Is the licence fee worth it? Poll discussion

Justamum

avantra wrote: »

If we look at countries that don't impose tax on viewing TV we will see that they have very bad channels and also very good ones (ARTA, Aljazira etc').

Swaziland and South Africa both have a tv licence - you can't buy a tv without showing your licence, and if you move there you have to declare whether or not there is a tv among your belongings so they can charge you the licence fee. Both countries have tv which is total and utter c**p - Swaziland being much worse than SA - having lived in both countries I can vouch for that. So it's not just licence tax free countries which have bad channels.

Biker62

OK, so we stop the licence fee and do away with the BBC. This leaves us with ITV1, Channel 4 and Five (as the BBC provides Freeview so that will go too). As the analogue signal is being switched off by the govt, the only alternative left is Sky! At £30 a month, this is three times as costly as the BBC. Is everyone going to be happy paying that?

By the way I do not work for the BBC. I will say that I rarely watch BBC 1 or 2 these days, but BBC 3 has some good programs. And, having recently been to the USA, I can see how "Americanised" the advert channels are becoming! Then again, the advert channels are just as bad, you only have to look at Saturday night prime time viewing - X-Idol, Greased Joseph, Dance Academy or some other such talentless music/dance show!

I have a Freeview hard disk recorder. I use the 7 day guide to cherry pick the best programs and then watch them at MY convenience (it also allows me to skip forward and avoid watching all those adverts :j).

Justamum

smunden wrote: »

Tell me - if they have such wonderful technology to detect TVs, why is it they don't realise I don't have one? Well it is my belief that is a myth. TVs come in all manner of different technologies now, and the transmissions also, so how do the TV detector devices work? Try find that one out. You might find the article on TV licensing site that says it is such a secret even the engineers that use them don't know. Hahaha, what is this country coming to????

I don't know if they actually use detector vans these days. On the ads on the BBC for the tv tax they say they have every address in the country and know which ones don't have a licence - so they just send out the threatening letters to those addresses. They seem to be incapable of believing that there are people who actually choose not to watch the increasing amount of dross being broadcast to the idiot box. Some people (my parents being two of them) will watch tv all evening, and if nothing good is on they will watch the least worst of what is on, then fall asleep in front of it. Sadly my mum is an avid viewer of big brother [cringe].

We buy the Radio Times each week, mark what we might want to watch, then often don't bother. The tv is rarely on in our house - we have hundreds and hundreds of books which need reading!

Justamum

Defiant wrote: »

The public are entitled to make a citizens arrest if someone breaks the law and the TV Licence man as you put it is just a joe bloggs off the street who happens to work for Capita.

Like you I disagree with the tv tax. However you can only make a citizen's arrest (from what I remember when I studied law a few years ago) if the offence carries a prison sentence. All those "trespassers will be prosecuted" signs are meaningless because trespass is a civil offence, not a criminal one, which means the police will not get involved.

However, I am glad you made the point that it is not actually compulsory to allow the tax inspectors into your house. This will come in very handy when we no longer receive tv signals next year and I stop paying. I'll just tell them to go away (as politely as possible of course!)

johnedwards3005

I'm amazed at the results of your poll, especially from a membership that SHOULD be well-versed in recognising good value.
We should all remember that the WHOLE of the BBCs output is 'sold' to us for just over £2.50 a week! That's equivalent to half a packet of cigarettes OR less than the price of one pub drink each week -amazing! Personally, I think that price is well worth paying just for the quality and diversity of output on Radio 4 - but others will have their own preferences among the breadth of the BBC radio output; the TV channels and wonderful website are significant bonuses (and ALL without annoying adverts)!!!
The main objection appears to be the means of levying the cost over the whole populaton (without which, of course, the cost per 'voluntary' user could be very much higher). It COULD be collected as additional tax - but that leads to unattractive questions of political control in a very sensitive area. Perhaps there should be a way for virulent 'conscientious objectors' to opt out - IF secure means of depriving them of any BBC output could be devised! However, the key is to ensure that the vast majority of the population remain subscribers so that we don't find that unreasonable financial pressures cause the BBC to compromise on its high quality output.

Tetsuko

johnedwards3005 wrote: »

It COULD be collected as additional tax - but that leads to unattractive questions of political control in a very sensitive area.

I thought I should link to this just incase some of the less informed think that people quoting the BBC fee as being a tax is incorrect.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cpst0106.pdf

"The Office for National Statistics has today announced three classification
decisions, following a review of the National Accounts treatment of public
sector television:
• the television licence fee, previously classified as a service charge,
is being reclassified as a tax;
• the BBC remains in the public sector, but is being reclassified from
the public non-financial corporations sector to central government;
• Channel Four Wales (S4C) is similarly being reclassified."

"The television licence fee, which is a payment that entitles the holder to
receive television signals, has been reclassified in the National Accounts
as a tax. This is because, in line with the definition of a tax, the licence fee
is a compulsory payment which is not paid solely for access to BBC
services. Previously, this payment had been classified in the National
Accounts as a service charge."

"Classification of these payments as a tax results in the BBC being
reclassified from the public non-financial corporations sub-sector to the
central government sector; that means that it moves from one part of the
public sector to another. However, some BBC subsidiaries will remain
classified in the public non-financial corporations sub-sector."

It claims that this does not affect the independence of these broadcasters. I personally don't see how it can claim to be independent when the government is controlling the purse strings.

squirreltufty

Some people have a kneejerk reaction to the word tax. I don't know whether the licence fee is or isn't a tax, but even if it is, so what? It pays for an excellent service, and I would rather it was paid for that way than by advertising, and I'd rather it was publicly owned than owned by the Murdoch or Branson empires or similar.

I would even be happy to pay more to maintain the service, but I object to subsidising those who evade the licence fee. Virtually everyone is a BBC consumer in one way or another. They can say what they like, but I simply do not believe those who say that they have a TV/radio/computer but avoid all BBC output.

THE END.

westernpromise

johnedwards3005 wrote: »

I'm amazed at the results of your poll, especially from a membership that SHOULD be well-versed in recognising good value.
We should all remember that the WHOLE of the BBCs output is 'sold' to us for just over £2.50 a week! That's equivalent to half a packet of cigarettes OR less than the price of one pub drink each week -amazing! Personally, I think that price is well worth paying just for the quality and diversity of output on Radio 4 - but others will have their own preferences among the breadth of the BBC radio output; the TV channels and wonderful website are significant bonuses (and ALL without annoying adverts)!!!
The main objection appears to be the means of levying the cost over the whole populaton (without which, of course, the cost per 'voluntary' user could be very much higher). It COULD be collected as additional tax - but that leads to unattractive questions of political control in a very sensitive area. Perhaps there should be a way for virulent 'conscientious objectors' to opt out - IF secure means of depriving them of any BBC output could be devised! However, the key is to ensure that the vast majority of the population remain subscribers so that we don't find that unreasonable financial pressures cause the BBC to compromise on its high quality output.

Probably because the thread has now got so long, you obviously haven't taken in any of the counters to everything you've written. I'll repeat them for you. You're a BBC fan so you enjoy repeats.

The BBC might be good value to you, but it is not good value to the 2/3rds of the population who don't watch it. The BBC's total audience share is about 33%. That is, add up all the hours of TV watched over a year and only a third of it was people watching the BBC. The others were watching something else, but they still had to pay for the BBC.

Do you not see how bogus your claims of "good value" are? The BBC costs what it does because 3 people are paying for 1 of them to watch. If it had to paid for by those who consume it, it would be 3 times the price. It would cost more than Sky.

You see....you pro-licence-fee types give yourselves away in the way you contradict yourselves. On the one hand you say it's cheap, it's great value and you'd pay more - but when it is suggested that the fee be abolished, so that you actually would have to pay more, you squeal with rage.

What you want is for your choices to be funded by others. It's just greed.

Here are the same challenges I always set and which the pro-licence crowd always retreats from.

1/ If you think the licence is good value, why won't you pay for mine? (And before you say "Why should I pay for yours?" - well, because you expect me to pay for yours). It's only another 35p a day for you to find, remember - so come on, why won't you pay? I won't pay because I don't use it. What's your excuse when you keep saying how cheap it is?

2/ It might be 35p a day, but that adds up to £30,000 over your lifetime in money of today. Would you write a £30,000 cheque to the BBC today? Because in effect that's what you're doing.

3/ Why is the state in the entertainment business?

4/ Why do you think the BBC is free of ads? It's full of ads - for the BBC! The BBC is an advertisements-carrying channel on which only one advertiser is allowed to advertise.

I don't expect any serious or honest answers to these, but until you lot start coming up with some, you're going to continue to get creamed in this sort of poll.

danesol

Hi all

Whether you think you get value for money or NOT - it was my belief that you will still have to pay the TV Licence fee now and for the foreseeable future as it is a government introduced tax for having a "receiver" in the household whether that be TV and/or Radio and now SKY.

So as I see it, if the government continues with this "tax", if you only get enjoyment out of one or two programmes from the BBC - surely thats better than nothing.

If the tax is scapped - well then its a completely different story !

Dan29

westernpromise wrote: »

The BBC might be good value to you, but it is not good value to the 2/3rds of the population who don't watch it. The BBC's total audience share is about 33%. That is, add up all the hours of TV watched over a year and only a third of it was people watching the BBC. The others were watching something else, but they still had to pay for the BBC.

That 33% figure, if true, would be the amount of people watching BBC tv at any one time. The percentage of the population who watch BBC tv during the whole year is between 99% and 100% - so your comment "2/3rds of the population who don't watch it" is not true.

I note that you are now saying 1/3 watch BBC tv whereas earlier you were saying 1/5 so at least we're getting closer to the truth