Taxpayers Are Charged for the BBC Whether They Like it or Not

With the recent Trump-related scandal embroiling the BBC, it’s easy to think this might spell the end for the great British institution. At the very least, it could push it into a crisis in which droves of Brits decide to cancel their licence fee.

The BBC has already been losing viewers in large numbers, with two million people cancelling their licence fees since 2020. On the surface, doing this feels like one of the few ways left to stick it to the Establishment and tell the Government you’re not happy with the use of taxpayer funds.

What’s quite shocking, however, is that there are other channels through which the BBC receives taxpayers’ money – which Brits of course get no say in (and have probably never heard of). These routes could give an indicator as to how the Government might keep the BBC going should significantly more people cancel their licence fee.

Without further ado, here are three examples of how taxpayers are charged for the BBC, whether they have a TV licence or not.

The BBC Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures (RIC)

The RIC is a research centre hosted at the BBC, which “exists to foster research and innovation excellent in service to public media goals” (whatever that means). A webpage about the RIC has extremely vague descriptions of its work and goals…

…as well as this strange diagram:

The RIC was awarded £1,717,002 in funding by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) via its Future Leaders Fellowship programme (FLF). Over the years the FLF has funded some truly terrible projects, awarding £1 million to one titled ‘FemIDEAS: Decolonising Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education’ at the University of Westminster, which runs from 2022-26.

This is far from the first example of UKRI funding for the BBC:

BBC ‘New Generation Thinkers’
Each year the BBC runs a ‘New Generation Thinkers’ scheme, which is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (a subsidiary of the UKRI). There’s no specific funding for the scheme, but AHRC covers costs for travel and hotel stays when necessary.

This year’s ‘New Generation Thinkers’ include “the creator of Climate Brides, a multimedia project and podcast investigating how climate change is deepening the drivers of child marriage in South Asia”. It’s a perfect example of the BBC obsession with anything climate and diversity-related.

BBC Media Action – the BBC charity

The worst instance of taxpayers being charged for the BBC without their consent is the BBC’s charity, BBC Media Action. It received £57 million from Brits between 2020-24.

The Foreign Office is one of BBC Media Action’s main funders for 2023-24, along with USAID, the European Commission and other foreign governments:

Ultimately the purpose of the charity, which works in over 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, is to combat misinformation globally. 

Its work includes dispelling LGBTQI+ stigma in Ukraine…

…supporting a network of 30 fact-checkers in Zambia…

…and fighting disinformation in Somalia:

The obsession with disinformation and misinformation is almost certainly tied to the United Nations, which gives a lot of funding to BBC Media Action:

And whose directives are clear in BBC Media Action’s last financial report:

BBC Verify is, in my view, the UK version of UN Verified, which was launched in response to “the Covid crisis”:

Another rabbit hole for another time…

Anyway, I expect taxpayers will be delighted to know they’re being charged £57 million (2020-24) to be entered into an alliance with everyone from Bill Gates to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF):

Charlotte Gill regularly publishes about the use of taxpayers’ money to fund Left-wing causes and Left-wing researchers in Woke Waste, her Substack. You can subscribe here.