BBC reaches record audience digitally
Delivering value for all
Digital consumption of BBC content significantly increased this year with nearly 10% more requests on BBC iPlayer, and the platform was the UK's fastest-growing long-form video-on-demand service in 2024/25.
Programming which drove audiences to the BBC included The Traitors, Race Across the World, Gavin and Stacey: The Finale, the Men's Euros, the Olympic Games in Paris, the Proms, award winning podcasts such as Miss Me?, and in News, our General Election coverage.
Trust in BBC News went up year-on-year in 2024/25, and the BBC News app is now the number one news app in the UK for monthly reach. Meanwhile, our fact-checking service BBC Verify expanded its operations and is now the most likely service of its kind to be used by UK adults.
Our 6.30pm regional news programmes remain the UK's most watched news programme.
Samir Shah, BBC Chair, says: "This year has shown that the BBC and the public service values it stands for are more important than ever to our audiences and the UK as a whole.
"As we look towards Charter Review, the Board and I are determined to work on behalf of audiences to secure an independent, universal public service BBC for generations to come.'
Tim Davie, BBC Director-General, says: "I am proud of the outstanding value we have delivered for audiences this year and the speed at which we are transforming the organisation to meet the challenges of a fast-changing media landscape.
"This report demonstrates the importance of the BBC and the vital role we play in helping to strengthen the UK's democracy, economy, and society, now and in the years to come."
Finance and commercial
The vast majority of homes have a TV Licence - with 23.8 million TV Licences in force, generating an income of £3.8 billion.
BBC Commercial delivered record sales of £2.2 billion while BBC Studios, the main commercial arm, delivered its fourth successive year of EBITDA in excess of £200m. Despite this success, this is not enough to plug the gap left by a licence fee that generates 30% less income for the BBC now than it did in 2010/11, as well as rising costs across the production sector.
In response to these financial challenges, we have made further progress towards our £700 million annual recurring savings target by March 2028, achieving total savings of £564 million since 2022/23.
Transformation for the future
As part of our savings plans, we have transformed operationally this year to ensure we can provide the services audiences want in the future.
By March 2025, we had delivered a net 400 reduction of public service posts including the closure of around 900 roles. This has enabled reinvestment into 400 new roles, 200 of which are in our Product department, to enable delivery of exceptional digital services for audiences.
We are working hard to transform the BBC through cutting-edge technology and AI driven innovation. We have already used Generative AI to increase the value we offer audiences with initiatives such as adding subtitles to programmes on BBC Sounds, and we continue to look at ways we can use AI to transform our digital offer, in line with our published principles.
Ahead of Charter Review, we have launched our biggest ever public engagement exercise to find out what audiences want from the BBC. Our questionnaire has gathered over 870,000 responses from across the UK. The findings and next steps will be published later this year.
Culture
In April, in the wake of shocking revelations about Huw Edwards as well as several further cases of inappropriate behaviours and abuses of power, we published a Workplace Culture Review. It found no evidence of a toxic culture at the BBC, but in a series of detailed findings and recommendations it highlighted key areas for improvement which we are implementing at pace.
In further efforts to make the BBC a great place to work and to ensure we can authentically reflect and represent audiences at home, we updated our Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging plans in March. Our refreshed strategy brings together our creative diversity and workplace diversity plans for the first time and includes a new workplace disability goal of 14% staff to include deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people.
Read the BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25
Download the BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25 as a PDF
Further Report highlights which support the BBC's three key roles include:
Pursue truth with no agenda
74% of UK adults use BBC News on average per week – well ahead of the next nearest provider
36% of 12–15-year-olds in the UK follow the news with the BBC, which is higher than any other organisation
The BBC is carrying the UK's voice, values, and influence to a weekly audience of 453 million people worldwide
More than eight in ten UK adults came to the BBC for UK General Election results coverage across all platforms, putting the BBC way ahead of the competition
Nearly one year in, Newsnight's reformatting has proven a success with audiences. The seven-day average audience has increased by just over a third across all channels, and by nearly 70% on iPlayer alone
Back the best homegrown storytelling
As the single largest investor in original UK content, we contributed almost £5 billion to the UK economy last year, and for every £1 of the BBC's direct economic activity, £2.63 is generated in the UK economy
Our focus on homegrown storytelling has been an essential point of difference between the BBC and global media providers in 2024/25, leading to accolades for shows like Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, Mr Loverman, Industry, The Jetty, Ludwig, and Inside No. 9, as well as major awards for Horrible Histories and Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
At the heart of our offer are the shows firmly rooted in the distinctive nations and regions of the UK, such as Lost Boys and Fairies, Shetland, Sherwood, and Blue Lights
More than 60% of the BBC's network TV budget is spent in the nations and regions. Hit drama Blue Lights boosted the Northern Ireland economy by £20 million across the first two series
Bring people together
21 million watched Gavin & Stacey: The Finale, in the 28 days from the first broadcast on Christmas Day in 2024. On Christmas Day itself, 10/10 of the most watched shows on UK television were on the BBC
Nearly three quarters of the population engaged with our Summer of Sport coverage, from the Olympic Games to Men's Euros and Wimbledon
The BBC's radio stations remained the UK's favourites and at the heart of national life, with BBC Radio 2 listened to by more than any other station
Our digital-first approach is transforming BBC Local's online news services. The last two years has seen average weekly traffic grow by 33%, and BBC Local online news stories now represent almost 30% of all news stories read on the BBC News website and app
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