TV Licence article Discussion

Zapito

cw18 wrote: »

I don't personally think Netflix / Wuaki etc should require a licence - they're basically DVD rental services, the only difference being you don't have to drive miles to a shop to rent one and there's no risk of returning it late and facing a fine.

Having to find that extra £120-£150 a year would make a huuuuge difference to some of us who are only just balancing the books at the moment, so I think it's totally wrong to make it a household levy.

If you already have a licence it would make no difference. I would agree though that anyone who is genuinely not receiving any broadcast media should be made exempt, but that would mean a need for severe penalties for anyone who cheats. But if you only watch (or pretend to only watch) catchup media online then it is only fair to have to pay for it.

Cornucopia

You seem to be quite enamoured of these "severe penalties", whereas in the real world, the direction of travel by Government is very much in the opposite direction - with an average fine of £175 in England and a Fixed Penalty of £75 in Scotland. Why, it's almost as if they are gaining a sense of perspective on this being "just TV".

Furthermore, it's worth discussing the actual Government proposal (that I think the BBC has accepted on "our" behalf), which is that catch-up services only of PSBs should be in-scope of the Licence.

Personally, I can see that opening a huge can of worms, where C4 or ITV object to seeing their on-demand services behind the BBC's paywall, and lobby Government for equal treatment with Netflix, Youtube, and indeed UKTV (half owned by the BBC) who will be outside its scope. It'll also be interesting to see what definition the Law-writers come up with. PSB is already defined by OFCOM I think, as the five ex-analog channels, but it'll be a challenge to come up with a satisfactory definition for "catch-up".

I can't help feeling that people will still object to "loopholes", even though someone has sought to have a fair & balanced set of legislation, and this isn't what "loophole" means, anyway.

Cornucopia

Zapito wrote: »

It has. There is a public consultation on that very subject taking place right now. You can have your say via BBC here: https://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/bbc/tomorrows-bbc

and/or direct to HMG here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bbc-charter-review-public-consultation

Been there, done that, bought the "reform the Licence now" tee-shirt.

I've been collating, editing and word-smithing my group's responses on the various consultations.

Where the Perry Review Report says this:-

... the threat of court appearances and criminal offence is "exploited" by the BBC, and a benefit of this option would be to remove "opportunities for threat
and misinformation".

I wrote the passage that he is quoting.

DavidP24

Zapito wrote: »

So please support the calls for legislative change and oppose those who lie and cheat by gaming the system in order to get free viewing which the rest of us all have to pay for.

Gosh you really do despise them don't you!

The only Liars and Cheats are Capita and the BBC

You call people Liars and Cheats just because they use a perfectly legal loop hole (catch up or non live tv)

Your reason for being resentful. because you have to pay.

That is petty, drag everyone down to your level and insult everyone because you just assume the worst of people.

I used to get Broadband for £2.25 a month and free line rental and free international calls for up to an hour. Would you resent me for that? Would you call me a liar and a cheat?

If I used Live TV I would be prepared to pay for it

I am not a cheat just because I do not want the services of the BBC (or any other channel)

I am not a liar either,

What I resent is the little hitlers knocking at my door, lying about their right to enter, wasting my time with deceptive questions trying to get me to incrimiinate myself so they can earn a commission and send people to prison or waste the Courts time.

I believe in Karma, people that work for Capita will have the same misery in their lives that they give out.

It is a shame you resent people because they do not want to pay and are using a legal way of not paying.

DavidP24

Cornucopia wrote: »

Given the prevalence of commercial media across the World and throughout recent human history, do you not think that there would be plentiful referenceable evidence of this... if it were true?

It is just maths, the advertising has to be paid for, that cost is added to the product, you are told it is a "premium brand" but really you are paying to be told to buy a product.

Cornucopia wrote: »

I doubt that the price difference is that much. However, this argument is fundamentally flawed, anyway, for the following reasons:-

a) Aldi and Lidl advertise. So the cost of £3 includes the cost of advertising.

b) There are only two possibilities: either the Aldi/Lidl products are identical to the main brand ones, in which case why isn't everyone buying them, OR the products are not identical, but are "good enough" for their pricepoint and offer fair value for money. The former implies consumers are stupid, but have it within their own control to circumvent the alleged take of advertising cost, the latter is more likely to be the truth, and reflects a reasonably balanced market operating to serve consumers.

There are way more than two possibilities, E.G. loss leading, to address the points you raised, Aldi spend a fraction of what the big brands do and they advertise the supermarket not the specific products.

Market is no longer balanced with just two players selling all the brands and making the product for the supermarkets too.

