UK Music, the umbrella body for the British music industry, has launched Our BBC: Our Music, a campaign asking the government for “a firm commitment on funding” for the BBC before its Royal Charter expires on December 31, 2027. Its core number: 77% of the 140,076 works BBC radio played in 2025 were not played on commercial radio.
The campaign was set out in an essay by UK Music chief executive Tom Kiehl on October 7, then launched in Parliament on Monday, October 19, at an event hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Music. Elbow's Guy Garvey spoke, and Imogen And The Knife, Sheku Kanneh-Mason and The Anchoress played.
What is Our BBC: Our Music asking for?
Money that stops shrinking. In his essay, Kiehl wrote that the BBC has faced real terms funding cuts, a 24% fall in licence fee income since 2016-17, and a plan to cut its workforce by 10% over three years. “Without a firm commitment on funding from the government, the music we love is at risk,” he wrote.
In Parliament he put it more bluntly.
We may have a guitar-playing Prime Minister, who displays records in his office and gives off Radio 6 dad vibes, but in this time of economic uncertainty, we cannot solely provide goodwill in order to secure the beauty of music.Tom Kiehl, UK Music, speaking in Parliament (via NME)
Why does the BBC matter so much to new artists?
Because its licence requires it to play them. Radio 1's operating licence with Ofcom, quoted in Kiehl's essay, says at least 45% of its daytime music must come from UK acts and at least 50% must be new music, “of which a significant proportion must come from new and emerging UK artists.” Kiehl argues that this public service remit lets the BBC platform a breadth of music commercial stations are unable to match.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 174,571 unique tracks on BBC UK-network music stations, vs 148,948 across commercial music-led stations (PPL) |
| 2025 | Each BBC music-led station played over 6x more unique tracks than the average commercial one (PPL, per UK Music) |
| Weekly | Radio 1 reaches 8 million people (Lorna Clarke, BBC Director of Music) |
| 2016-17 on | Licence fee income down 24% (UK Music) |
The pipeline under those numbers is BBC Introducing, which Kiehl said performs an essential part of the R&D function of the £8 billion music industry, one “that simply does not exist in the commercial sector.” It has already been squeezed: in 2023 local Introducing shows were cut from 32 to 20, and this summer the BBC Introducing Stage at Reading & Leeds was axed after 18 years, a stage that, NME notes, hosted Ed Sheeran, Dave, Charli XCX and Raye before they broke.
A commercial playlist answers to the ad market. The BBC's answers to a licence that says half the daytime music has to be new.
Garvey gave the human version. Elbow's first record deal, he said, came after John Peel played “Powder Blue” on the radio. “If that play from John Peel was the only thing that had ever happened to my band, I'd be telling grandchildren about it. But as it stands, I owe everything to the BBC, as we all do.”
When does the BBC Charter get decided?
The clock is set by the government's green paper, Britain's Story: The Next Chapter, published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on December 16, 2025. Its public consultation closed on March 10, 2026, and the department says it is still analysing the feedback. The current Charter expires on December 31, 2027, and the new one takes effect on January 1, 2028.
The paper itself flags the risk that the BBC “would cease to exist at midnight on 31 December 2027” if the Charter lapsed unreplaced, and raises a permanent Charter as an option. It also lays out the funding squeeze: the licence fee, £174.50 a year, brought in £3.8 billion in 2024/25, while licensed households fell from 26.2 million in 2017/18 to 23.8 million.
Ian Murray, Minister of State at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, told the room the government's objective was “to establish a fair, sustainable funding model” and “to give a permanent charter to protect its future,” tying the campaign to its push on secondary ticketing and a £1 arena ticket levy for grassroots venues. “We don't just want the BBC to survive. We want it to thrive,” he said.
Warm words are not a settlement, which is Kiehl's point. The Charter has to be settled within 14 months. For a new UK artist, the question is whether the one broadcaster obliged to play them still has the money to do it in 2028.