Twenty six householders in the island were convicted of TV licence evasion last year.

The figures were released by police following a request made by anti-licence campaigner Caroline Levesque-Bartlett.

And they are published as the BBC revealed details of the pay of its top stars.

The figures show the number of prosecutions in the island are sharply down on 2015 when there was a total of 129, with 103 convicted.

Last year, there were 35 of which 26 were convicted. Ten on these were men and 16 women.

But there are also 136 cases pending, 42 for offences committed in 2015 and 32 for offences from last year.

Of the prosecutions completed so far this year, all date from 2016.

The typical fine was £200, which applied in 11 cases but eight convictions resulted in fines of £300 and two were as high as £350. Cost of £120 were standard.

One person was not asked to pay costs and one was not asked to pay a fine, but received a demand for costs and a conditional discharge.

Campaigner Ms Levesque-Bartlett’s petition calling for the BBC licence fee to be scrapped has been signed by more than 229,000 people.

She believes the BBC licence fee is ’out-dated’, relies on criminal sanctions to force people to pay, and places an unfair burden on the poor.

And she says the figures show that woman are disproportionately targeted, the average across the British Isles being 70 per cent.

She said: ’Everyone is talking about the extravagant salaries the BBC is paying but little is said about how this champagne lifestyle is made possible.

’Last year nearly 185,000 people were either prosecuted or charged - 35 of them in the Isle of Man, not counting the 136 pending cases.

’To pay for the likes of Gary Lineker’s wages nearly 10,000 people need to be prosecuted.

’The BBC brags about being "value for money’, but little is said about the human cost: the harassment that goes unreported, the unnecessary prosecutions ditched on the morning of the trial, the fines (most of which are never recovered) and the prison sentences that are required to make the system work the way it does. It’s about time things change. The British public is not a magic money tree or a never-ending cash machine.’

The BBC continues to come under fire over the huge amounts it pays to its biggest names and over the scale of its gender pay gap.

Chris Evans is the corporation’s top earner year on £2.25m, followed by Gary Lineker on £1.79m and Graham Norton on £900,000. The highest paid female is Claudia Winkleman on £450,000.

Figures for commercial television stars are not available.