Consumers ARE stupid, most buy the same crap week in week out without checking whether they have been conned. They are persuaded to buy 2 and get one free, then throw away 2 of the 3 because it went off before they could eat it. e.g. 2 x 600g of mandarins @ £2.50 each plus one free = £5 for 1800g, vs 1 bag of 600g at Aldi for £1.30 or between 39p and 69p when promoted. 6 different fruit and veg are promoted each week at between 39p and 69p

I am not locked in, I see zero TV ads unless I am visiting someone who has TV.

cw18

Zapito wrote: »

If you already have a licence it would make no difference. I would agree though that anyone who is genuinely not receiving any broadcast media should be made exempt, but that would mean a need for severe penalties for anyone who cheats. But if you only watch (or pretend to only watch) catchup media online then it is only fair to have to pay for it.

I would be more than happy to see penalties for more of those who claim not to need and then watch live TV - it's because of them that people look at me as I'm a criminal when I say I have no licence, and refuse to believe that I don't watch live TV or catch-up.

But from what I read on here they seem to hound people who are legally licence free, and it seems I may be unusual in not having had any hassle (either by mail or by way of a visit) in the almost 5 years since I cancelled my licence.

So where does the line get drawn between hounding to catch the non-payers who should have one, and the harrassment of those who are legally licence free?

Perhaps adding it to something like Council Tax would stop people just not bothing to apply for a licence/pay the fee (and reduce the number of people avoiding the licence fee when they should be paying for one), but I still think there would have to be a way for people to apply to have the charge removed from their bill due to not using the services it covers - and that still requires a much clearer definitiion of which services require a licence so that we can confidently declare on the rebate application that we don't use any of them.

DavidP24

Zapito wrote: »

Since the exceptions are so tiny, I would assume everyone to be liable and let those very few make a case for exemption. That case should be easy to make but there needs to be a massive financial penalty for anyone caught using the procedure to cheat.

There you go again

massive financial penalty
assume everyone to be liable

Next you would have us all forced to watch Eastenders just because you do!

How about you are innocent until proven guilty

Small thing called habeas corpus !

to ASSuME makes an !!! out of U and ME

Imagine if we were all assumed to have SkyTV and had to pay or prove we did not

Funny how Sky do not have this problem because they have a subscription model and the broadcasts are encrypted, the BBC can do the same.

Funny also that Netflix is deliberately "soft" on enforcing people sharing their logins even though it would be dead simple to restrict them to specific IP's and devices. They know that if you are actually nice to customers they come back and buy sheeeet from you, while the BBC do not realise that by being nasty they alienate people and it will be those people who vote for them to lose public funding.

I have come to the conclusion that you must work for Capita or the BBC

DavidP24

Zapito wrote: »

Any capability of receiving broadcast media. So TV, computer, tablet, smartphone, etc. Keep it straightforward - basically everyone but an extremely tiny minority who make a choice not to receive any. Everyone else needs to pay.

Then of course, the way that money is spent needs to be carefully monitored and controlled. But that's a whole different debate..

In Zapito "any capability" world you would be charged for drink driving whilst at the pub because you were capable of it.

Keep it straightforward - nobody needs to pay or people can choose to subscribe

It is called CHOICE, I should not be hounded by little hitlers who lie about their authority and try to trick people into thinking they need a licence, when at home, it is called "quiet enjoyment".

In one of the videos on YouTube one of these Capita goons kept doing it, he even asked the person whether they downloaded content, as if that is in his remit somehow.

Where a friend of mine lives there are a lot of people moving so he had a Capita Goon coming around every week, the a-wipe got agressive with one person and has now been booted out by the management. They are no longer given access and are told to send reminders or get a warrant. :rotfl:

Cornucopia

DavidP24 wrote: »

It is just maths, the advertising has to be paid for, that cost is added to the product, you are told it is a "premium brand" but really you are paying to be told to buy a product.

I don't suppose we're going to convince each other on this.

I don't think people are being "told" to buy products. I also think this is less about Maths, and more about Economics.

I tend to look at this issue like eBay. If I sell something on eBay, then I have to pay a fee - effectively the cost of advertising my item. When the buyer pays, they their price, and I receive that price, though I have to pay fees later. So is that fee a cost to the buyer? Not really. Is it a cost to me? Not quite. It's more like it is a cost of doing business.

And it only gets more complicated when you scale-up.

There are way more than two possibilities, E.G. loss leading,

If anyone is loss-leading then all bets are off over who foots the bill for their costs.

Consumers ARE stupid, most buy the same crap week in week out without checking whether they have been conned.

There's a whole psychology of shopping. But that's not the issue here.

I am not locked in, I see zero TV ads unless I am visiting someone who has TV.

So even by your own logic you must be throwing something of a spanner into the advertisers' "evil plans"?

Zapito

cw18 wrote: »

... it seems I may be unusual in not having had any hassle (either by mail or by way of a visit) in the almost 5 years since I cancelled my licence.

Or it might simply be that some folk are spinning a yarn!