BBC President Samir Shah sent a letter of apology to Donald Trump, but was unable to remove him from the criminal complaint. On the other hand, and despite the apology, Shah rejected the US president’s accusations and said he was determined to contest any defamation claim.
“I want to be very clear, our position has not changed. There is no legal basis for a defamation claim and we are determined to fight it,” wrote Samir Shah in a message sent to BBC staff in November.
Donald Trump’s complaint considers that, despite the apology, the BBC “has not demonstrated true remorse for its actions nor undertaken significant institutional reforms to prevent future journalistic abuses”.
Also in November, a committee of the British Parliament reported that the BBC lost more than 1.1 billion pounds (1.47 billion euros) in revenue in the 2024-25 fiscal year alone, due to fraud in licensing fees and falling audiences.
The size of the deficit in collecting the license fee, from which the BBC derives 65% of its revenue, comes amid a tense climate.
Currently, the annual amount paid by each British taxpayer for the operation of the BBC amounts to 174.50 pounds (almost 200 euros), out of total revenue that reached 3.8 billion pounds (4.2 billion euros) in the last fiscal year (April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025).
This value will have to be renegotiated by the end of 2027, as part of the renewal of the BBC’s ten-year contract with the British Government.
The American head of state filed or threatened to file complaints against several media groups in the United States, some of which paid large sums to put an end to the legal proceedings.
Since returning to power, Trump has brought many content creators and influencers who are in favor of him to the White House, while at the same time multiplying insults against journalists from several traditional media outlets.
One of the newcomers to the White House invited by the Trump Administration is the British conservative channel GB News, close to the leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage.