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

silid

There isn't enough advertising money to go around. If the BBC were to be funded by adverts then other commercial channels would get even less for advertising, and the quality of broadcasting on all channels would suffer.

One of the benefits of the BBC being funded by the licence fee is that commercial channels have to compete on quality even when they would rather not spend the money.

If all channels were commercial we would see a downward spiral of advertising costs as they compete followed by a downward spiral of broadcast quality as budgets are cut.

I agree with MyUtopia's point 2, that the BBC shouldn't necessarily compete financially for presenters, they should use their position to nurture and develop new people. And similarly on sport, I don't think that the BBC should necessarily compete for sporting events, and maybe they should even assist other free to air broadcasters to obtain them, which would assist licence fee payers even if the BBC aren't broadcasting it.

I'd quite happily see an overhaul at Radio 1 but I wouldn't want it selling off. I do enjoy an ad free music station, but not necessarily bothered about an ad free 'Chris Moyles talking about himself' station.

mikeywikey

No TV, no TV licence, I'd buy one if I could be bothered, or if I was a single mum so disengaged with her children that I needed an oblong glow in the dark babysitter.

The problem isn't the BBC it's all the other channels of drivel, if we had four channels, two with adverts and two without and had to pay the fee to watch any, then you'd have your quality channels for those who think and your drivel channels for those that don't.

And before everybody shouts how great Discovery, History and National Geographic is, yes, what little content they have is good, but there's a lot of dross around it and it's repeated over and over again, there's only so much you can learn about Sharks and Nazis.

You only have to compare Fox news with BBC News to realise how important an unbiased national news service is, and why do we see rags like the Sun with "Facebook Murderer" headlines do you think it has something to do with the fact that the owners of the Sun have invested in MySpace?

When the TV licence goes (and it will) the UK will worse off, the fee you pay doesn't just pay for programmes it maintains an ethos, if you don't understand this then it's already too late for you.

creatz

sfocata wrote: »

Fine, but would the principle work fairly both ways? I mean, those who decide not to pay would be denied access to the BBC website and iPlayer as well. Maybe they'd have to pay a surcharge on their Proms tickets. And how about the R&D? We've all benefitted from broadcast and studio technology developed at Kingswood Warren.

its not hard to lock online programming to a single computer that has a beeb account
Skyplayer do it very well

koupon-kween

I would love a PAYG or meter-type option for the TV being a very light user.

creatz

mbl1950 wrote: »

Heaven preserve the BBC from adverts. I can't think of anything more likely to undermine its independence. The license fee is brilliant value for money and, if anything, it's too low!

Excellent !!!

so the beeb can make there subscription £280 a year,
and if they lose half the licence payers because it goes to PAYG
because we don't want to watch the "imo" crap they broadcast,
its problem solved !

rapido

. .

iritchie

I don't agree with the fundamentals of the License Fee.
I'm not saying out of hand that the BBC doesn't offer value for money, but I can safely say that I watch BBC TV for maybe 2 hours a week.
This definitely doesn't justify the £145 outlay.
This doesn't take into account that I listen to BBC radio while I'm in the car, and that I regularly use the BBC News and BBC Sport websites.
As a package, the BBC services offered are generally of a good quality.

However, if I didn't own a TV, then I would get the radio and internet services for free, so you can't really take these into consideration when you try and justify a TV license fee.

It is simply outdated, because when it was introduced the BBC accounted for 100% of the TV content available to the public.
For large periods of time, it was still 50% of the TV coverage.
I now choose to pay for Satellite services and BBC is the tiniest fraction of content among what, 600 channels?

Yet, if I opted never to watch the BBC TV channels, or to somehow block them, it wouldn;t make a blind bit of difference, because the BBC are claiming a monopoly on TV via the enforced license.
This is the fact I don't like.
They provide a fraction of the service in this day and age, yet you are enforced to pay for it to be able to view ANY live channels...

Reaper

I voted yes - commercial channels are obsessed with viewing figures because that is how they attract advertising. It's good to have channels that look beyond that.

Having said that I would prefer to see some cutbacks. There are too many radio stations and too much online content - BBC news is great but apart from that I would only like to see content where it is genuinely useful (eg recipes featured in a cookery program), not waffley "magazine" or "fan" sites.

borkid

lewist wrote: »

I'm happy to pay the licence fee to be free of ads. They destroy programmes on other channels. Not everything on the BBC is to my taste, and some of it is awful, but the documentaries on BBC 2 & 4 are well worth paying for. The website is also outstanding. Leave it alone!

My view exactly. I use the website a lot in my teaching and listen to a lot of R3. There is also a lot on that I don't watch but I'm sure that if it went pay to view then i'd pay a lot more. We used to have SKY but found it very expensive for the few things we watched and the ads were very distracting , always muted them.

My main gripe with the fee is the way its enforced. My daughter is chronically ill and used to have SKY but a few years ago decided she couldn't afford it so cancelled. She now never watches TV at all, it isn't even connected to the arial so can't receive it. She still pays the licence fee though because she is scared they will come around and fine her. She only watches DVDs and plays games on her TV set.

lucylucky

borkid wrote: »

My view exactly. I use the website a lot in my teaching and listen to a lot of R3. There is also a lot on that I don't watch but I'm sure that if it went pay to view then i'd pay a lot more. We used to have SKY but found it very expensive for the few things we watched and the ads were very distracting , always muted them.

My main gripe with the fee is the way its enforced. My daughter is chronically ill and used to have SKY but a few years ago decided she couldn't afford it so cancelled. She now never watches TV at all, it isn't even connected to the arial so can't receive it. She still pays the licence fee though because she is scared they will come around and fine her. She only watches DVDs and plays games on her TV set.

If she does not need a licence fee then she has no need to pay it. Save some money for goodness sake. No one will fine her for anything as she is doing no wrong.