New Delhi, February, 04, 2021, By IBW Team

A new report from U.K. broadcaster BBC says that the corporation is on course to deliver £951 million ($1.3 billion) in savings despite a real-terms 30 per cent reduction in income.

The “BBC Value for Audiences” report released Wednesday noted that the reduction is due to increased funding obligations, such as the World Service and Welsh free-to-air channel S4C, the freeze in cost of the license fee income from 2011-2017 and the removal of the subsidy for licenses for those over 75 years of age, together resulting in an income loss of £1.1 billion ($1.5 billion), Variety magazine reported.

The report also records a slowing down of growth in total households needing a TV license, a small increase in license fee payment evasion, and a drop in the overall TV penetration rate, which has fallen from 95.7 per cent to 93.8 per cent. It recognizes market pressures from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus, apart from rapid rise of social media and gaming.