Government response

Television licensing and content

Encouraging strong, high-quality broadcasting.

• From: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport and Ed Vaizey
• Published: 28 January 2013

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

TV Licensing

Administration and enforcement of the television licensing system is the responsibility of the BBC, which operates independently of Government.

Day-to-day administration and enforcement of licence fees is undertaken by TV Licensing, which acts as agents for the Corporation.

TV content

Government does not intervene in programme matters, neither on arrangements for broadcast scheduling nor on content.

Ofcom, the BBC Trust and S4C are independent of the Government and responsible for safeguarding the public interest in broadcasting. They set out the rules and guidance with which broadcasters must comply.

Within this framework, broadcasters make judgements about what individual programmes should contain and the time at which they are broadcast.

Contact

If there are BBC programmes you are concerned about, convey your views to:

BBC Audience Services
PO Box 1922
Darlington DL3 0UR

• Contact the BBC via its online form
• Telephone: 03700 100 222

What DCMS do

• set the licence fee, which funds the BBC
• encourage strong public service broadcasting, of high quality and variety

Further information

• Ofcom
• BBC Trust
• S4C
• TV Licensing
• What we do: broadcasting

Published 28 January 2013