'Do you believe in the BBC licence fee?' poll discussion

lucylucky

baldmosher wrote: »

The legal standpoint on the TV Licence is very clear.

If you don't watch or record live satellite and/or terrestrial TV signals at home, then you do not need a TV licence.

So that specifically excludes internet, DVDs, Xbox, etc.

Any other personal copyright abuse at home is a civil, not criminal, matter. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that - the DE Bill might have had an effect!)



There is: it's called the Internet. No licence required, and your support (phone/cable line rental) funds infrastructure improvements.

Even if the programme I want to watch isn't on iPlayer / ITV Player / 4od, I can download pretty much any programme, British or otherwise, in under 5 minutes, via a quick Google search. (It takes a little bit of effort to discover the best sites, as you won't find it on YouTube, but there are a handful of good sites that archive old programmes, and for the rest there's usually a torrent.) You can also use MSN to watch some shows, if you've got Windows 7, Vista, or Media Center Edition, or an Xbox 360. There are torrents for entire series to download, in HD, often before they even start being shown on British TV or Sky.

(Sky currently charge anyone who isn't already a paying customer for the privilege of watching their rubbish programmes online. Since I am in moral disagreement with Mr Murdoch's political and business practices, I refuse to pay him a penny of my money if I can help it, let alone £15 a month for 400 extra channels of crap, and certainly not £500+ a year for sports and movies that I'll never watch. People with bells & whistles Sky subscriptions must be either very dull or very wealthy.)

Personally, I think £12 a month to have the option of watching live TV legally is hardly worth worrying about. BBC Breakfast alone is worth 40p a day. Everything else is a bonus! Not only that, but the licence fee helps to pay for the terrestrial TV infrastructure, BBC radio, and the BBC's objective position, not just the programmes. (Having seen the state of things in the US and most other countries, I'd hate us to lose that privilege.)

You can't possibly watch & listen to everything the BBC does, and it might seem like poor value for money for some people, but I don't see how anyone can say they don't get ANY benefit from it, unless they live abroad, never use the BBC website and don't read any news reports that are based on information from the BBC (which, given its objectivity, is probably a lot more than you would think).

Given the legal standpoint, if you're that bothered about £12 a month, it's not exactly difficult to find ways to avoid paying it. (Getting off your couch and leaving the house instead of watching TV is certainly the best way.)

Unless you are watching programmes " as live" in which case it does include the internet.

I am well aware of the accessibility of programmes on the internet the point I was making was about the fact that some people seem to think that Mr Murdoch's empire is built around choice - it is anything but.

baldmosher

Amber_47 wrote: »

I feel this poll is slightly biased
I suggest a straight Yes / No followed by a second vote

It looks pretty clear to me

Roughly half would rather have ads on BBC, roughly half would not.

Of those, roughly half are happy paying £12 a month, roughly half would rather it was cheaper.

baldmosher

lucylucky wrote: »

Unless you are watching programmes " as live" in which case it does include the internet.

Thanks for the clarification. However, I've never done that so I didn't even realise it was possible!

Even if that does legally include streams retransmitted from overseas (e.g. Premier League on Arabic TV via a server in Prague) it would be absolutely impossible to enforce this.

On that note, I would point out that if you really want to invest in the future of television, you should abandon the licence fee, do everything online and pay for the most expensive BB package you can get. Advertising revenue has plummeted since the internet came along, so it's impossible to fund the BBC through adverts. Have you ever watched ITV?? Cripes. What we really need is a completely new funding method. More than satellite TV ever could be, fibre optic broadband is the death knell for what we now understand as "television".

lucylucky

baldmosher wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification. However, I've never done that so I didn't even realise it was possible!

Even if that does legally include streams retransmitted from overseas (e.g. Premier League on Arabic TV via a server in Prague) it would be absolutely impossible to enforce this.

On that note, I would point out that if you really want to invest in the future of television, you should abandon the licence fee, do everything online and pay for the most expensive BB package you can get. Advertising revenue has plummeted since the internet came along, so it's impossible to fund the BBC through adverts. Have you ever watched ITV?? Cripes. What we really need is a completely new distribution method. More so than satellite TV ever could be, fibre optic broadband is the death knell for what we now understand as "television".

I have watched a few BBC programmes live on t'internet when it was expedient so to do.

As I watch live TV I cannot yet abandon the licence

And no fibre optic anywhere near me so that is not an option either

fredbear5150

I'm sick to the back teeth of advertising full stop - advertising has become far too invasive when even the small circular area on the top of a petrol pump has adverts for chocolate bars on it!

I refuse to have Sky because as far as I am concerned there are two options - give it to me free with advertising or charge me to keep it advert free, there's no compromise in between.

You don't need a TV license if you just listen to BBC Radio or browse the BBC web site but the TV license funds both - and if you don't using them then you are not getting the best value for money anyway; Radio 4 is a national treasure for comedy & drama.

So no, at around £12 a month for providing some good programming (yes, there's rubbish also) but, more importantly, as an advert-free refuge, I think it's great value for money.

However, I would like to see it scrapped as a license fee and just added to normal taxes since I doubt there are very few people now who do not have to buy it - even if you have an Internet PC & no TV, I believe you still have to buy it. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Suelynn

I'd rather pay the fee, than have adverts all the time.

lucylucky

fredbear5150 wrote: »

I'm sick to the back teeth of advertising full stop - advertising has become far too invasive when even the small circular area on the top of a petrol pump has adverts for chocolate bars on it!

I refuse to have Sky because as far as I am concerned there are two options - give it to me free with advertising or charge me to keep it advert free, there's no compromise in between.

You don't need a TV license if you just listen to BBC Radio or browse the BBC web site but the TV license funds both - and if you don't using them then you are not getting the best value for money anyway; Radio 4 is a national treasure for comedy & drama.

So no, at around £12 a month for providing some good programming (yes, there's rubbish also) but, more importantly, as an advert-free refuge, I think it's great value for money.

However, I would like to see it scrapped as a license fee and just added to normal taxes since I doubt there are very few people now who do not have to buy it - even if you have an Internet PC & no TV, I believe you still have to buy it. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

You certainly do not need a TV licence to own/use a PC that is capable of accessing the internet. That wasn't what you meant was it?

webwiz

The licence fee should be scaled back to £20. this would give it a budget of about £600,000,000 - quite enough to make all the public service and quality programmes that its defenders always quote but not enough to pay Jonathon Woss and the like millions a year or to make soaps like East Enders which the independent companies would be happy to take over. The BBC should only make programmes which would not be made by the independents.

webwiz

Many posters have said that they enjoy the BBC because there are no ads. They must be watching a different BBC to me because it is peppered with ads. Admitedly they are mostly for other BBC programmes but what is the difference? I find them just as annoying.

RobotBlue

I'd rather pay than have adverts all over the place - there's nothing quite like them to ruin the flow of a good programme.

In any case, a removal of the licence fee would simply mean an increase in another taxation of some form, so I would be no better off. It would simply be more difficult to tell where my money was going.

As a final thought, if my finances got really bad, then at least I could (temporarily) get rid of the TVs and stop paying the licence fee - surely this is a good moneysaving tip! I've got plenty of books needing read anyway...