Really Worried - The TV Licence - Unnecessary Trial

Silk

Cornucopia wrote: »

I will........

Funny how you chose not to ignore my post added for interest when I first posted on the thread #33

:rotfl:


Double standards !


Now try pointing out my moralising, being spiteful and implied the OP wasn't going to pay the fine :mad:

bazzyb

Silk wrote: »

You are missing the point ....I posted in #130 "Depends how you look at it, yes they were sent down for defaulting on the fine but it was a direct result of not having a licence."


I also posted in reply to you in post #136 "Or should I say how many was it who were sent to prison as a result of not having a TV Licence and failing to pay the fine ? if you prefer that wording "


The situation remains that those people who were imprisoned was because they didn't have a licence and either refused or couldn't pay the fines.
If they had had a licence they wouldn't be in prison.

They were imprisoned for not paying a fine.

By your logic, you could say that all of those people were sent to prison for not being homeless, as if they were homeless they would not have had a TV and therefore would not be in prison. Or you could say that other people got points on their driving licence for buying fuel, because had they not bought fuel they would not have been speeding - the argument is completely nonsensical.

I am not missing any point, I stated that failure to have a TV licence is not an imprisonable offence, and your link confirmed exactly what I had said.

Silk

bazzyb wrote: »

They were imprisoned for not paying a fine.

Yes and the fine was imposed because they failed to have a licence

bazzyb wrote: »

By your logic, you could say that all of those people were sent to prison for not being homeless, as if they were homeless they would not have had a TV and therefore would not be in prison. Or you could say that other people got points on their driving licence for buying fuel, because had they not bought fuel they would not have been speeding - the argument is completely nonsensical.

:rotfl:bit silly don't you think

bazzyb wrote: »

I am not missing any point, I stated that failure to have a TV licence is not an imprisonable offence, and your link confirmed exactly what I had said

You are missing the point, the reason those people were imprisoned is because they failed to have a licence in the first place. It's one of the main arguments why people are pushing to get it decriminalised.
Meanwhile the statistics will still show up as people serving sentences for defaulting on fines for using a TV without a licence

bazzyb

Silk wrote: »

You are missing the point, the reason those people were imprisoned is because they failed to have a licence in the first place.

No it's not. You've already proved yourself that this is not the case.

To try and get back on track, when the OP (or his wife) appears in court, they could get a fine. There is no chance whatsoever that they would decide to send them to prison instead of fining them so please stop scaremongering.

gjchester

Cornucopia wrote: »

We don't "need" the BBC in any real sense of the word. We certainly don't need it as a parasitic charge on the use of all other TV broadcasting.

No we don't "need" the BBC but looking at the point of view of being parasitic. The UK has the BBC that provides 4 TV channels and loads of radio channels for just over a tenner a month. You can watch and listen to them without any further charge on as many devices as you wish.


Sky and Virgin charge almost double that, and you can only watch one channel at once without paying more for a 2nd viewing card or box.

Cornucopia wrote: »

There are plenty of countries with no TV licence, and no equivalent to it, either.

The USA being the most obvious.

The UK has no adverts on BBC, and limits commercial broadcaster to I think 10 minutes of adverts at most.


US are far more intrusive with adverts, programs are shorter to make space for adverts. Even if you skip adverts you still see them due to the US way of taking anything up to a quarter of the screen with overlays for other shows or products.


Let me give you an example, I like Star Trek, the Original Series episodes were about 50 minutes long, but Enterprise is about 40 minutes. The typical US Show has 5 or 6 short breaks, whereas the UK has usually 3 an hour. If you show a US show here, they are always too short to make UK ad rules, so if you wonder how many more Ads the US see, consider how much advert break time is trailers for other shows, that's just making up for the fact the US Show is too short for UK laws. in fact how many times have you seen an ad break that's just trailer for another program, that's purely to hit UK rules.


Generally it means a third of a US hour of TV is adverts that pay for that service. Coming back to Sky they are even worse in the sense you pay the £20 a month to subscribe, but ALSO have adverts...




Taking the "licence" away as it is, may seem like a victory, but something will have to pay for the service. As I said all that changes is how you pay, not the fact you pay, it would be ad funded, tax funded or subscription funded, but people will still be paying, just not as directly.


If you think about it its possibly a worse option, people who currently do not watch live TV do not need a licence. If its done away with and £150 put on every house, be it through council tax or as a surcharge on a utility then everyone has to pay regardless of what they watch. Even if its done through adverts, then the prices of goods rise (albeit slightly) to cover that cost..

gjchester

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

. My sons generation don't watch ANY live tv of any kind, we watch very little. If I could opt out of receiving it and paying the LF i would. On the other hand we have no issues paying for netflix and virgin as we get use out of it. The LF is past its time, get rid asap.

