BBC Consultation

martinthebandit

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-decriminalising-tv-licence-evasion


If anyone is interested

Cornucopia

Thanks.

Filled mine in today.

pphillips

Meaningless or a step towards abolishing the TV License?

Owain_Moneysaver

One point is that decriminalising evasion will make it far easier for the enforcing authority. They will only have to meet the civil law burden of proof on the balance of probability.

At the moment a criminal conviction requires proof beyond reasonable doubt. 

pphillips

There is also the potential for evaders to have to pay higher fines as well as TV Licensing's enforcement costs. Would make the situation even worse for the poor and the vulnerable.  The only fair system is to have same the rules for BBC as there are for Sky, Virgin, Netflix etc: If I don't pay for it then I can't watch it, simple!

Farway

today's headlines https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/16/we-will-whack-it-boris-govt-tackles-bbc-plan-scrap-tv-licence/

JohnDorian

Not surprising. They are having to compete and the licence fee is no longer good value against what is out there on the market. That, coupled with the fact that BBC news reporting shows a clear left wing bias, shows the inevitability of certain parts of the population no longer wishing to pay for a service that claims to be unbiased but reports only one side of the story. 

pphillips

It's fine for the BBC to show left wing bias provided they don't claim to be independent. But this would mean they can't say they represent everyone's views or expect to be funded by the TV License. Otherwise it's like demanding a Telegraph reader to fund the Guardian.