The BBC World Service, currently part of the BBC News division, is facing another funding crisis. The BBC says that it only has funding for another month. What on Earth is going on?

The BBC international services include radio broadcasts in English and many other languages, television channels in Arabic and Persian, and digital platforms including websites, podcasts, and social media.

These services reach an estimated weekly audience of over 300 million people around the world, although the number has declined with the closure of some radio output.

It may surprise some to know that the primary source of funding for all this is the television licence paid for by households in Britain. That raises £3.84 billion a year in revenue for the BBC. The licence fee revenue will continue until at least the end of 2027.

The BBC World Service has an annual budget of £358 million. That includes £221 million from the BBC licence fee. The government Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office contributed £104 million grant funding, with a further £32.6 million to support digital initiatives.

This funding is to protect the 42 language services, counter disinformation, support emergency information services in crisis zones, and support a transition to online platforms.

That government funding runs out at the end of March and remarkably any renegotiation has yet to be agreed.

Although that is unlikely to lead to the immediate loss of services, the BBC is under increasing financial pressure and will be obliged to cut costs.

Established as the BBC Empire Service in 1932 to reach English speakers around the world, it became the BBC Overseas Service in November 1939 as the focus shifted to wartime communication and was renamed the BBC World Service in 1965.

The BBC World Service was paid for by a grant from the British government, which benefited from the projection of soft power around the world.

Despite being funded by the government, the World Service managed to maintain a global reputation for editorial integrity.

Following the global financial crisis in 2008, government debt soared and under the Conservative-Liberal coalition government the chancellor George Osborne introduced a programme of financial austerity.

In October 2010, through a settlement secretly agreed between the government and the chair of the BBC Trust, it was announced that the BBC would take on full responsibility for the World Service, while the licence fee was frozen.

This was apparently accepted as an alternative to taking on the cost of ‘free’ television licences for those living with someone aged over 75.

However, the BBC later agreed to accept that cost too, as part of a settlement in 2015, in return for maintaining the television licence fee.

The BBC has repeatedly succumbed to sequential disadvantageous funding agreements while continuing to expand its services. As a result, the BBC has been left with a substantial reduction in funding in real terms, rising costs, and a declining domestic audience.

The corporation faces a review of its current Royal Charter that expires at the end of 2027. That could be an opportunity to set out its remit and funding once and for all, but it seems to be in a weak bargaining position.

That is not helped by the resignation of the director general Time Davie, who serves as its chief executive. He resigned in November, together with Deborah Turness, the chief executive of BBC News. That followed controversy over the editing of a Panorama programme that led to a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Donald Trump, the President of the United States, which the BBC is seeking to have thrown out of court.

An interim director general will take over in April, until a successor is appointed. That is technically a matter for the board, led by its chair.

Meanwhile, the BBC has no certainty about future government grant funding for the World Service, or any conditions that may be imposed on it.

In a recent speech, the outgoing director general said: “We’re waiting to hear the outcome of the settlement.”

With time running out, given that he has already resigned, it hardly sounds like a negotiating from a position of strength. He concluded: “I urge the government to back the World Service, to act decisively and confidently about what we can achieve in this space, and to act soon.”

All of this comes at a time of increasing global tension and uncertainty, in which the World Service is still widely respected as an impartial source of international news coverage.

www.bbc.co.uk

Over a quarter of all television viewing in the United Kingdom in 2025 was through Freeview digital terrestrial television. It was the single most popular way for viewers to access programming, above satellite, cable, smart televisions, or any other form of distribution, including online. A report from the audience measurement organisation Barb shows that 26% of all viewing on a television set in the United Kingdom was through Freeview in 2025. That was unchanged from 26% in 2024, down from 28% in 2023, and 31% in 2022. That certainly represents a decline, but it hardly suggests that it is time to turn off the transmitters.

Viewing of broadcaster apps has grown from 8% to 18% in four years, but this is by far from being the way that most television is watched.

The second most popular way of viewing was through Sky. Barb does not break out the figures for satellite and online, but together they made of 22% of viewing in 2025. That proportion has also declined, from 25% the previous year, 27% in 2023, and 28% in 2022.

