Important update! We have recently reviewed and updated our Forum Rules and FAQs. Please take the time to familiarise yourself with the latest version.
TV Licence article Discussion
3.8K replies
392.8K views
Quick links
Essential Money | Who & Where are you? | Work & Benefits | Household and travel | Shopping & Freebies | About MSE | The MoneySavers Arms | Covid-19 & Coronavirus Support
Replies
As regards "personal shopping choices", clearly if I have not watched a particular station then I won't know whether or not an ad for the product appeared on it. Any such "choice", therefore, is of necessity extremely limited and far from the transparency with which the BBC is funded.
The reality is completely different from this ridiculous scenario that has been dreamed up. The Daily Mail is a private enterprise, the BBC is a public body. The Daily Mail exists for profit, the BBC exists for social good. The Daily Mail exists for the benefit of its owners, the BBC exists for the benefit of the nation. The Daily Mail is free to publish whatever it likes or whatever its owner dictates, the BBC is required to strive for impartiality and fairness.
This whole newspaper scenario is irrelevant, crass idiocy.
I'm flattered that you think it would be feasible for me to mount a "wholesale attack on the BBC". In reality that's not what I am about at all and I'm afraid your suggestion is both factually wrong and wholly unrealistic.
I am happy for the BBC to continue, as long as the enforcement of the Licence Fee (or whatever replaces it) is fair, proportionate and legally-compliant. I'd also hope that someone would see sense and rein-in some of the other issues with the BBC like its generally poor level of Governance and accountability, but I'm not holding my breath...
I'm not sure there's any issue with the difficulty of collecting the Licence Fee per se. The issues are rather broader than that.
There's a very simple question that demonstrates that it is not as simple as you imply, which is: how much do think you pay? If you're getting upset about, say, 40 pence per day (measured by a model that probably isn't accurate)... well we know how that goes.
If you can't even be bothered to do a periodic survey of commercial media to see what's currently being advertised, then it strikes me that you aren't very committed to your "cause".
I would say it's relatively easy to ignore advertising, and not to buy the products. They can (and do) fire ads for mascara at me hundreds of times a day, and I still won't begin to wonder how it would look on me.
In fact, advertised products that I do buy are a tiny fraction of the total. So how much am I paying? 10 pence per day I can live with for all the commercial media it supports.
Ultimately, though, however you put it, that would be a subjective statement - or opinion. There are plentiful facts about the BBC, like this one: "the BBC has the largest budget of any public service broadcaster in the World, and is the largest PSB in the World by various other criteria, too".
Given that the UK is not the largest country in the World, perhaps we are correct to question that?
Ireland was mentioned earlier, and that makes for quite an interesting comparison. The Irish Licence Fee is 160 Euros per household per year, and raises 220m Euros per year in total, with a 16% evasion rate. Ireland is a fair bit smaller than the UK. The Irish channels carry advertising, and the Licence fee provides around half of their funding. But they have a functional TV service, at a cost which if transferred to the UK would equate to a TV Licence of c. £6.29 per year. So there is a debate on the size, scope, function and cost of the BBC to be had.
I think they are more fantasy arguments, than fanciful - that sounds a bit dismissive, and obviously we need to be careful about being dismissive of other people's posts.
Fantasy arguments are a key part of debate. There will always be a place for clever and apposite straw-men that point up a particular issue, or perhaps ridicule a false presumption.
Thus: can anyone explain to me why I need a Licence for my TV, when I'm allowed to own and operate Gas Appliances, Chainsaws and all manner of other potentially dangerous DIY, Gardening and Kitchen implements without one.
This is a key point of contention... firstly no one is "picking on the BBC" as such. This thread is about the TV Licence, so it will be confined largely to that issue.
But you're right, people are exercising a judgement about the funding of all sorts of public services. Personally, I'm not interested in Opera, and don't see any pressing social need for it to be subsidised. The BBC is a little more complex, being so diverse in what it produces. I'm happy for there to be a subsidy for News, but not Eastenders. That's obviously going to be subjective, and everyone will have their own personal view.
Beyond that subjectivity, though, I think it's clear that the argument for public funding for TV entertainment (indeed, entertainment generally) is weak, for the following reasons...
- Because it is "mere" entertainment.
- Because it's patronising to try to lure viewers in with entertainment in the expectation of them staying tuned for something more worthy.
- Because TV entertainment (and indeed, PSB-type content) is widely available free-to-air from a variety of commercial sources and also from Channel 4, which is a public service broadcaster funded entirely by advertising.
Isn't World Service radio part of the BBC?
That made sense, when there were only a few channels, but now there are hundreds of channels, the overwhelming majority of which, are not BBC channels.
Just because it always has been that way, doesn't mean it always has to be that way.
Again, it's only your opinion, that we would have a shoddier service.
So, if we don't like something the government does, we shouldn't discuss and debate, but should instead conduct a political campaign to get it changed?
That's going to knock down he level of posting on here rather a lot, don't you think?
You can assert whatever you like, but it doesn't make it a fact. It remains merely an opinion.
It's only a pittance if you can comfortably afford it.
For a single person on JSA, £12-12 per month is a lot of money.
Indeed, the LF is approximately two whole weeks of JSA.
As for the other examples you quote, payment toward those is based on your financial situation.
A single person on JSA, pays little of nothing toward them, whereas they pay exactly the same for the TV Licence, as does a millionaire.
The LF is regressive, in that it makes absolutely no allowance for your financial situation.
And again, your opinion.
Yet again, your opinion.
So suddenly it is no longer a matter of political principle but one of financial negotiation. Whether 10p per day or 40p per day, It's still chicken-feed,