TV licence.

cliveb

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Whether any individual person consciously uses BBC services is not really the point.
Society needs a public service of this type. Historically the BBC has done masses of very important R&D that we have all benefitted from. (Whether it still does is perhaps debatable).

So the country needs to fund the BBC or something like it. The TV licence is probably the wrong way to do so. Funding it from general taxation would make more sense. The TV licence is a legacy of the days when only fairly well-heeled people owned TVs, and in those days getting the better off to fund the service made sense. Not any more. Now it's a regressive tax that impacts the poor more than the rich.
 

Orikoru

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The BBC swept sexual abuse under the carpet for decades and faced no punishment. It now bullies OAP's into paying the ridiculous fees, pays way over the odds for average presenters and produces a load of absolute crap. It's a dinosaur that needs putting to bed. Great in it's day but like everything else the world has moved on. I've not paid it for years and haven't had a visit. No legal rights to enter your house and if you stream it's easy to hide it.

Imagine being forced to pay £150 a year for road tax if you didn't have a car. No one will miss it when it goes over the next decade.
Totally agree with you. Just wish I was as brave. The only thing that I'd really miss out on watching live is the football. Apparently you even need a licence to watch the BT Sports app which I run through my PS4. Ridiculous really. Obviously we're meant to have the Euros this year though, some of which I imagine is on the BBC.
 

Crazyface

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Not the point tho and I think you will find during covid the BBC has broadcast select premier League matches

Also has the fa cup

So your incorrect

Ahhh, ok. I don't watch fallover ball anymore. But once this is all over the bbc won't have this anymore. Only Naga in the morning to watch.
 

pauljames87

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Very much the Kodi generation coming to the fore... If I can get it for nowt I bloody well will... Never a thought or a care about mucking over others rice bowl :mad:...

See I saw Kodi differently

I never used it to save on sky or BBC

I saw it as you pay for sky and use it on top to get things you can't get on sky

Maybe I'm just differently wired ?
 

Swinglowandslow

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Was almost with you until that last bit

If you don't have a telly you don't need a licence

If you don't have a car you don't pay tax

Think of it as car insurance

Nobody wants to pay it but if you have a car you have to have it

Sorry, but this isn't car insurance. That is required to protect the people you may become "involved " with if you use your car. You don't need it just because you own a car.

I've read most these threads, which talk of qualitynor otherwise of BBC broadcasts. Their are many good radio services offered by BBC, but let's stick with TV.
It's a matter , really, of principle, that many haven't apparently considered.
Imagine for a moment, that there is and never has been a BBC.
That the only TV is ITV channels, and Sky subscription. (I know there is now streaming etc as well), but for most yet, there are those two main sorts of channels , funded by adverts and subscription.
Anyway, there you are making your choices ( minus. BBC) when there's a knock on the door.
A man tells you his firm are about to launch some tv channels for 150 quid a year, they are very good, no adverts etc etc.
You indicate declining, so he then tells you that because you have a TV and watch the channels you do watch, that you'll have to pay the 150 anyway and have the BBC channels available .
"Do what? ". You say.
Furthermore, he tells you, if you don't pay the money, you will be taken to a court of criminal law and fined. And maybe jailed if you don't pay the fine.

It can have all the quality in the world. No TV service should be imposed on you if you don't want to use it.
 

backwoodsman

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My point was that I accept that plenty of folk may well generally not watch live TV - I simply dont believe folk who say that they never, ever, ever, watch any live TV. Whether deliberately or inadvertently. Never watch or see any live sport? Or any live news? Nobody ever watches the Masters, or The Open, the FA cup, the Euros, the Olympics? A Remembrance Day ceremony? Or anytthing?. If its live (ie as it happens) you need a licence. If you dont have one, you're cheating.

However, I also don't believe the licence fee is the correct way of doing it. I think the BBC should be publicly funded but there's probably a better way of doing it
 

Crumplezone

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The TV licence is an outmoded model. The BBC should be funded directly from taxation. They've done that with ABC in Australia since 1974.

If you watch live TV and don't watch BBC, what on earth do you watch? I find very little that's decent on the other channels. It's mainly low quality, inane garbage on the main freeview channels.

It's clear the Conservatives are trying to destroy the BBC. Johnson hates them. They've cut their funding and forced them to publish salaries so people get the impression BBC pay is ridiculously high. When in fact it's low compared to other broadcasters. For instance the hacker of a dead child's phone Piers Morgan gets over £26 million from ITV. They also tried to force them to pay licence fees for all over 75s. Which would have crippled them. Johnson tried to blame the BBC for that too.

