Should the TV licence fee be scrapped?

pdoherty76

Mosquito46 wrote: »

We take the BBC for granted and fail to see what an asset it is, warts, errors and all. And also what value for money it is too.

I did some research on this in 2007, so the figures relate to then, but doubtless the ratios and principles remain the same. Searching around on the Ofcom website, I found that that total commercial TV advertising revenue is running at about £4 billion a year. Total retail spending in the UK runs at about £264 billion a year. (Retail Consortium, thisismoney.co.uk).

So of that £264 billion, £4 billion goes to pay for commercial television. That's about 1.5%. So 1.5% of every shopping basket on average is what you pay for commercial television. To match the current licence fee for the BBC at that level, you would have to spend £8,766.66 a year. Or another way, if you spend less than £8,766.66 then the BBC is costing you more than commercial television, if you spend more than £8766.66 a year, and most people do, commercial television is costing you more than the BBC, especially if on top of retail spending, you are paying again through subscription fees.

But that Is not the end of the story.

Commercial TV however costs most people far more than the licence fee, and is hidden and unaccountable.

Commercial TV is financed by the sale of advertising, which ultimately comes from the consumer. The total advertising income of commercial TV in the UK is about £4 billion a year. The £4 billion is only what the TV companies charge, not what it costs other companies to hire an advertising agency to run a campaign and make TV adverts.

Let's take not just any advert, but an M&S advert. They hire an agency to create a series for broadcast. Suppose the TV companies charge £100K to screen it. But on top of that £100K, M&S have had to pay the agency their fees, the production costs etc. amounting to several times the £100K. So rapidly the 1.5% of the shopping basket reaches more like 5%.

5% of most people's annual spending comes to far more than the licence fee, and then many people are also conned to paying again to watch it through subscription and Pay TV! No wonder commercial TV was described as a licence to print money! A BECTU study has even put the cost as high as 13% of consumer spending. But there is no outcry because this most inflationary and hidden 'tax' is unnoticed.

You posted exactly the same post in 2010. It is just spamming.

Here is the post from back then:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=34944247&postcount=122

Why have you posted an identical post over 3 years later? Hmm?

k12479

Not looking good for the BBC:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10423117/BBC-licence-fee-should-be-cut-or-scrapped-poll-finds.html

vassa

pdoherty76 wrote: »

You posted exactly the same post in 2010. It is just spamming.

Here is the post from back then:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=34944247&postcount=122

Why have you posted an identical post over 3 years later? Hmm?

The BBC are known to employ people who go on forums in order to press home how valuable the service is. There are loads who join up on TVLicenceResistance.

What this shill has forgotten in his quest to make the BBC look 'value for money' is that you still have to pay the BBC money if you don't watch BBC. So if i watch live ITV online, i'm supposed to theoretically pay the BBC £140 odd a year?

It's a tax on those that own and watch TV and it should be cut immediately because why should people who want to do no business with this !!!!!!-shielding company be hassled at every turn by them to prove they don't want it? Do i have to put up with someone from fishing rod licence enforcement coming onto my property and sending me threatening letters to prove i don't own a fishing rod? Nonsense.

steevo_h

Personally I don't see why the BBC should be so privileged as to be guaranteed vast amounts of money for programming that many do not regard as being anything other than average. I don't agree with general taxation to support them as you end up paying for them anyway, except it's just not noticed as a separate bill.

I don't have a high opinion of the BBC, or the majority of their programs or the way they report the news. I accept many may disagree with that. That's why the only sensible solution is to either fund the BBC through advertising like many other broadcasters, or to become a subscription service that can be paid for by all those who believe the BBC deliver such great value for money.

I just do not get the logic that says "if you want to watch any TV, you must pay the BBC regardless of which channels you watch". It's like paying Ford for the privilege of driving a car because they were the first company to mass produce cars (or whichever company was the first if not Ford).

tonyhamm

Its own report into impartiality, published in June 2007, concluded that its coverage of immigration amounted to bias by omission.
Last December the corporation’s director-general admitted: ‘There are some areas, immigration, business and Europe, where the BBC has historically been rather weak and rather nervous about letting that entire debate happen.’

