The BBC will not be able to justify the licence fee within 10 years unless the corporation masters new ways to deliver news and programmes to the social media generation, Lord Hall has suggested.

Lord Hall, the director-general, warned that if the current trend away from linear television and radio continues, a “significant minority” of licence fee payers would “no longer be a part of our shared national conversation”.

Saying that would leave the BBC failing them, he argued the corporation would no longer be able to justify the requirement to make them pay their licence fee.

In the BBC’s annual plan, released today, Lord Hall specified how he hoped to see the corporation take on the challenge of the social media era, “reinventing” themselves to match new consumption habits.