TV licences

Cornucopia

HappyMJ wrote: »

Licence not required....as long as you don't watch programs as they are being broadcast.

At the moment. The proposals are for the Licence to extend to at least iPlayer (both live and catch-up), and possibly other areas that are not presently covered.

Pictures at 10...

Cornucopia

spenderdave wrote: »

I am confused by the free over-75 licence (another 10 years before I qualify, so the licence may well have been scrapped by then anyway). I take it that currently the government pays an equivalent amount to the BBC to cover those licences. Under the new arrangement the BBC will be paying itself for those licences which seems a bit pointless. In effect it is saying that the BBC will now have to raise that amount from other areas or increase it for those who do pay to end up with the same income.

"Pay itself" is a bit of a euphemism.

The Government has basically placed the burden of the Over-75s licences upon the BBC, which is equivalent to a cut in funding of around £650m in each year of full liability. (I think it's being phased in).

BBC-Died-in-1980

Yes, I could never understand why the over 75 TVL was created, apart from they did not like to see Zimmer-framed folks dragged through the courts - but yes, a Voluntary Subscription would solve ALL these problems, though I suspect not enough folks "Love" the BBC enough, to even pay it's toilet paper bill - let alone the £3.5 billion it wants each year to keep it's gravy train on the tracks.


I think the "Charter renewal" (or not) may not be as easy is the BBC thinks.........
:beer:

BBC-Died-in-1980

GingerBob wrote: »

The solution to the licence fee problem is blindingly obvious: collect it together with the council tax, assuming all properties have a tv. Then for those that haven't, let them claim a refund. That way you could dispense with the entire collection operation, which I believe costs in the region of £100m. The current system of licensing and collection is typical of the mad systems we have in this country.

That idea MIGHT just work, as currently if you live alone - you get a 25% reduction, "No BBC TV usage" could be claimed as a reduction in the same way! - as the BBC are to get 100% of the licence in 2020, that might be fair.

poppasmurf_bewdley

If you want to watch Sky Sports or Sky Movies, you have to buy the basic package as well at a cost of about £23 per month, whether you watch or want them or not. Yet not a single person has mentioned that on this thread.

If you want to watch live TV, you have to buy a TV licence at a cost of £12 a month.

Lots of people evidently don't want to buy a TV licence, but want to watch re-run TV channels that depend on BBC programmes for their existence supported by advertising.

Personally, now almost every TV/set top box has the ability to use a smart card, I think the TV licence should be replaced by a smart card which is required to view any live TV programme. The card could also authorise the watching of catch-up services on demand.

And live TV/catch up on line could be organised in the same way that Sky authorise Sky Go.

That would stop any evasion and be simple to implement. It would also bring in income for all those ex-pats who currently watch BBC programmes for free abroad, and from foreigners who also watch BBC programmes for free in places like Ireland, Netherlands, etc.

Kernow666

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

If you want to watch Sky Sports or Sky Movies, you have to buy the basic package as well at a cost of about £23 per month, whether you watch or want them or not. Yet not a single person has mentioned that on this thread.

If you want to watch live TV, you have to buy a TV licence at a cost of £12 a month.

Lots of people evidently don't want to buy a TV licence, but want to watch re-run TV channels that depend on BBC programmes for their existence supported by advertising.

Personally, now almost every TV/set top box has the ability to use a smart card, I think the TV licence should be replaced by a smart card which is required to view any live TV programme. The card could also authorise the watching of catch-up services on demand.

And live TV/catch up on line could be organised in the same way that Sky authorise Sky Go.

That would stop any evasion and be simple to implement. It would also bring in income for all those ex-pats who currently watch BBC programmes for free abroad, and from foreigners who also watch BBC programmes for free in places like Ireland, Netherlands, etc.

brilliantly put agree with everything there

almillar

Personally, now almost every TV/set top box has the ability to use a smart card

Absolutely not. Stacks don't.

Cornucopia

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

If you want to watch Sky Sports or Sky Movies, you have to buy the basic package as well at a cost of about £23 per month, whether you watch or want them or not. Yet not a single person has mentioned that on this thread.

If you want to watch live TV, you have to buy a TV licence at a cost of £12 a month.

It is like that in the sense of having to pay one thing before you can buy another.

It's not like that in the sense that the Licence Fee is required before you can watch ANY TV broadcasts, whereas Sky is totally voluntary (both the entertainment bit and the Movies and Sport).

You need to bear in mind, also, that although you've presented it as a mandatory purchase (on Sky) it may well be that the business model costing for Movies or Sport is based upon it being supported by a mandatory purchase of Entertainment. i.e. you could have just Movies or just Sport, but the cost of that service would be so close to the figure including Entertainment, you might as well just bundle it in.

See also Now TV, where I believe the Entertainment, Movies and Sports "passes" can all be purchased separately and independently of each other. Entertainment is certainly (a lot) cheaper on Now TV than on Sky satellite - though the service is for only 13 main channels plus catch-up and box sets. Not sure how the Sports and Movies compare to satellite.

I broadly agree with your other points though.

poppasmurf_bewdley

almillar wrote: »

Absolutely not. Stacks don't.

Presumably, you mean that a large number of TV sets and set top boxes don't have the facility to read a smart card, as I have not found a brand of TV called Stacks!

All TV's in use today must be able to receive or be adapted to receive a digital signal, so they must be capable of being connected to a device that accepts a smart card. Sky used to market such a device when they issued their first smart card in 1990/91.

Cornucopia

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

All TV's in use today must be able to receive or be adapted to receive a digital signal, so they must be capable of being connected to a device that accepts a smart card. Sky used to market such a device when they issued their first smart card in 1990/91.

The BBC under Greg Dyke gerrymandered the Freeview specification to inhibit a future move to card-based subscription.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/sep/17/broadcasting.digitaltv