BBC One had the greatest weekly reach among the BBC's television services in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025. All channels in the ranking experienced a decline in audience reach over the past years. The BBC celebrates its 100th birthday and enters a period of uncertainty The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the public broadcasting service of the United Kingdom and the oldest broadcasting organization worldwide. It was established in London on October 18, 1922, but after an entire century on air, the BBC now enters an uncertain future in terms of funding. Around 70 percent of the BBC's annual income is generated via license fees, but as the government announced the termination of this tax by 2027, the BBC will have to explore new avenues to stay afloat. So what will the future hold for the BBC and its programming now that consumers will no longer be required to pay the annual fee? Sources speculate that funding alternatives could include a subscription service, part-privatization, or direct government funding. The portfolio goes with the (digital) flow The BBC operates several television channels in the UK and worldwide, including the news-only channel BBC News and the politics-centered BBC Parliament. As of 2024, BBC One remained the company's flagship service, and data showed that the lion's share of the BBC's total television programming spending was allocated towards BBC One content that year. In addition to offering cross-genre television and radio broadcasts, the corporation keeps expanding its range of online services to resonate with audiences in the UK and abroad. The BBC runs a designated news platform alongside the on-demand video streaming platform BBC iPlayer.

The BBC News TV channel has seen a decline in reach over recent years in the United Kingdom. In the second quarter of 2019, there were just over 18 million viewers. Five years previously, the number of viewers stood at 25 million.

Number one for news?

According to a 2019 survey, a quarter of adults in England use the BBC News channel for news. However, it’s not the most commonly used news source. BBC One was used by 58 percent of respondents, and 38 percent used ITV. The third most used news source in England in 2019 was the social media service Facebook. 

What about the most popular TV channel generally?

The most popular television channel in the UK, as of September 2019, was Channel 4 with a 77 percent positivity rating. The second most popular channel was BBC One with 76 percent, and then ITV came in third with 70 percent.

According to the results of a nationally representative survey held in the United Kingdom in October 2024, BBC News had an audience of 14.2 million people aged 15 years and above that month. Apple News ranked a close second with 14 million users. With the exception of Sky News, MoneySavingExpert, and The Guardian, all other news apps in the ranking had an audience of under two million, including Google News and Mail Online.

Based on a survey held in spring 2024, the cross-platform retail provider most used for news was the BBC with a reach of ** percent. ITV followed, before Sky, Channel 4, and DMGT.

The aim of the Great British Class Survey project was to understand the landscape of class and stratification in contemporary Great Britain. It was a joint project between the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Lab UK, BBC Current Affairs, and a team of academic researchers. The BBC initiated the research as part of an interest in exploring class dynamics in the UK in a new way, both theoretically and methodologically. Theoretically, the set of questions was inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's 'capitals' approach to social stratification; thus many questions are similar or identical to those in the Culture, Class, and Social Exclusion survey carried out by some of the academic team in 2003-2005. Methodologically, the GBCS was primarily carried out online, and included an interactive component as well as integration into social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The survey was widely publicized by the BBC, and completed by 326,712 respondents - 298,571 of them in the UK. Because the GBCS was a non-representative, non-random-sample survey, respondents were disproportionately university-educated and higher-income, paralleling the demographics of BBC viewership. A representative sample survey with identical questions was also carried out by the research firm GfK in order to facilitate comparison between GBCS respondents and the population of the UK as a whole.

The GBCS web survey is no longer online, but the BBC 'Class Calculator', derived from the initial analysis of the survey, is available.

Any internet was the most used platform for news consumption in the United Kingdom among all nations in 2024. However, television was also a very popular choice and could soon overtake internet as the main news source. Meanwhile, social media was more popular in Scotland and England than in Wales or Northern Ireland. Where do TV audiences get their news? BBC One remained the most popular TV news channel in the UK that year, with an audience reach of ** percent. BBC One, which is part of the television service portfolio of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), has held the lion’s share of TV news watching hours in the UK for over a decade. Online news platforms are stealing the show While television remains the leading news source among adults, younger audiences primarily turn to the internet for news consumption. According to a recent survey, almost ** percent of UK news consumers between the ages of 18 to 24 considered the internet their leading news platform, and as of 2020, roughly ** percent of the UK population read or downloaded news content online. Among those who got their news coverage from online sources, BBC News stood out as the leading online news brand accessed in the UK that year.

