BBC’s licence fee set to rise next month

The BBC’s licence fee is set to rise by 2% in April, just days after it was proposed to close a number of services to cut down on expenditure.

The licence fee will go up to �145.50 from from �142.50 for the colour licence. Licence fee for black and white sets will go up from �48 to �49.

Today’s news comes as a part of a six-year BBC funding settlement agreed in 2007. It was set at 3 per cent for the first two years of the settlement and 2 per cent in years three, four and five – with 2010 being year four.

Director general Mark Thompson outlined �600million in ‘cuts’ last week, including axing 6 Music and the Asian Network and slashing the website by half.