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

rapido

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teresakittykat

I looked at paying monthly for my TV licence, and was told if I did so I would pay for my first years licence in six months, at over £20 a month, and the next six months of the year I would pay for the next years licence!

When I asked why this was the case, why could I not pay for a years worth of licence in 12 months, I was told that the BBC relies on the projected revenue that this brings in.

This is unfair to lower income people who can't afford the fee outright, and also the people who can afford it are NOT asked to pay for 18 months worth of licence in 12 months!

The only way round it is to pay for six months, then cancel the direct debit, and set it up again six months later.

I do not agree with being forced to pay a licence fee, and it being a criminal offence if you have a TV and watch other channels such as ITV. I decided to do without a TV. There should be an opt out if you do not wish to watch or listen to BBC progarmmes.

lucylucky

gsddusty1 wrote: »

I question why I had to pay the licence fee as I am in an area which has switched over to digital. I do not have a digital TV and so therefore have to pay sky subscription to watch TV. As I cannot receive normal terestrial TV except through sky to my way of thinking I shouldnt have to pay licence fee. However I was advised that legally I have to pay although I cannot get channels without sky. I find this offensive. Even worse I live in a rural area and so cable tv etc is not an option so my only choice is sky or buying a digital TV.

I cannot see any reason that you are paying Sky anything.

Try Freesat.

lukehar6569

I think we've all become too complacent and expect that we're able to have a TV service which we can (as much as any system can provide) rely on to be totally impartial, and doesn't need to worry about the political sidings of Rupert Murdoch, annoying advertisers by bringing up controversial issues, or having to constantly think about the most number of viewers a program can attract per £. Events such as 9/11 (where BBC America's ratings shot up and far outranked its commercial competitors) demonstrate clearly how the free market can't bring us news and views which you are able to completely trust in difficult circumstances such as those.

Perhaps they are a tad frivolous with a few decisions, but overall you've got to agree that they're an outstanding organisation, and one of the few things which Britain has which is both unique and something to be immensely proud of.

rapido

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mickyrush

The licence fee is used wrongly, for instance,ridiculously overpaid so called executives travelling everywhere by chauffeur driven luxury cars or by air,living on expense accounts.Plus outrageous fees paid to so called"stars"/"personalities" (Jonathan Ross et al !!!) on the pretext that if the beeb doesn't pay their inflated salaries they'll go elsewhere!Let them go!!Let us not forget, we pay we should say!

the_enquirer_4

It is sad to see from the poll so far that so many voters would willing sumbmit themself to mindless adverts rather than watch quality programmes. The time and frequency of these interuptions is an assault on our intelligence. Of course the BBC is not perfect and paying huge ammounts to the likes of Jonathon Ross detract from producing better content. Lets not abolish the fee, lets make it better value for money and advert free.

AgarM

I am wondering how many quality programmes the BBC produce over all of there channels BBC1 to BBC4 and how many of them are moved from BBC3/BBC4 to BBC1/BBC2 after being aired, example being human they also have a number of repeated programmes on the schedule, if you break it down maybe less than half of the programmes they produce are good quality so why not half the licence fee spend it on these quality programmes and use the profits from BBC worldwide and sales for it's crap ones.

dazchief

Watch your favourite BBC programmes on the BBC iPlayer. You dont need a licence to view the programmes on the bbc iplayer.

http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/about_iplayer/tvlicence

Make sense of that one !!!

lucylucky

dazchief wrote: »

Watch your favourite BBC programmes on the BBC iPlayer. You dont need a licence to view the programmes on the bbc iplayer. Unless you are watching "as live"

http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/about_iplayer/tvlicence

Make sense of that one !!!

And not all programmes are available unfortunately