Cable television viewing has also declined, with Virgin Media 02 accounting for 9% of viewing in the United Kingdom, down from 12% in 2022.

Meanwhile, the share of viewing directly on smart televisions has grown to 20% from 15%.

The viewing of YouTube on television has doubled to 10% of all viewing from 5% in 2022.

That said, traditional terrestrial, satellite and cable platforms made up over 60% of all viewing on television in 2025.

Live viewing still makes up 45% of all identified viewing on television, but that is down from 60% at the start of 2022.

The amount of time-shifted viewing on the same day as broadcast is about 10% of all television viewing, but less than half of that is through broadcaster apps, with the rest through personal video recorders.

Broadcaster apps make up about 18% of all television viewing, but the growth of such viewing has not made up for the decline of viewing to live and on-demand broadcast programming, which is now less than 70% of all television viewing, down from over 80% over four years.

The balance has been taken up by the growth of other online video services, which make up over 30% of all television viewing.

Together with broadcaster apps, online now accounts for 42% of all television viewing, up from 26% in 2022, but still not the majority of minutes viewed.

Despite what many people may believe, most television viewing is still driven by the broadcast schedule. It remains a habitual medium, driven by diurnal routines, the regular production of programmes, and events, both real and contrived.

Broadcast programming makes up 70% of all viewing, and two thirds of that is viewed at the time of transmission, with over 80% of broadcaster viewing on the same day as transmission.

That means well over half of all viewing on television is determined by the day of broadcast, in other words the programme schedule.

The report from Barb is required reading for anyone interested in how people watch television. There is no doubt that television viewing is in transition, but the numbers deserve careful consideration.

“What emerges from the evidence is not a paradigm shift, but a rebalancing,” as Justin Sampson, the chief executive of Barb observes. “All in all, the evidence and perspectives in this review point to a viewing world defined less by disruption than by adaptation — more connected, more nuanced and more resilient than the clichés and binary viewpoints would suggest.”

What People Watched in 2025 is published by Barb and is available from its web site.

www.barb.co.uk

Total television viewing in the United States was at a 12-month high in January 2026, up by 3.7% over December. Cable channels saw a percentage point gain in share of overall viewing, while online fell back fractionally to 47% of all television viewing. Although it has risen rapidly in recent years, it has yet to pass half of all television viewing. It could exceed that in the second half of 2026. Broadcast channels still account for one in five viewing hours, and the number of homes with an antenna is rising.

Time spent watching online video on television was up 2.7% month on month, as reported by The Gauge from Nielsen.

Netflix saw a 1% monthly increase in viewing to take 8.8% of total television viewing, which was down from 9.0% in December. Netflix ranks third by distributor, behind YouTube and The Walt Disney Company.

YouTube took a 12.5% share of total television viewing, down slightly on the previous month and from a high of 13.4% in the Summer.

Disney had a 4.9% share of viewing, including Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. That was up slightly on the previous month, but slightly less than a high of 5.0% earlier the previous year.

Amazon Prime Video accounted for 4.1% of viewing, down slightly on December but up on every other month in 2025.

Online viewing may be approaching just under half of all television viewing, but traditional channels still account for over four out of ten hours spent watching television, with live sports an important part of that.

Taking a glass slightly less than half full perspective, broadcast channels still account for 21.5% of all television viewing, with subscription channels at 21.2%. Put another way, broadcast channels were still watched more than Netflix, Disney+, ESPN+, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video combined.

However, if the current trend continues, online could exceed a 50% share of all television viewing in the United States by the second half of 2026.

Interestingly, the number of households in the United States with over the air antennae has been rising over the last year, to 23.7 million homes, as measured by Nielsen, out of a universe of around 128 million homes, or about 18.5% of households. That is up by 22% year on year and up by 36% over four years.

This could be driven by the cost of living, the availability of ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV, or the realisation that a combination of freely available channels complemented by online video services is for some an adequate substitute for traditional pay television services.

www.nielsen.com