TV licence - to pay or not to pay?

Emmia

elsien said:

I happen to think the TV license is value for money, and I have issues with not paying for something when I am watching the relevant programmes. 

Yes people may be able to get away with not paying, but as with anything if you don’t pay then eventually it’s going to vanish. Which I’m sure some people think might be a good thing, but not for me.

I have to agree. Eventually it will all become subscription - so there won't be an option to watch anything for free or without ads. Less than £4 a week currently, is frankly a bargain. 

If course when it happens people will moan that they can't watch stuff for free anymore (and I can guarantee it will be more than £4 week then). As the saying goes,  you don't know what you've got til it's gone...

Cornucopia

I watch mostly Youtube premium - this is a paid subscription with no ads.   They've even begun to provide an easy skip function for in-video ad reads placed by Youtube channels.   The subscription is less than the TV Licence.

There are ad-free options with other streaming services, as well.  

It doesn't make sense for services not to provide ad-free options if customers are prepared to pay for them.  

Vitor

I could easily pay the BBC license but haven't for years on principle. I don't miss it and don't sneakily watch anything on iPlayer etc., there's far more interesting material on YouTube than I could ever hope to watch 

HonestJohn

The BBC could easily stop licence evasion by encoding their content but I guess the costs would be too high. They are looking to switch off their transmitters in the next 10 yrs and put all their content online. This has implications for those without an ISP so is getting some bad press .That would be a good time introduce a digital licence.

Baldytyke88

Newbie_John said:

I'm like your friend.
You need to see BBC and Live TV like another streaming channel. 
Imagine friends came to you and wanted to watch something on Apple TV, would you buy the license for them? 

I did have the password for Netflix for a while, but just for films I don't want to pay for it, no time to watch films until I retire.

£200 per year is a small amount for most people, I would happily pay £50 per year just for BBC Radio 4, I would guess it costs very little of the whole licence fee.

"funding is allocated to all national and local radio services as a collective group, which represented around 17% of the licence fee in recent years".

prowla

Suzycoll said:

Hi all

I read an article in  DM yesterday where Boris Johnson said he is not going to pay his TV licence (I have no interest in why - something political!)

Anyway, it got me thinking.

I have no TV ariel & mostly watch bbc,ch4,itv etc apps (+Netflix ). I was of the understanding as I was watching BBC (signed in) I have to pay a TV licence?

However, this article took me back to a recent cruise, where I shared a table with strangers. For some reason the conversation turned to TV licence. More than half the table of 8 said that they simply don't pay it. End of

I'm just wondering others comments on this & what happens/happened if one stop paying?
Apologies if this has been discussed previously.

Thoughts 🤔

If you watch any "live" TV and/or use iPlayer then you need a licence.

If you only watch on-demand streamed content then you don't.

As for "end of", that's not a justification.