THE BBC lost around half a million licence fee payers year on year, according to its annual report.
At the end of the 2023-24 financial year, there were 23.9 million TV licences in effect, a drop of 500,000 from the 24.4 million at the end of 2022-23.
No specific figures are given for Scotland, but a drop of around 44,000 licence fee payers can be inferred.
This comes from figures showing the BBC had an estimated income of £297m from Scottish licence fees in 2023-24, down by £7m from £304m the previous year. At £159 per licence per year, this equates to roughly 44,000 fewer being paid.
The broadcaster’s own figures further show that its income from the licence fee dropped by a total of £80m from 2022-23 to 2023-2024 – which it said was “driven by a 2% decline in sales volumes and flat licence fee pricing”.
The £80m figure roughly aligns with the reported 500,000 drop in licences being paid.
Elsewhere, the BBC annual report revealed that the corporation’s gender pay gap has increased for the third year in a row, hitting its highest level since 2017.
The difference between the median average hourly earnings of men and women across the corporation’s staff as of March 31, 2024 was 7.9%, up from 7.3% a year earlier, according to the latest annual report.
It had fallen to 5.2% in 2021, but has widened in each successive year.
The BBC said the rise reflects recent investment in technical and IT-related roles, adding that these jobs are “more weighted to men than women”.
The numbers are still some way below the national average median gap, which stood at 14.3% in 2023, according to the latest available figures from the Office for National Statistics.
The rise in the gap “continues to be predominately due to specific investments in pay over the past two years, including for critical talent in key roles in our technology and product areas, and for longer serving employees paid towards the bottom of their pay ranges”, the BBC said.
Across the BBC as a whole, 50.4% of the workforce in March 2024 were female, up from 50.1% a year earlier and only the second time 50% has been surpassed in the corporation’s history, meeting a target for 50:50 representation by 2026.
The highest paid woman in 2023/24 was Zoe Ball, presenter of the Radio 2 breakfast show, whose salary was between £950,000 and £954,999: down slightly from the previous year but enough to rank her second overall on the list, behind Match of the Day host Gary Lineker (£1,350,000-£1,354,999).
The other three women in the top 10 on-air salaries are: Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce (£405,000-£409,999); DJ Lauren Laverne (£395,000-£399,999) and news presenter Naga Munchetty (£345,000-£349,999).
The number of women in the top 10 is unchanged from last year and has improved gradually since 2017-18, when the list was entirely made up of men.
Of the 67 names included on the full list, which covers on-air salaries that are above £178,000, 37% are women.
This was a lower proportion than last year, when 41% of the 68 names were female.
