TV licensing...

[TonyR]

It's not a mark of a healthy society when the government guarantees funding for and so closely controls a broadcaster which produces so much rubbish.

Where else are the masses to get their Soma in this Brave New World?

[Flinders]

For years all we watched on the TV (B&W portable) was the Grand National.Then it went back into the loft. We still paid our fee, being law abiding citizens, more willingly because we listen to the radio a lot.
Then another person joined the household- with a colour tv. We got a new colour licence and started to watch stuff. Wonderful nature programmes, for one.

There is some good stuff, but there is an awful lot of brain-rotting rubbish. And the news, especially the BBC, is now very pro-establishment biased, even on the radio. As it is subsidised, the BBC ought not to be doing the brain-rotting and crude end of things, but the public service stuff, educational and cultural. And it should be careful to stick to facts, not propaganda.

[Psamathe]

Doubt it.
The BBC is independent from government by dint of the TVL.
If taxpayers paid, it would cease to be independent and become a state-run broadcaster.

I doubt that would happen. Possibly, the BBC would go commercial but even that is highly unlikely.
The status quo will remain for the foreseeable future.

Thing is, people talk about the BBC being a "state broadcaster" yet they are deliberately not part of or controlled by "the state". So the only thing that really makes them a "state broadcaster" is that the "state" makes a subscription to their programs compulsory.

I don't for one moment doubt that many enjoy their programs, but that is not justification for me to be subsidising their viewing (when I never really watch the BBC). TV is not one of the basic critical services people need to live. And I find it far better if what is in effect a tax were used to help those in real need and people pay for their TV (and I would then chose what channels to subscribe to).

Other broadcasters manage fine through different balances of income sources. So why does the BBC need the compulsory subscription from everybody/household with a TV ? It's programming is not sufficiently different from other broadcasters to warrant the compulsory subscription.

Ian

[simonineaston]

I agree with all who've said that the BBC regularly broadcast material of high-quality - some of the best you can get. It's so true that it doesn't necessarily look so stellar until you see the offerings from other countries... but my experience is that the output from The Beeb is still up amongst the best in the world. You should sample a soap from Mexico before you think ill of Eastenders!
I don't know what I'd do without Radios 3, 4, & 6 - fantastic stuff, and on the rare occasions I've watched 'telly' on iPlayer, I've really enjoyed some of their prog.s, 'specially on the subject of food and cooking... almost to the point that I can feel a bit guilty about not buying a licence! I was recently drawn into trying Peaky Blinders (my Granpop was from Dudley and my Dad was born a bit after the year the first series was set...) and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The whole thing does make more sense when you realise that the licence is (was) for the use of television reception equipment and once you get your noddle round that nugget of info., it simply serves to underscore the fact that the whole arrangement is anachronistic and long overdue an overhaul.
Moving on from there, I readily confess to having in the past downloaded content from the BBC, albeit from You Tube - Rick Stein's French Food Odyssey is one series that springs to mind - and although I'm completely clear in my mind that I don't need a BBC TVL to watch the downloaded episodes, I still have a nagging doubt about the legality, from the point of view of the series being copyright material! So that's an irony, isn't it! Had I watched the series on iPlayer, after the event of the broadcast, I'd have been legal, but to download and store it on my hdd, and then watch it, I'm back in illegal territory again, albeit for a different reason!

[Mick F]

We've ben watching Benidorm on YouTube.
Hilarious!
They're all there from series 1 to series 5, though possibly not the latter series 6 as yet, but they may be there.

Copyright?
Dunno, but you can find all sorts of stuff on Youtube that was originally on TV.

We were watching a DVD of Porridge series two last night, and a quick look at YouTube shows that episodes are there, even the 1979 movie.

Copyright?
Dunno.

[Sooper8]

In my experience of Capita, they are a creeping poisonous menace who as masquerade as a benevolent Big Brother offering a service - but in actual fact are the worse kind of corporate blood sucking entity known to man.
It won't be long before everything in the UK will be run and owned by them and the National Trust (slight irony intended in this final sentence re NT)

[Edwards]

Have I got this straight?
One person does not like the BBC and objects to paying for television broadcasts. Yet is prepared to pay an insidious corporation large sums a month? Then repeats what that corporation claims almost word for word.

