credit, playback / twitter
- author, Paul Glenn
- roll, BBC News Entertainment correspondent
Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, said the network would change the newly placed badge on the BBC account from “government-funded media” to “publicly funded” media.
In an interview with BBC News, the businessman said the network is “trying to be accurate”. Musk bought the platform for US$40 billion (208 billion R$) in October 2022.
The BBC has rejected the badge that the platform has added to its account. “NBC is, and always will be, independent,” the company said.
“We are funded by the British public through license fees (TV license fees charged to the public specifically to fund the BBC, read more below).
Musk said he “knows the BBC isn’t happy with the state media corporation” in an interview with the BBC’s North America correspondent James Clayton on Tuesday in San Francisco.
“If we used the same words the BBC uses to describe themselves, that would be fine in theory,” he said. “I actually have a lot of respect for the BBC.”
The BBC said it “welcomes any such move”.
Twitter also used the same “government-funded” description of US public radio station NPR, which also declined the label. On Wednesday, the broadcaster said it would no longer publish new content on the platform.
The BBC objected to the use of a “government-funded” stamp on its homepage. Clicking on the poster takes the user to a page that defines “government-funded media” as media in which “the government may have varying degrees of involvement in editorial content”.
As a public broadcaster in the United Kingdom, the BBC has its operating rules described in a royal charter agreed with the country.
The BBC’s charter states that a broadcaster “shall be independent”, particularly in “editorial and creative decisions”, “business management”, schedules and “the manner in which its production and services are delivered”.
On Sunday, the BBC urged Twitter to fix the issue “as soon as possible”. The seal has not been changed at the time this text was published.
Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022
How is the BBC funded?
The BBC raised 3.8 billion pounds sterling (about R$23 billion) in 2022 with licensing fees, the TV license fee, which equals about 71% of the broadcaster’s total revenue, which was 5.3 billion pounds.
The remainder of the budget came from commercial activities and other activities such as donations, royalties and rents.
The broadcaster’s production is also paid for by the work of commercial affiliates such as BBC Studios, as well as by advertising for services to audiences outside the UK.
The BBC also receives more than £90m a year from the government to fund the World Service (the international division, of which BBC News Brasil is a part), which mostly serves audiences outside the UK.
By law, every household in the UK must pay a license fee (with certain exceptions) if:
- Watch or record programs when they are shown on any TV channel;
- Watch shows live or stream them on any streaming service – for example, All 4, YouTube or Amazon Prime Video;
- Watch or download any BBC program on BBC iPlayer.
Licensing fees and determination of exemptions are collected by the private companies the company has contracted with, not by the UK government.
Failure to pay the television license itself is not punishable by imprisonment. However, failure to pay the fine, following a criminal conviction, could result in the risk of imprisonment – a “last resort” if other methods of enforcement do not work.
