Britons are ditching TV licences in droves because you don't need one to watch streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime

MPs want annual £147 licence fee, increased by £1.50 in April, to be dropped
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the licence fee 'model' was 'out of date'
Figures show 788,605 people snubbed the BBC, cancelling their licence in 2017
Netflix, which has a subscription-based model, topped 100m subscribers in July

Published: 14:02 GMT, 19 December 2017 | Updated: 01:29 GMT, 20 December 2017

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Millions of Britons have ditched their TV licences in favour of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Figures show 788,605 people cancelled their licence in 2017 as they shunned the BBC and tuned in via their smart TVs and tablets.

Netflix surpassed 100 million global subscribers in July, with nearly 5million signing up during the first three months of the year.

Millions of Britons have ditched their TV licences in favour of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime

The service, which has run on a subscription based-model since its inception 10 years ago, has customers in roughly 190 countries.

The amount of people shunning the Beeb is a drop on previous years, where 817,509, 875,169, and 945,751 switched off.

But now, MPs have joined the call for the annual £147 licence fee to be cancelled.

The TV licensing fee, which was increased by £1.50 in April, has been slammed as 'out of date' by Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg

The charge, which was increased by £1.50 in April, has been slammed as 'out of date' by Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He told the Sun: 'The BBC will have to scrap this in favour of a more modern approach — be that with advertising, a subscription model.'

No TV licence needed to watch Netflix

You don't need a licence if you only ever use your TV to watch services like Netflix or Amazon Prime to watch on demand or catch up programmes - except if you're watching BBC programmes on iPlayer.

But if you watch or record live on any device, you have to be covered by a TV licence.

Source: TV Licensing

Brexit minister David Davis also criticised the licence fee, claiming people feel that the BBC no longer 'reflects their outlook on life.

He added: 'If the BBC don't start representing the large slice of the populace, who support Brexit and worry about immigration, then we will end up having to move towards a subscription service.'

MPS are not alone in their call for change, veteran BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman has also echoed their views.

The former Newsnight host, who still appears on BBC2's University Challenge, said the fee was now 'old fashioned' compared to modern methods.

Paxman told an audience at the Hay Festival in May, that the BBC could learn from online subscription services.

The 67-year-old said: 'Look how the likes of Netflix and Amazon now take extraordinary amounts of money from huge numbers of people electronically.

'Why can't the BBC wake up to this?'

However, a licensing fee spokesman denied the amount of people cancelling their fee was a cause for concern.

he said: 'There are more licences in force than ever before – 25.8 million – while the number of cancellations has declined by 17% since 2013/14.'