The BBC will lobby for the £145.50 annual licence fee to be extended to cover the growing number of households that now watch its programmes only on the iPlayer.
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s Director-General, said the fee should be “modernised” to cover all platforms. At present, users are required to pay the licence only if they use the iPlayer to watch live broadcasts.
The BBC is determined to extend the fee to cover the 500,000 households — about 2 per cent — that now watch only catch-up TV, even though industry insiders believe it would not be technically possible to monitor or enforce.
The call to extend the fee, which will need the Government’s approval, underlines the BBC’s mounting anxiety about retaining its