POLL OF THE DAY: Should the BBC licence fee be scrapped?

Published: 12:00, 15 July 2026 | Updated: 12:27, 15 July 2026 The number of households paying for a television licence fell by half a million last year – a drop of 2.5million since 2019. It came as a series of scandals rocked the BBC, whose chairman Samir Shah has admitted the backlash from high-profile errors had damaged public trust. These included misleading editing of a Donald Trump speech, the son of a Hamas official narrating a Gaza documentary and allowing anti-Semitic chants to be broadcast during its Glastonbury coverage. A TV licence is required to watch or record live television on any channel, or to watch or download programmes on BBC iPlayer. And it covers not only televisions but also viewing on computers and phones. Figures revealed that 23.3million licences were bought in the 2025/26 financial year, down from 25.9million in 2018/19. The BBC also admitted it is being deserted by viewers who instead use streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+, with the number of households declaring that they did not need a licence increasing in the year by 62,000 to a total of 3.7 million. Now it's time to have your say in the Daily Mail's latest poll - should the licence fee be scrapped? In yesterday's poll, Mail readers were asked: 'Should police be investigated after insisting Ann Widdecombe's murder was not linked to terrorism?' Out of more than 8,000 votes, 82 per cent of you said 'yes' and 18 per cent said 'no'.