The fact is, the BBC is still the most respected broadcaster on the planet and its best programmes are the best in the world.
 

Bdill93

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I think TV licenses are a joke to be honest.

To watch a live football game that SKY pay billions of pounds in rights to broadcast and I pay them a good wedge monthly for the privilage to view... I must also pay £12 a month to the BBC... why? They're not involved at all.

I dont pay ASDA to shop at TESCO.....
 

SwingsitlikeHogan

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I think TV licenses are a joke to be honest.

To watch a live football game that SKY pay billions of pounds in rights to broadcast and I pay them a good wedge monthly for the privilage to view... I must also pay £12 a month to the BBC... why? They're not involved at all.

I dont pay ASDA to shop at TESCO.....
I have to pay National Insurance even if I were to never choose, or have, to use the NHS. But I pay my NI insurance because I know that the NHS is there for the wider good - and whilst today I might never choose to use it, and I am happy to pay for Private Health cover - I do not know what is round the corner of life - and one day I might find that I might have to use it - despite everything I might think today.

It's all very well having a moan about paying a licence fee for the BBC because I never use it...but for many it is all they can afford - and one day a free-to-view/listen service based upon an relatively very low cover-all charge might be the only thing that I can afford. I would need it to be there - at that relatively inexpensive cover-all cost to me.

...who stokes the opposition to the BBC - yes - the usual suspects.
 
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Orikoru

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My point was that I accept that plenty of folk may well generally not watch live TV - I simply dont believe folk who say that they never, ever, ever, watch any live TV. Whether deliberately or inadvertently. Never watch or see any live sport? Or any live news? Nobody ever watches the Masters, or The Open, the FA cup, the Euros, the Olympics? A Remembrance Day ceremony? Or anytthing?. If its live (ie as it happens) you need a licence. If you dont have one, you're cheating.

However, I also don't believe the licence fee is the correct way of doing it. I think the BBC should be publicly funded but there's probably a better way of doing it
Yes we watch live sport, and pay our money to BT and Sky in order to do so. I resent having to send money to the BBC to stream BT Sports on my PS4 for example, it doesn't make any sense. They're not involved. It is essentially a tax.
 

Kellfire

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Yes we watch live sport, and pay our money to BT and Sky in order to do so. I resent having to send money to the BBC to stream BT Sports on my PS4 for example, it doesn't make any sense. They're not involved. It is essentially a tax.
You’re still misinterpreting it. The government set the laws that everyone must pay a TV licence. They have the legal power to make the BBC collect it. You aren’t just paying for the BBC, that’s just something that is part subsidised by the TV licence.
 

Orikoru

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You’re still misinterpreting it. The government set the laws that everyone must pay a TV licence. They have the legal power to make the BBC collect it. You aren’t just paying for the BBC, that’s just something that is part subsidised by the TV licence.
That's not correct, because there are circumstances where you don't need one. If it was just a tax that we all paid that would arguably make more sense. I think teasing us with the hope of being able to avoid paying it makes it worse and just fuels the resentment!
 

Kellfire

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That's not correct, because there are circumstances where you don't need one. If it was just a tax that we all paid that would arguably make more sense. I think teasing us with the hope of being able to avoid paying it makes it worse and just fuels the resentment!
Sorry, my bad, I meant for those who do have to pay, that the requirement is set by the government. And yes I guess it is a tax of sorts but not all taxes are paid by everyone and not all at the same rate.
 

jim8flog

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. The TV licence is a legacy of the days when only fairly well-heeled people owned TVs, and in those days getting the better off to fund the service made sense. .

I do not think that comment holds up to inspection. The TV licence fee was in effect an add on the Radio licence which had been in since the 1920s and I doubt that there was any household in the country that did not own a radio. The TV licence came in 1946, I come from a very working class family and I certainly know there was a TV in our house in the early 50s. Apparently loads were sold in readiness for the Queens Coronation in 1953.
 

backwoodsman

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Ok, I'll re-phrase part of Kellfire's post.

The government set the laws that everyone must pay "a fee to the government" for the privilege of watching live TV.

We may choose to call it a licence fee, a tax, a duty, or whatever we like. Nonetheless the government decree we should pay it. They also decree that it's the BBC who should collect it. And finally decree that the money collected should be used to fund the national public service broadcaster. Which is the BBC.

Personally, I dont see that is all that different to the government charging us (taxing us if you prefer that phrase) for a whole range of other things that we do - and which they use to fund things we may or may not use.
 
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