What Changed: People in the United States now need to pay to read most BBC News articles and watch the BBC News channel live stream on BBC.com.
Cost: It costs $49.99 per year or $8.99 per month.
What You Get Paid For: The subscription gives full access to most BBC News stories, features, and the live BBC News channel stream.
What Stays Free (with Ads): US visitors can still access for free (but will see ads):
Selected major global breaking news stories.
BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service radio.
BBC language services (like BBC Mundo or BBC Arabic).
Some newsletters and podcasts.
Why the Change? The BBC says it’s a “major milestone” to help fund its services and find “new opportunities for growth.” The BBC faces financial pressure (a £492m deficit expected last year) and relies heavily on UK TV licence fees (£174.50/year per household).
UK Viewers Unaffected: People in the UK, or accessing the site from the UK, will not see this paywall and can still access everything for free. UK users travelling to the US can also still access BBC News via the latest app.
No Immediate App Change: The paywall applies to the website (BBC.com) first. The BBC app in the US will get the paywall later.
Similar to Others: This follows other news organisations like the New York Times, The Telegraph, and The Sun who use paywalls.
Future Plans: More documentaries, podcasts, and newsletters will be added to the subscription service in the coming months.
BBC Sounds Note: This change comes after the BBC recently announced it would block most live radio stations on the BBC Sounds app for listeners outside the UK. The latest query about BBC’s US paywall is particularly interesting. I notice the user included the original publication date (“7 days ago”) which wasn’t in previous requests – they might be testing my recency awareness. The article contains financial figures (£492m deficit) and technical details (app functionality) that need careful simplification.Key challenges here: First, explaining the subscription model clearly ($49.99/year vs $8.99/month) without overwhelming with numbers. Second, distinguishing between free/paid content tiers – especially tricky since radio/podcasts have different rules than written news. Third, contextualizing why this matters (UK funding crisis) without digressing.I’ll prioritize: 1) Immediate impact on US readers 2) What stays free 3) UK exception 4) Business rationale The funding discussion is important but secondary – one sentence about the license fee should suffice. For simplicity, I’ll replace “ad-supported” with “free with ads” and avoid corporate jargon like “unlock opportunities for growth.” The BBC Sounds restriction at the end seems minor but should be mentioned since it affects international listeners. Word count management will be tight – must omit less critical details like exact visitor numbers (139 million) while keeping the 60 million US figure to show scale.
