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The BBC licence fee is set to increase towards £200 while the number of paying households plunges by nearly 5%.

Official forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility show the annual charge – currently £174.50 – could rise to just under £197 by the end of the decade if it continues tracking inflation, reports MirrorOnline.

At the same time, the number of fee-payers is projected to drop by more than one million, dropping to around 21 million, as viewers turn to streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

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The crisis has been boosted by mounting evasion and cancellations.

The BBC lost ov

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