Ali x

If it was renamed a subscription fee and TV watching became a subscription basis would that be better?


It may mean your Virgin Media costs go up because they have top pay the BBC sub for you.


I actually like the subscription idea, however I just don't see it happening because the media companies bundle things together. I can't pick exactly what I want.


Another example, I like F1, I'd happily pay to subscribe to it on Virgin, but I can't do that without taking a £30 subscription to all the sports channels that are mainly football channels I don't really want.

ALIBOBSY

gjchester wrote: »

If it was renamed a subscription fee and TV watching became a subscription basis would that be better?


It may mean your Virgin Media costs go up because they have top pay the BBC sub for you.


I actually like the subscription idea, however I just don't see it happening because the media companies bundle things together. I can't pick exactly what I want.


Another example, I like F1, I'd happily pay to subscribe to it on Virgin, but I can't do that without taking a £30 subscription to all the sports channels that are mainly football channels I don't really want.

The point for me is it then becomes a choice, then the market will decide what people are prepared to pay. With the private companies like virgin and sky you can negotiate and if you don't like the price just leave.

The vast majority of all our viewing is now Netflix for just £6 a month and no adverts at all, so it may well be that within a few decades the whole tv channels and current way of broadcasting may not exist at all and you will choose between live streaming services for entertainment.

For £60 a month from virgin we get over 100 hundred tv channels and landline and really fast broadband, plus 3 separate boxes in different rooms, including two boxes one a tivo one a recorder. In theory I could watch one channel in one room whilst recording 5 other channels in other rooms. But we can choose to stay or go (within the contract terms of course).

I object strongly to the forced element of the tv licence and the fact they use crapita who employ criminals and frankly the scum of the earth who have repeatedly been proven to lie both to customers and the courts.

OP I would take a look over on the TV licence resistance site as they are often helping people with simular issues.

It also might be worth a letter of complaint direct to the BBC themselves.

Good Luck OP

Ali x

Cornucopia

gjchester wrote: »

If it was renamed a subscription fee and TV watching became a subscription basis would that be better?

It would be a BBC subscription. This would be much more transparent, and would give people the option of watching commercial channels without the need to pay the BBC first.

Importantly for me, it would also see the disbanding of TVL, who bring new levels of incompetence, deceit and arrogance to UK public service outsourcing - and that's really saying something.

It may mean your Virgin Media costs go up because they have top pay the BBC sub for you.

By the same amount you save by not needing a TV Licence?

I actually like the subscription idea, however I just don't see it happening because the media companies bundle things together. I can't pick exactly what I want.

The TV Licence is already a bundle - both in terms of the payment covering all BBC TV & Radio, and in terms of it being required before you can access any TV broadcasts (including, according to the BBC, those that are not even part of the UK broadcast industry).

The Law and/or the BBC could require BBC services to be maintained on every platform, and to be made always available in a single service bundle in addition to any other bundling or marketing arrangement that the platform owner wishes.

Another example, I like F1, I'd happily pay to subscribe to it on Virgin, but I can't do that without taking a £30 subscription to all the sports channels that are mainly football channels I don't really want.

It sounds like you think watching F1 is some kind of right.

This is all about the money. Maybe it could be offered on a standalone basis, but it would still cost say £25 pm. On that basis, no one bothers to market it that way, because the number of subscribers would be tiny.

I find this negative narrative about the possible abolition of the Licence Fee quite tedious. It defies rational thought that EVERY conceivable option would be worse than what we have now. I certainly don't believe that, and I think it's an unacceptable, untrue argument designed to try to manipulate the unwary.

gjchester

Cornucopia wrote: »

It sounds like you think watching F1 is some kind of right. .

That's a bit of a jump. Not quite sure how you got there.


I don't think its a right and I know its about money that's why some of the races left BBC and we have part coverage, like football and now golf.


My point was I can't pick and choose what individual channels I want I have to buy bundles and so paying for channels I don't want. That's no different to the licence fee, so why is one acceptable and the other not?

Cornucopia

gjchester wrote: »

That's a bit of a jump. Not quite sure how you got there.

You're talking about it as something "you ought to be able to do".

I don't think its a right and I know its about money that's why some of the races left BBC and we have part coverage, like football and now golf.

My point was I can't pick and choose what individual channels I want I have to buy bundles and so paying for channels I don't want.

That's a commercial decision between you, your pay-TV operator and the rights owner.

That's no different to the licence fee, so why is one acceptable and the other not?

Because bundles are a commercial decision, that can/will ultimately change if the market wants it. If one doesn't approve or agree with the way services are bundled, there's always the option to walk away.

The Licence Fee is statutory. It is, as I said, effectively a bundling across all broadcast TV, not subject to commercial pressure and where it is not possible to walk away (unless one wants to dispense with TV broadcasts altogether).