MSE News: Watching BBC iPlayer on catch-up to require a TV licence 'soon'

Paul_Herring

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

I do hope they are already charging other channels - there was a 5 minute feature on Breakfast yesterday about a programme on Channel 4 later that evening.

Just the one? And only for 5 minutes?

Well within statistical error, and sufficiently close to zero to be ignored...

callum9999

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Not to the extent the BBC does, no.



Selection of podcasts I've got on my phone for Radio 4 (note that these timings include pre and post inserts, that weren't actually broadcast and added post-preduction, that last up to a minute and a half total. Guess what some of them are doing? Advertising other stuff.):

Law in action: 27:57
Friday Night comedy: 27:54
Comedy of the week: 28:24
Wake up to money: 41:59 (45 minute programme.)
Money Box (Sat): 24:12
Money Box (Wed): 28:08.




Because it's not 1-4 minutes per hour including the content of those programmes and is a massive underestimate based on my experience. 11-14 would probably be closer to the mark going by what I hear on Radio 4 on my way to work on a morning with the Today program for example.

Or the news on BBC 1 where they appear to find the slightest excuse to mention another programme somewhere else on the network.

The fact that you, personally, don't appear to recognise when this happens with your gut-feeling of 1-4 minutes goes to show how insidious it actually is.

And the stuff between programmes outside of the above generally advertise at least two other programmes.

You're not aware of any TV channel that advertises as much as the BBC does? As that's utterly absurd, perhaps you'd like to list a few that advertise less. About the only ones I can think of are Sky Movies, and they have lots of trailers between the films. Presumably you'll want to qualify it as only referring to "advertising themselves", but every ad-free station (of which there are not many - even publicly funded stations abroad tend to carry advertising) I've seen does exactly the same.

Equally absurd are your assertions that entertainment programmes that mention other programmes count as advertising.

I never listen to Radio 4 so I have no idea what relevance podcast lengths have to anything. Do the presenters never talk between segments or provide news/weather etc?

I'm struggling to see how an advert for a BBC programme could ever be described as "insidious" - even by the most ridiculously comical anti-BBC cartoon.

Paul_Herring wrote: »

Just the one? And only for 5 minutes?

Well within statistical error, and sufficiently close to zero to be ignored...

When I used to watch Breakfast they'd discuss a TV show on a different network pretty much every day. It's what entertainment news does... They'd also feature films and theatre productions regularly (presumably the likes of Film 2016 are a solid block of adverts in your view?).

silverwhistle

Paul_Herring wrote: »

I take it none of the wording of the secondary legislation will newly exclude those who don't watch any BBC channels at all from the need to pay a fee, whether they're watching other live to air channels or other channel's catchup offerings.

As someone who doesn't watch TV at home, and at 60 have never owned a colour TV I am always slightly sceptical of those who have the ability and do watch TV that claim they never watch the BBC. Do they disable all the appropriate buttons, a certain quadrant of the tuning dial or remove the appropriate crystals and valves?

I'm also surprised how they grab anything to use as a criticism. As a radio listener I've no problems with being reminded of other programmes that might interest me, although perhaps there's more repetition on TV.

On a recent holiday in Italy I was listening to the car radio (loads of adverts on their state radio, by the way) and an advertisement was extolling the new method of paying for their television licence: automatically via your electricity bill! I'd prefer Callum's method of linking a user to a licence, but would really object having to pay a massive amount for radio only.

Mind you, all this is moot as if my girlfriend does move in I've promised to get a TV... That'll annoy the authorities as they'll think I've had one all this time!

Swipe

Whenever I look there's nothing worth watching on iplayer anyway

rwalton159

Good value for money. You watch it then you should pay!

davidgmmafan

And if they don't watch any BBC channels? They still pay for it...

VisionMan

This is going to happen. Don't shoot the messenger.

VisionMan

Swipe wrote: »

Whenever I look there's nothing worth watching on iplayer anyway

So what is worth watching then?

jenniewb

I think I must watch between 30 minutes to 2 hours on the iplayer a week, but when this comes in it means no more TV. The cost of a licence is more than my mobile phone bill, so either than goes (along with a fair amount of cutting back on food to make up the difference) or the iplayer goes. I can't see the iplayer helping me out in the middle of a crisis when I need to speak to a friend.

Unless they are willing to taper the cost in some way- means test it or just realise that those of us who watch it on the iplayer aren't doing it because we don't want to pay the license fee but because some of us just can't afford it!

If the fat-cat bosses could just wake up out of their upper-middle-class-gated-community-small-minded-idyllic-lives and take a look at the real world (you know, maybe like one of those many shows they document) and notice that not everyone has a spare £150 to just throw at their salaries, it might just pay to notice that it's not always the case that people don't want to pay (- if I had the money I would pay, if the cost were smaller, I would pay) its just that not everyone can afford to.

missbiggles1

An excellent idea and about time too!