In the year ending March 31, 2025, the BBC saw an income of approximately *** billion British pounds. Of this, **** billion British pounds were attributed to the license fees paid by UK households. The BBC is a cornerstone of the British TV industry, with BBC 1 being used weekly by roughly ** percent of the population. BBC iPlayer In July 2007, the BBC launched its on demand internet service, the iPlayer. Today, the platform is seeing weekly viewing times of over *** million minutes. Landmark series such as Blue Planet II, saw almost **** million requests on the platform for its first episode. Viewership The BBC is the most popular broadcaster in terms of viewers in the UK. In july 2025, the BBC had an audience share more than *** percent higher than the next largest broadcaster. The BBC 1 channel alone, had a quarterly reach of approximately ** million in the third quarter of 2019.

This statistic displays the time audiences spent weekly consuming BBC news, national and local radio services in the United Kingdom (UK) from fiscal year 2015/16 to 2019/20. In the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020, the most time was spent listening to BBC Radio Cymru, at 11 hours and 37 minutes a week.

In the United Kingdom, in the third quarter of 2019, Sky news had roughly 12.6 million viewers. This is more or less stable and in line with figures from other quarters over the last year. However, it is a significantly lower number of viewers compared to figures from the start of the decade. In the fourth quarter of 2012, Sky news had almost 18.8 million viewers.

TV news competitors

Sky news isn’t the only news channel with decreasing numbers of viewers. BBC news has also seen a fall in viewing figures over the last decade. Although, they are still outperforming Sky news, with over 18 million viewers a quarter.

The Sky news story

Sky News is a relatively new news broadcast network, which was first released in 1989 under the Fox Network. The network is broadcast worldwide apart from in New Zealand and Australia. It provides information to its customers through a variety of medium such as mobile and internet broadcasts. The slogan for the network is 'First for breaking news'.

The leading TV news channel in the United Kingdom remains BBC One, with ** percent of respondents to a survey saying they used it for news. ITV1 ranked second (including ITV Wales, STV, and UTV), whereas Channel 5 and BBC Two were less popular.

The TV news channel with the highest reach in the United Kingdom in 2019 was BBC News. With **** million viewers reached in the *********************, BBC News outperformed Sky News by *** million. Behind these two main news channels came Sky Sports News, which had a reach of *** million in the same period.

TV news - the big picture

News was only the sixth most popular television genre in the UK in 2019, with entertainment taking the top spot. This could explain why out of the leading 20 TV channels in terms of reach in the UK in 2019, none of them were dedicated to news.

Online news brands

With so much news being consumed online these days, it is also worth finding out what the leading online news brands are in the UK. As of February 2019, BBC News online was accessed by ** percent of all respondents in an online survey.

The Independent had a monthly audience of over 28.1 million individuals from April 2019 to March 2020 in the United Kingdom. Reach was higher among adults over the age of 35 than for the 15 to 35 age group, with 19.2 million and 8.9 million readers respectively. The Independent on the internet

The Independent was established as a broadsheet paper in 1986 but after 30 years it stopped printed editions and is now an online only news publisher. However, it was not in the top ten most accessed online news brands in the UK in 2019, being placed 15th on a list topped by BBC News online.

Online news popularity

In a 2019 survey in the UK, it was revealed that the most popular printed or online newspaper (in terms of people holding a positive opinion of the paper) was the Metro. The Independent was seventh most popular with a positivity rating of 28 percent.

Readers of The Guardian were more likely to be women, with nearly 15 million monthly female readers in the United Kingdom from April 2019 to March 2020. Readership of The Guardian proved to be more popular among older adults than younger ones. Throughout the period observed, approximately 18.5 million individuals over 35 years old read The Guardian, either on print or online.

Reach for The Sun

The tabloid newspaper The Sun saw the highest reach on 2019, with The Guardian as the sixth highest. Compared to other online news brands in the UK, BBC News online was by far the most popular, followed by the Mail online. The Guardian online was the third most popular online news brand as of February 2019.

Accessing the news online

More and more people access news online these days, with the main way of accessing online news? via smartphone. A 2019 survey revealed that half of users prefer smartphones to access news online.

