The BBC is introducing a paywall in the U.S.

Today, the BBC announced it’s introducing a paywall for consumers in the U.S. The move isn’t a total surprise — on June 15, The Guardian reported the plans were in the works — but it is a marked shift in strategy: it’s the first time the broadcaster will directly charge for its journalism anywhere in the world.

According to the BBC’s press release, U.S.-based visitors to BBC.com or the BBC website will have to pay $49.99 a year or $8.99 a month “for access to most BBC News stories and features, and to stream the BBC News channel.” Non-paying customers will still have access to “selected global breaking news stories” as well as BBC Radio 4, the BBC World Service, and some newsletters and podcasts. The BBC had previously announced it would be blocking access to the BBC Sounds app outside the U.K. but delayed that change this spring; it’s unclear if users who pay for the new subscription will gain access to Sounds.

The paywall will be dynamic, Todd Spangler writes in Variety, and users from the U.S. “will be assessed based on how they interact with [the BBC’s] content, including how much they read and how long they stay.” This “allows casual readers to explore freely, while offering our most engaged users the opportunity to unlock even more,” as in the opportunity to open their wallets and pay for the news.

I’m curious how this will play out. As we wrote last week, the 2025 Digital News Report from Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) found that the BBC comes third, after CNN and Fox News, for sources people in the U.S. turn to when they want to check whether something is correct, and the Guardian writes that BBC.com now reaches 60 million people in the U.S. But, as Laura wrote yesterday, few people in the U.S. — only 17% of 10,000 adults surveyed by Pew — pay for the news, and those who do tend to be rich, old, and/or white.

Putting its news behind a paywall puts the BBC in direct competition with the likes of CNN — which, the Guardian notes, is headed by former BBC director general Mark Thompson, and plans to launch a streaming service of its own later this year. Still, I get why the BBC is trying the paywall. The broadcaster has been hurting for money; its press release notes that it’s expected to have a £492 million budget deficit for the latest financial year. According to The Guardian, BBC leaders “believe there could be an appetite to pay for its brand of journalism, given the politically partisan reputation of some U.S. television networks.”

Americans are already used to paying for some BBC content. BBC Studios, the entertainment arm of the broadcaster that also runs BBC.com, has a TV streaming service called BritBox, and the BBC News TV channel can usually only be accessed through a cable bundle in the U.S.

British travelers to the U.S. who pay the BBC’s license fee will be able to access its content through the BBC app. According to the Financial Times, the BBC has “no current plans to introduce a pay model outside of North America.”