Our audiences

At the heart of our performance in 2025/26 is our commitment is to be a BBC for all – reaching and representing all audiences across the UK. Continuing to bring people together through trusted, high-quality content that reflects the full range of experiences across the UK, whilst adapting to changing audience needs.

This commitment is reflected in how audiences value and use the BBC. Almost three-quarters of UK adults (73%) say that the BBC is "for all" – more than any other media provider. The BBC is also seen as the most important media provider in the UK, considered as such by 74% of UK adults and rated highest across all age groups.

In the fast-changing media landscape, the BBC also continues to be a universal service for the UK. On average per day, 34 million UK adults use BBC services, rising to 45 million per week and then 52 million – 94% – per month, underlining our continued relevance in UK life. With 81% of UK adults coming to us on average per week in 2025/26, we remained the UK’s most used brand for media overall. And, at almost 15 hours per head per week on average, UK adults also spent more time with us than with any other media brand.

As well as being the UK’s number one brand for media overall, the BBC leads in the UK video, audio and news markets – but we need to continue to adapt to ensure we are accessible to all, to remain for all.

In the video market, audiences overall continue to spend more hours with BBC TV than any other provider in 2025/26, including more than Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime combined. In 2025/26, The Celebrity Traitors was the most watched programme in the UK, and we also showed the number one drama, comedy, documentary and sports titles of the year.

In the audio market, BBC Radio continued to be the market leader with almost 31 million adults listening on average per week – more than any other broadcast radio company or online player.

And in the news market, BBC News was the most used source in the UK, reaching 72% of adults on average per week in 2025/26, well ahead of the next nearest provider.

However, whilst market leading, usage of BBC TV, Radio and News fell year-on-year in 2025/26 amongst adults overall, especially the young, amidst intense competition.

Amongst young audiences, the BBC is their biggest broadcaster and by an increasing margin with the BBC down less than the rest of the broadcaster market since 2022/23 (when consistent measurement began). However, they now spend three-quarters of their video time with global video sharing platforms (44% of all video time) and video-on-demand services (at a record 31% of video time), ahead of all broadcasters (25%). And in 2025/26, young adults spent two hours a week more listening to music streaming and podcasts than they spent listening to any radio.

These trends are also ingrained in the media behaviour of audiences aged 35+, with this age group now driving most growth in video sharing and streaming.

Our overall digital performance, however, continues to climb. Online, the BBC is the only UK audience brand consistently in the top ten – the sole UK entry amongst global providers. In the average week in 2025/26, a record 35 million of the 45 million adults that came to the BBC used our online services – continuing our journey to stay universal in an online-only world. In February with the Winter Olympics, a record 68% of UK adults used BBC Online on average per week – pushing close to our ambition of reaching seven in ten UK adults online on average per week by the end of the Charter in 2028.

To remain a BBC for all, we need to continue to adapt how and where we serve audiences. As part of our Value for All strategy, we have committed to reach audiences beyond the BBC, to reinvent the audience experience and to engage future generations. A new partnership with YouTube announced this year will help ensure more BBC content is accessible to audiences wherever they are.

All but one of the audience performance goals that were set for 2025/26 have been achieved.

We met our universality ambition for the breadth of relationship we have with the UK public, with more than nine in ten UK adults using BBC services on average per month in 2025/26 and over eight in ten on average per week. 

In measuring the depth of relationship we have with audiences, we hit our targets for both the regularity and length of interaction but were just below target on the proportion of people engaging with our content across two or more modes of delivery.

For BBC Online overall, 2025/26 was another record year. We met our target for the proportion of adults using BBC Online, up on 2024/25. With performance at best-ever levels, we exceeded our goals for the overall number of accounts accessing BBC Online and BBC iPlayer and especially so for BBC News online content. And we met our BBC Sounds ambition.

Amongst under 16s, 69% used BBC services on average per week in 2025/26, and half of under 16s used our Children’s/Education services in the average week – both at the top end of their target ranges. Over the past three years, our performance on these metrics amongst under 16s overall has been broadly steady – though beneath this, improvements amongst 7-12 year olds have offset falls amongst the under 7s with YouTube as their biggest provider.

Amongst 16-34s, 63% used BBC services on average per week in 2025/26. Whilst within its target range, this has been declining each year since 2021/22. In particular, we want to achieve more growth in BBC Online amongst this audience – the proportion of 16-34 users has been falling, and in 2025/26 accounts belonging to under 35s that access BBC Online and BBC iPlayer on average per week were down versus 2024/25 with its calendar of big events. In terms of perceptions, 16-34s’ rating of the personal relevance of the BBC was on target for the year – though we would also like to improve this score.

Despite the challenges in young performance, the BBC remains the only UK provider in their top five brands for media, amidst the competition from global providers. As young people already spend one third of their total video time with YouTube alone, our new off-platform focus will help us to serve these audiences better in the year ahead. We will be considering the recently proposed social media ban in more detail in the coming year.

The UK public continues to support the BBC’s mission and public purposes, but we know there is more we need to do.

Looking at perceptions of the BBC, we saw the impact of reputational challenges and fewer big events in 2025/26 with drops in opinion versus 2024/25. However, the public’s perspective on the role of the BBC remains positive, with 83% of the 872,701 account holders who responded to the Our BBC, Our Future questionnaire (detailed in full in the following section) saying it is important for the BBC’s mission to continue in the future.

