopted this approach from the outset. When pressed about applying this lesson to other contracts, the BBC admitted it hadn’t done so.

The committee has now told the BBC to outline “the lessons learned from managing the Capita licence fee contract and how it will establish clear milestones and incentives in all areas of the business to increase income and reduce evasion.”

It’s a damning indictment of contract management at a time when digital transformation should be the BBC’s top priority.

The £1.1 Billion Breakdown – And Why It Matters

Looking at the bigger picture, the BBC faces two separate problems, and they’re not the same thing:

Licence fee evasion stands at 12.52% – that’s roughly 1 in 8 people who ARE watching live TV or using BBC iPlayer but aren’t paying for it. This represents about £550 million in lost revenue, and it’s illegal.

“No Licence Needed” declarations have reached 3.6 million households – up 300,000 in just one year. These people have legally declared they DON’T watch any live TV from any broadcaster and DON’T use BBC iPlayer. If all these households were to start watching licensable content and buy licences, it would generate £617 million.

This is the critical difference: evasion is people breaking the law, while NLN declarations are people legally opting out of the system because they genuinely don’t need a licence.

The problem for the BBC is that both categories represent lost income. Combined, they total over £1.1 billion annually – more than a quarter of the £3.8 billion the BBC collected in licence fees last year.

Meanwhile, the BBC quietly changed the rules on NLN declarations. They used to leave you alone for two years after you declared you didn’t need a licence. Now they make you reconfirm after just one year.

That seemingly small change generated an extra £13 million in revenue during 2024-25, presumably by catching people whose circumstances changed – perhaps they moved house, got Sky TV, or started watching live football again.

The BBC also deploys “specially trained agents” to ensure people don’t “inadvertently” declare they don’t need a licence when they actually do, including explaining that watching a live overseas channel on YouTube requires a TV licence.

The report also noted that younger audiences are drifting away from the BBC – only 51% of 16-34 year olds feel the broadcaster reflects them, compared to 96% of over-55s who use BBC services weekly.

If the BBC can’t connect with younger viewers now, its long-term future as a universal broadcaster looks increasingly uncertain.

Digital Switchover: “A Self-Inflicted Wound”

The report also tackles the elephant in the room: the BBC’s long-term shift from traditional broadcasting to online services.

Kane, who represents a predominantly rural Scottish constituency, challenged the BBC directly on this: “My mailbox is full of people complaining about the inability to get a digital service. For those who have broadband service, it ain’t of a level where they can do streaming.

“In a digital world, you now have my licence fee, plus £20-plus a month to get a broadband connection. The cost to access a BBC service will be £174 plus a minimum of £240 on top of that to get broadband.”

The BBC’s response was cautious. It told MPs that any switchover from broadcast to online depends on universal broadband (around 20 Mbps) to enable streaming, and that moving before this infrastructure is in place would be “a self-inflicted wound.”

Davie was emphatic: “The BBC has no desire to have people who cannot get our services.”

This comes as the BBC pushes ahead with platforms like Freely – Everyone TV’s streaming service designed to eventually replace traditional Freeview.

Launched in April 2024, Freely streams live channels and catch-up content entirely through your internet connection, with no aerial required. Last week, the first-ever standalone Freely box – Netgem’s Pleio – launched, potentially bringing Freely to more homes.

The BBC has also been exploring a simplified Freely device specifically designed for people who find modern streaming technology overwhelming – acknowledging that not everyone wants their television to be a computer with endless apps and features.

But the digital transition faces a fundamental problem: millions of households still lack reliable broadband.

The BBC pointed to the analogue switchoff as a model, where it introduced solutions like Freesat to ensure households that couldn’t receive Digital Terrestrial Television weren’t left behind.

The corporation told MPs it would maintain “significant broadcast services during the transition” and that any digital shift must be “sequenced alongside improvements in broadband availability and affordability.”

The committee wants the BBC to “set out clearly” how it will ensure access and engagement with all audiences, including innovation in digital access, as it pursues its digital-first strategy.

What Happens Next?

The committee’s report paints a picture of an institution under pressure from multiple directions at once.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, put it bluntly: “The BBC is an organisation under severe pressure. Its own founding aspiration to be a truly universal broadcaster reflecting all its viewers means that this pressure, from both within and without, is inherent in its mission.”

He added: “On the licence fee, our report makes clear that the ground is shifting beneath the BBC’s feet – the traditional enforcement method of household visits is seeing fewer and fewer returns at a time of heightened competition for almost every aspect of the BBC’s activities.”

The BBC now has to respond to the committee’s recommendations, which include:

• Developing online monitoring approaches for enforcement
• Setting targets for reducing evasion and NLN declarations
• Moving to digital licences with a clear timeframe
• Reporting transparently on commercial returns
• Explaining how it will ensure access for all audiences during digital transition

All of this feeds into the Charter Review process that will determine the BBC’s future beyond 2027. Nandy has already called the current licence fee “deeply regressive,” and the government is expected to publish its terms of reference for the Charter review imminently.

With Davie now stepping down, his successor will inherit not just these immediate challenges but the existential question of whether the TV Licence can survive in its current form.

For now, the £174.50 annual fee remains mandatory for anyone watching live TV or using BBC iPlayer.

But with enforcement crumbling, MPs demanding digital monitoring, and the Charter Review looming, the way we pay for the BBC looks set for its biggest shake-up in decades.

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