BBC Licence Fee Income Tops £3 Billion

BBC licence fee income has topped £3 billion for the first time, up £160 million year on year, according to the board of governors’ annual report.

The report, which is for the 12 months to March 31 this year, is the board’s final annual report before it is replaced by the BBC Trust.

The rise was attributed in part to the fact that the cost of collection and evasion was at its lowest level since the BBC took over direct and the £185 million cash returned to the BBC by the corporation’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide.

BBC chairman, Michael Grade, reported that the total cash payout to director general Mark Thompson and other executive board members had fallen by more than £100,000 on a like for like basis, following changes to the remuneration rules.

After a two-year process of reducing performance-related bonuses, the potential financial gain for BBC executive board directors had been reduced from 30% to 10% of “base pay”. Basic executive salaries before bonuses were now moderately above the market average, at around 4.5%.

But total pay for executive directors, combining salary and bonus, put senior managers nearly 20% below the market average, according to the BBC.

The annual report revealed that an extra £129 million was invested in public service programming during the year, including an additional £53 million on digital channels and the BBC Jam online curriculum.

“The next challenge is to bring about transformational change within the BBC… to simplify how we bring the best creative ideas to our audiences and deliver the public purposes, including leading digital switchover, which have been laid down for us for the next charter,” said Thompson.

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