The BBC is not some independent organisation - it's directors are regularly showered in money and are well aware that they will be replaced if they commission journalists to examine areas of real public concern which would upset the government of the day's agenda like mass immigration.

I do not pay for the licence fee because of this. I enjoy watching Crime and Investigation, Discovery (next to no science coverage in the BBC), Documentaries (National Geographic), there is frankly next to nothing worth watching on the BBC for me. Comedy was one golden nugget which is now gone for good it seems. Gone are the good days when you had comedy rooted in real working life's and working class communities, reflecting real life opinions and prejudices 'right or wrong' in classics like Only Fools and Horses, Steptoe and Son.

These just cannot be made today because depicting characters like that warts'n all, (selling tat down market while fiddling on the side) often resulted in 'politically incorrect' outcomes. They are basically banned now.
A few phone calls from someone 'offended' to the Hate crime unit, over a immigrant waiter getting clouted and abused for his numerous comedic misinterpretations and Faulty Towers would be pulled overnight today! So there is nothing really but blandness.
If you want to quit the TV license -
Its important to google how to write a letter to withdrawn the common law right of access from your abode from the agents of the BBC. Or you will get harassment like you won't believe.
You can google this - it does work.

SensiblePerson wrote: »

"the BBC is really a government conduit for whatever spin they want to put out on any particular story". So says one forumite here. How many times do you hear, on the other hand, that the beeb is full of nothing but lefties. Make your mind up!

The majority in the survey don't want to pay £145 for everything the BBC provides, but are willing to pay twice as much for channels that rarely generate any original material and also contain advertisements (so you're paying twice-over!). Some of these channels wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the original material from the Beeb (eg Dave).

Wise up, for goodness sake, without the BBC our televiewing and radio listening would be vastly impoverished. OK, even the Beeb puts out dross from time-to-time - "Mrs Brown's Boys" for example. Oh no, wait, this is one of the Beebs more popular shows! Says it all, I suppose.

quidsinquentin

I reckon the BBC is seen as a cash cow by too many people now, with little or no real control over who dips into the pot and how.

For every celebrity that I'm told is worth the BBC fee they're paid, there seems to be 10 others that do the same job.

It does produce some great programming IMO, but nothing that much better than other channels or producers.

Pandilex

Last year I got something like 30 threatening letters and 2 visits from TV licensing people, one was polite and one of them was a screeching mega%$£*$ and I wish I'd filmed her as she made illegal threats.

I don't have a television or any equipment capable of receiving a broadcast except for my computer with its internet connection. I have no interest in live television and pay 7 quid a month for netflix and use 4od/iplayer which gives me tons of material for half the price.

More than the mandatory licensing I oppose the horrific way they try to get people to pay, demanding to let them into my home or the police would come and it would 'be all my fault for wasting their time'.

The wording of the letters is horrible. I am not letting anyone in my home to check to see if I am committing a crime unless they have evidence! Would the BBC people let me in their house to search for stolen property based on no evidence whatsoever? I don't think so.

Cornucopia

IANAL but i am now convinced that the BBC is in breach of Article 8 of the Human Rights Act in the way it conducts Licence Fee enforcement.

(And I think most people instinctively know that there is something wrong with going door-to-door asking for proof of innocence).

I have raised this with the BBC Trust and am awaiting further developments.

miller

Would it be too much of a problem to put these sort of questions on a separate ballot paper at the next general election.

You could bung the yes/no Europe vote on as well and get that out of the way and save money in the process.

Instead we hold a separate election for the Police and Crime Commissioners, which the majority of people did not care enough about to turn out.

JayWalker

The funding the BBC receives pays for far more than a couple of TV Channels:


Kids' programmes without adverts
National Radio stations
Local Radio stations
BBC website


It's effectively a tax on people, designed to be paid by every household that uses the most expensive service they produce - TV.


Why not add it as a tax to TV purchases?
Phase it in by exempting people from paying the licence fee for five years when they buy a new TV.


That would increase the burden on people who buy multiple TVs and reduce it for people who have only one.


And continue to provide a service that isn't focused on providing what their advertisers want.