In terms of our value to audiences, adults’ average rating of value for money stayed at five out of ten. The user cost of each hour of BBC consumption was 8 pence on average in 2025/26, lower than at the start of the Charter in 2017/18 at 9 pence in today’s prices (adjusted for inflation).

In 2025/26, 65% of UK adults overall rated the BBC as effective in delivering its mission this year (14% said ineffective), rising to 68% in licence fee paying households (14% ineffective). (Ipsos UK, 4,205 UK adults 16+, October 2025-February 2026. Average score across informing, educating and entertaining people in the UK and them.) Across all audience groups regardless of age, gender, socio-economic group, ethnic origin and geography, the largest number of people continue to feel that we have delivered our mission.

There is more we need to do to lessen differences in how well we reflect different people, world views and parts of the UK.

The results for this year’s survey on delivery of the mission and public purposes show we need to make more improvement in narrowing the gap in satisfaction levels amongst audiences from less well-off backgrounds, and also amongst Black, Asian and minority ethnic audiences and people who are disabled.

In terms of our performance around the UK, consumption of our nations, regions and portrayal content is high – in the average week in 2025/26, this content was consumed by 33 million of the 45 million people who used BBC services. We are concentrated on reducing differences that exist in different parts of the UK in perceptions of portrayal, and have seen improvement, especially in Scotland this year.

The recent independent thematic review on portrayal and representation made a number of recommendations that we have committed to act upon to improve how we represent and portray audiences.

Turning to perceptions of impartiality, we continue to be rated by the UK public as the number one provider doing most to offer fact-checked, accurate reporting and content that people can trust. However, following a better year for perceptions in 2024/25, figures were down in 2025/26 with impartiality challenges during the year, to levels similar to 2023/24, a year also impacted by reputational issues.

We are working to improve impartiality perceptions – an area also raised in the Our BBC, Our Future questionnaire. At a time when over 80% of UK adults are concerned about fake news and images online, it is ever more important that we strive to offer a place where all people feel they can come for accurate reporting and where they feel different views are reflected objectively.

As we consider how the BBC serves all in the future, we are developing plans to respond to audience concerns, address priorities raised in the Our BBC, Our Future questionnaire and adapt to the changing media landscape.

Reflecting on what the UK public has told us, we are focused on serving all through a broad range of content and greater representation of different parts of the UK in our output. We want to continue to help people spot misinformation and AI-generated content online. And we are working to respond to needs at both ends of the media experience – to help children and teens use AI safely in their learning and to help ensure no-one is left behind in a digital world. We want to be more transparent and accountable to audiences in how we listen, respond and make decisions.

As we look ahead, audience voices are at the core of our plans to shape the future of a BBC for all.

How important or unimportant would you say each of the following media providers is to the people of the UK?

(Source: Yonder, 1,050 UK adults 18+)

Performance against 2025/26 audience targets

Ensure universality and the delivery of value to audiences overall

The universality of the BBC

• 94% of UK adults 16+ use BBC TV/iPlayer, Radio or Online on average per month (Target 90% plus, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK)
• 81% of UK adults 16+ use BBC TV/iPlayer, Radio or Online on average per week (Target 80% plus, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK 81%

A valued habit with the BBC

• 61% of UK adults 16+ use the BBC for 5+ days on average per week (Target 60-65%, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK)
• 50% of UK adults 16+ use the BBC for 5+ hours on average per week (Target circa 50%, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK)
• 59% of UK adults 16+ use two or more BBC modes on average per week (Target circa 60%, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK)

Maintain focus on key audience challenges

Young adults

The reach of the BBC

• 63% of UK 16-34s use BBC TV/iPlayer, Radio or Online on average per week (Target 60 to 70%, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK)

Personal relevance

• 6 out of 10 UK 16-34s’ who feel ‘the BBC is for me’ - mean score out of 10 (Target 6 plus out of 10, Source: Kantar Media 6 out of 10)

Under 16s

The reach of the BBC

• 69% of UK under 16s who use BBC TV/iPlayer, Radio or Online on average per week (Target 65 to 70%, Source: Kids Cross-Media Insight by Ipsos UK)

The reach of BBC Children’s/Education services

• 50% of UK under 16s use BBC Children’s/Education services on average per week (Target 45 to 50%, Source: Kids Cross-Media Insight by Ipsos UK)

Prioritise online reach and engagement central to the BBC’s future universality

BBC Online overall

• 63% of UK adults use BBC Online on average per week (Target 60 to 65%, Source: Compass by Ipsos UK 63%)
• 24.1 million average weekly active accounts* using BBC Online (Target 23.5 to 24 million plus, Source: Piano Analytics)

* People can set up accounts to access BBC digital products, either individually or shared with other members of their household. Average weekly active accounts is the number of UK accounts or profiles that visited a BBC digital product in a sign-in state on average per week.

BBC iPlayer

• 15.4 million average weekly active accounts using BBC iPlayer – Accounts overall (Target 15 million plus, Source: Piano Analytics)
• 4.1 million average weekly active accounts using BBC iPlayer – Under 35 accounts (Target 4 to 4.5 million, Source: Piano Analytics)
• 89 minutes - BBC iPlayer average weekly time spent per head per week (Target 80 minutes plus, Source: BARB As Viewed. All devices)

BBC Sounds

• 4.85 million average weekly active accounts using BBC Sounds – Accounts overall (Target 4.8 million plus, Source: Piano Analytics)

BBC News

• 11.3 million average weekly active accounts using BBC News cross-product – Accounts overall (Target 10 million plus, Source: Piano Analytics)