BBC licence fee should be scrapped, says thinktank - The Guardian

lucylucky

Dan: wrote: »

If everyone loves the BBC so much they will have no problem in subscribers. The BBC has some of the most successful programs in the world, the worldwide sales of BBC programs could easily fund the BBC without a TV licence tax.

You got any figures to back that up?

Dan:_4

lucylucky wrote: »

You got any figures to back that up?

no i have not.

lucylucky

Dan: wrote: »

no i have not.

Okay.

So it is possibly not true then.

Nice idea though.

marklv

I say: ditch the licence fee. It's another poll tax at a time when we really don't need one. I would accept advertising on BBC, as long as it is in-between programmes and not in the middle of them. The rest of the BBC money can still be in the form of a government grant or from sales of programmes. All this talk of the BBC being some kind of national institution is sentimental rubbish. Besides, if you want quality news, there is nothing that beats Radio 4.

Pennywise

bristol_pilot wrote: »

It amazes me how people think they are watching the commercial channels for free (ITV1 etc). These channels are funded by advertising, the cost of which is added to the price of goods and services. So we pay through the nose for ITV1 etc everytime we buy something whether we watch those channels or not, which is just the same as many of the arguments on this thread opposing the BBC licence fee on a similar basis. The only truly fair way would be pay-per view for each programme, but I guess most people would get through £145-worth pretty early in the year.

There is so much wrong with this statement, I don't know where to begin. The opposite is probably true. A firm will only invest in advertising if it brings in additional profitable business. So it follows that without advertising, the business would sell less, make less profit, and probably either increase its prices or go out of business. If it goes out of business, less competition means higher prices. So, if firms didn't advertise on ITV, it could be argued prices would rise and the consumer would have less choice.

Dan:_4

lucylucky wrote: »

Okay.

So it is possibly not true then.

Nice idea though.

It don't matter anyway. The BBC should learn to stand on its own two feet instead and find its own way of funding. If this means high subscription fees or low subscription fees with adversting then so be it.

Pennywise

lynzpower wrote: »

If the BBC was scrapped, what future for the likes of the Today programme or Newsnight? Is there any hard hitting political investigation on the commercial channels?

But they've not been "hard hitting" for years. It's like a love-in when the lefties are interviewing other lefties and the lion's den when you have a right winger on.

The BBC isn't impartial - I never realised how far they'd gone to the left until I was watching the last Labour Budget in the Gym during my lunchtime workout. They had a bank of TVs on the wall so I could watch both the BBC and ITV coverage at the same time. The captions that popped up should have been the same but the BBC captions were "good news" whereas the ITV captions were more balanced - the BBC were spinning bad news as good news almost every time. It was so obvious, you really wouldn't believe it if it weren't there in front of your eyes. A year or two before, when the NIC upper threshold was increased (bad news for those having to pay more NICs), the BBC "experts" kept saying time and time again it was good news - I can't believe they were stupid in not understanding it, so can only assume they did understand and were putting positive spin on it deliberately.

lucylucky

Dan: wrote: »

It don't matter anyway. The BBC should learn to stand on its own two feet instead and find its own way of funding. If this means high subscription fees or low subscription fees with adversting then so be it.

Why did you post it then?

Dan:_4

lucylucky wrote: »

Why did you post it then?

Because it is a high source of income for the BBC.

lucylucky

Dan: wrote: »

Because it is a high source of income for the BBC.

But not enough to support the BBC it would appear, which was your original assertion.