The BBC has published its Commissioning Report for 2025/26, highlighting another strong year of distinctive content and investment in the UK’s creative industries.

The report shows the BBC invested £1.5 billion in original TV content and £400 million in original Radio content, working with 310 independent TV production companies and 269 radio production companies across the UK, reinforcing its role as the single largest investor in the creative sector.

Over the past year, investment outside London remained a key focus, with 59% of network TV commissioning spend in the Nations and English regions, while almost 70% of network TV hours qualified as regional productions, exceeding the BBC’s quota of 50%. Radio commissioning also continued to grow outside the capital, with 45.8% of network radio commissioning spend in the Nations and English regions.

The BBC also expanded its partnerships in the West Midlands and the North East. In Radio, all but one national network now has a commissioner based outside London, and it remains on track to meet its ambition of having 40% of network TV commissioners based outside London by 2027.

Kate Phillips, BBC Chief Content Officer, says: “This year saw exceptional audience successes, demonstrating the BBC’s continued commitment to homegrown storytelling and reflecting the breadth of the UK. Our distinctive content helped the BBC account for 20% of all identified viewing, with audiences spending more time with the BBC than with any other platform. These results show the vital role the BBC continues to play in the UK’s creative sector.”

Across our content, the BBC also exceeded its annual £80m creative diversity spend commitment for TV and Radio, investing £196m of existing commissioning budget in content that met our creative diversity criteria. And through its Diversity Development Fund, the BBC invested more than £2 million to support over 100 people in mid- to senior-level production roles across the UK.

Building on this momentum, the BBC will continue to invest in distinctive UK content that reflects our audiences, expand commissioning opportunities across the UK, and build on its digital strategy through new partnerships and services aimed at reaching the next generation of audiences. The BBC also remains committed to doubling our investment on content reflecting Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to more than £100 million by 2027/28.

The full report can be viewed on the BBC Commissioning website.

BBC Press Office

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