Ministers plot YouTube tax as licence fee payers walk away

The government is preparing to extend the television licence fee to streaming platforms including YouTube, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, after The Independent reported the plan on Thursday, because large numbers of people are simply choosing not to pay.

A senior Whitehall source said the fee would be widened so it covers those platforms, with the aim of stopping people from watching content on phones, tablets and computers and thereby avoiding the charge. The arrangement is already being called a YouTube tax, given that site’s scale in Britain, with around 55 million users and 79 per cent market penetration.

The source put it plainly: people can use the services to dodge payment now, and it is not fair that they watch television content while skipping the licence fee. A white paper on BBC charter renewal is due before Christmas. The fee stands at £180 a year, free for those aged 75 and over on pension credit, and half-price for the visually impaired.

Under present rules a licence mainly covers live programming. Viewers who stick only to on-demand services that are not BBC iPlayer do not need one. That gap is exactly where households have been heading. The BBC itself says 94 per cent of households use its services while only 80 per cent pay.

The most recent figures show around 539,000 fewer TV licences in force in the year to 31 March 2026, part of a drop of roughly two million over the longer stretch. People are voting with their wallets. Extending the fee to the platforms they actually watch is the state’s answer: keep the money flowing even as the old model frays.

That is the choice now on the table. A smaller, leaner settlement would respect the exodus. Instead the machinery is being rebuilt to chase the same revenue through every screen in the house.

Original source: The Independent