BBC Radio 2 DJ gets paid over £1.3 million a year but pensioners have to pay for the TV licence.
This is how much Zoe Ball got paid to present her Radio 2 breakfast show in 2019/20. Pensioners under 75 have to pay the TV license. People over 75 do not have to pay for a TV licence if either they or a partner they live with receive Pension Credit, which could be as many as 1.5 million households.
A post on Facebook that’s been shared over 27,000 times claims that a BBC Radio 2 DJ gets paid over £1.3 million a year but pensioners have to pay for the TV licence.
It’s correct that Radio 2 DJ Zoe Ball was paid between £1,360,000 and £1,364,999 for presenting around 210 editions of her breakfast show on the station in 2019/20. This does not include payment for other BBC work, such as presenting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two.
In 2019, it was announced that TV licences would no longer be free for all those aged over 75. Pensioners under the age of 75 have always had to pay the TV license.
The TV licence costs £157.50 per household annually and is the fee for watching live TV as well as on demand and catch-up through BBC iPlayer in the UK.
Some people over the age of 75 will still be eligible for a free TV licence, however. If you are 75 or older and either you, or your partner living at the same address, receives Pension Credit, you are eligible.
When the BBC announced this scheme in 2019, it estimated that around 1.5 million households could be eligible, which was about a third of those who were eligible for free licenses because of their age before the rules changed.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because although the DJ payment figure is true, not all pensioners have to pay for a TV licence.
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