In 2020, a year after the sitcom Gavin and Stacey dominated the list of most viewed television programs in the United Kingdom, the "Prime Ministerial Statement" of Boris Johnson emerged as the most viewed TV program . Its viewer count totaled nearly 19 million, outstripping reality shows "BBC News Special" and "I'm A Celebrity..." in second and third places by a wide margin of nearly 5 million individuals.

TV ownership in the United Kingdom

The number of adults who own a digital TV in the United Kingdom has increased over the years, with 94 percent in 2019 owning one. Unsurprisingly, the percentage of individuals who did was lower among 16 to 24 year olds but only by a marginal 3 percent. Over 55 year olds as a group had the highest percentage of TV ownership overall. By 2019, TV in the United Kingdom had a higher reach among women and children than men.

The future of broadcast TV advertising

In 2019, television advertising prices were forecasted to continue increasing until 2020. This hasn’t been an indication of growth however, as broadcast TV has been steadily loosing its audience due to the rise of video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, as well as the increasing popularity of YouTube. In a survey run from 2017 to 2019, viewing time decreased year by year for live TV, as more and more viewership time is being spent on video-on-demand platforms, YouTube, and catch-up-TV. This decline of live TV is also reflected in the reduction of broadcast TV commercial reach, which was dropped since 2016with fewer and fewer viewers watching ads in their entirety each year.

During the third quarter of 2024, internet users in the United Kingdom (UK) spent an average over five and a half hours per day accessing the internet via any device. UK online audiences spent approximately * hour and ** minutes per day on social media, while an additional ** minutes were devoted to using a gaming console daily. Traditional media - is usage declining? Some forms of traditional media in the country are in decline more than others when it comes to usage, which is especially visible in the case of TV. In recent years the number of TV households in the UK has remained fairly unchanged; however, the time spent watching television has been constantly decreasing. Interestingly, radio listenership has not followed this trend. Digital radio format usage is growing as per some studies. Yet, live radio dominates the time spent with any audio in the UK by a large margin.British radio is a showcase for the loyalty of its fans. In mid-2023, after 30 years of employment at BBC, Ken Bruce, one of the highest-earning presenters of the company, left to work at a rival radio station. He took both of his signature programs to his new employer. Even though BBC Radio 2 remains the leading radio station in the UK by audience numbers, Bruce’s departure meant a loss of * million listeners for the BBC between the first and second quarters of 2023.

In July 2025, the BBC released annual information regarding employees’ salaries. Sports presenter Gary Lineker was the highest paid BBC employee, with an approximate income of 1.35 million British pounds. This was followed by radio presenter Zoe Ball, with her pay at roughly half a billion British pounds. Ken Bruce – the power of loyal fans In mid-2023, after 30 years of employment at BBC, Ken Bruce, one of the highest-earning presenters of the company, left to work at a rival radio station. Bruce is known for his mellow presenting style and a trademarked Popmaster music quiz. He took both to his new employer. Even though BBC Radio 2 remains the leading radio station in the UK by audience numbers, Bruce’s departure meant a loss of a million listeners for the BBC between the first and second quarters of 2023. It is reported that these fans followed Bruce to his new mid-morning show on Greatest Hits Radio. In general, the BBC runs national UK radio stations, as well as multiple regional and local radio services. The share of all BBC radio stations in the total listening time in the UK is just over 50 percent. BBC Radio 4 has always taken up the largest share of the corporation’s spending on radio programming, while Radio 5 live and Radio 2 follow suit. BBC – sources of income The majority of BBC’s income comes from the license fee. It is a tax which must be paid by each household in the UK in order to receive live television programming, stream online TV via the internet, or watch BBC programs on iPlayer. In 2023 the cost of the fee was 159 British pounds. More than 65 percent of the company’s income is attributed to this funding. The remainder of BBC income and revenue consists of commercial (mainly BBC Worldwide) income and Grant-in-Aid for World Service income. In total, BBC’s revenue from TV business and offerings surpassed 20 billion British pounds in 2022.

In a survey conducted between January and February 2023, Channels TV, a Nigerian 24-hour news TV channel, achieved a reach of 48 percent in terms of its weekly usage in Nigeria. This made it the leading offline news brand in Nigeria. Moreover, the usage reach per week stood at 47 percent for The Punch, a Nigerian newspaper, and 42 percent for BBC (TV and radio).

During the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, a total of **** million viewers tuned into the BBC's TV coverage of the competition in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, there were a total of *** million streams on BBC Sport.