Should the TV licence fee be scrapped?

tinterweb

FYI ... ITV is not free - it is paid for by advertisers who raise their advertising budgets from each and every customer ... whether you watch ITV or not you're (pretty much) paying for it every time you buy something ... someone should research how much an average household pays for ITV ... and it follows that Sky subscribers, who don't pay for "premium" channels, are paying twice for "basic" channels that carry advertising.

Cornucopia

The purpose of advertising is to improve sales. Therefore the cost of advertising is not a fixed cost borne directly by consumers in the same way as the Licence Fee.

In a healthy business model, advertising ought to pay for itself in the form of increased revenue.

Cornucopia

Rotor wrote: »

Can someone explain the difference between options 3 and 4

'scrap the licence fee monopoly' ( so everyone can charge a universal licence fee?)
and
'scrap the licence fee'

thanks

Option 3 refers to the wider sharing of Licence Fee funds (cf. Grant Shapps)

Option 4 refers to the removal of the Licence Fee and the funding of the BBC by advertising.

wiogs

"A TV licence costs £145.50 a year for any home with a colour TV, regardless of whether you watch the BBC or not "

We'll that's wrong for a start.

You don't need a TV licence to own a TV or have one in your place of residence.

General_Mayhem

Compared to other commercial broadcasters, £145 is staggeringly good value.

Compare to Sky, which produces far less original content (I'll concede they do far more sport, but that is really about it). An entry level package with sky will set you back over £500 and has advertising on top.

For the quantity of original TV, Radio, iPlayer, website and everything else the BBC do, I'd happily pay more, and am grateful that I don't have to!

hgotsparkle

I would much rather the BBC have ads - maybe then they might at least get some decent tv shows going!As it currently stands, I don't have to pay for a tv licence, but should I move then I would.

PegasusPJ

Barter wrote: »

Having lived in France and watched their TV, I came to appreciate the BBC far more than I had and feel the licence is superb value.

In France it seemed that all channels had ads and most broadcasting was of quite poor quality; both the programmes and the programming. And yet there is still a TV licence to pay!

I am reminded of how good British TV is every time I go visit the family in France! (where the TV licence is not much cheaper, and taken through your council Tax unless you can prove you have no TV.. there was a lot of avoidance before)

most of what I watch is on BBC channels, which shows to me they're better than the competition, and I ALWAYS time-shift the programs of other channels as I can then skip the ads (particularly find the in-program ones annoying, not that bothered in between programs).

ideally though it would be funded out of general taxation since virtually no-one not currently paying a TV licence does not use TV catch up or radios or live mobile viewing. it would be more progressive, but there'd then be the risk of the government of the day cutting the funds.

So while I'd like it to be a bit less expensive, I'm overall quite happy paying a TV licence (I would not be if I still lived in France).

Cornucopia

PegasusPJ wrote: »

most of what I watch is on BBC channels, which shows to me they're better than the competition

A couple of examples would be useful.

I've found that people tend to form habits around the channel(s) they watch. This is assisted by TV channels mostly advertising only their own programmes.

I watch mainly BBC & C4 (TV licence free via their catch-up services). I find that in the genres where C4 is strong, their programming is easily as good, if not better than the BBC.

Greybeard0151

When I see criticism of the BBC by members of the current government I am reminded of the close association between the Murdoch empire and a number of members of the Conservative party.
Murdoch would like nothing better than to crush the BBC and this started many years ago when he threw the BBC off his far eastern satellite service because the Chinese government objected to the content of BBC news broadcasts.
On a different subject, if all TV programs were accompanied by commercial ads. I would expect to further reduce my already (relatively) small amount of television watching.

dorix

Why is it that nobody (including Mr Lewis) ever seems to remember all the six orchestras that they run.To remind you all;BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, The BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the BBC Big Band which is a Jazz orchestra ( my personal favourite) Now does anybody wonder how all the money goes round. That's why I think its very good value for money.