We must keep the BBC as The Murdoch empire needs to be kept in check.

Murdoch reminds me of an Elliot Carver in a James Bond film with the way he does business.

[blackbike]

Have I got this straight?
One person does not like the BBC and objects to paying for television broadcasts. Yet is prepared to pay an insidious corporation large sums a month? Then repeats what that corporation claims almost word for word.

We must keep the BBC as The Murdoch empire needs to be kept in check.

Murdoch reminds me of an Elliot Carver in a James Bond film with the way he does business.

I've never seen a James Bond film, but I'm perfectly happy with the way I do business with Mr Murdoch.

I pay his Sky TV company an agreed amount per month and it beams live football matches to my home.

I've cancelled agreements with Sky in the past.

They send a couple of polite letters asking you to re-subscribe, offering special offers and other incentives.

That contrasts sharply with the way the BBC does business.

If you don't pay for its services it sends its chosen Capita snoopers round, and also sends letters virtually accusing you of committing a criminal offence, reminding you of the penalties for that offence, all without any evidence whatsoever that you have committed any offence at all. This harassment can go on for years.

Sky's business methods are quite acceptable to me. Those of the BBC are disgusting, and the corporation should be ashamed of them.

[kwackers]

That contrasts sharply with the way the BBC does business.

Not too surprising since one is a legal obligation and the other isn't.

To be fair you can pick anything that's supposedly a legal obligation and you'll find whole hordes of like minded people complaining about it. People simply don't like being told what to do and will hang on to any argument they think supports their case.
See it all the time along a widely diverse set of issues from speeding to recycling.

[Edwards]

I've never seen a James Bond film, but I'm perfectly happy with the way I do business with Mr Murdoch.

So you only watch football matches. You must be aware that BBC programme are included in that package?

Are you happy with the way Mr Murdoch runs his business empire?

[mjr]

Sky's business methods are quite acceptable to me. Those of the BBC are disgusting, and the corporation should be ashamed of them.

Sky refuse to adopt standards such as Common Access Modules, so you're tied into their receiving equipment, plus they've been accused of funding cracks of competing providers in the past (I think it was hiring some company in Israel to crack the encryption used by CanalPlus - but I may have misremembered the accusation). I don't accept that sort of misbehaviour. It's also rather irritating that one can't subscribe to a non-Sky satellite channel without a rubbish Sky receiver.

BBC aren't quite blameless on these aspects - the iPlayer and the Freesat EPG are both rather nonstandard which limits use of standards-based receivers - but at least you can watch it with a free market choice of imported DVB equipment if you want. Our household like cycling, skiing, ice hockey, ice dance and French films, which are all on other European channels far more often than UK ones, so I've been using USALS DVB-S receivers for more than a decade.

[blackbike]

I've never seen a James Bond film, but I'm perfectly happy with the way I do business with Mr Murdoch.

So you only watch football matches. You must be aware that BBC programme are included in that package?

Are you happy with the way Mr Murdoch runs his business empire?

I'm not bothered how Murdoch runs his business empire. It is nothing to do with me.

I pay him for product and he gives it to me.

He doesn't force me to buy it. He can't force me to buy it.

That's a perfectly reasonable way to trade non-essential goods and services like TV programmes.

The state forces people to buy the BBC's trash whether they want it or not via a tax on TV use.

That's wrong, and the vile methods the BBC uses to enforce that payment even when it is not due are wrong too.

Thankfully that message is getting through to many people which is why not paying for the BBC is almost certainly going to be decriminalised in the next parliament.

[Psamathe]

Have I got this straight?
One person does not like the BBC and objects to paying for television broadcasts. Yet is prepared to pay an insidious corporation large sums a month? Then repeats what that corporation claims almost word for word.

We must keep the BBC as The Murdoch empire needs to be kept in check.

Murdoch reminds me of an Elliot Carver in a James Bond film with the way he does business.

There must be something very very wrong if I have to pay £140 per year to buy something I don't want just to keep a different company "in-check".

Ian

[Edwards]

The state forces people to buy the BBC's trash whether they want it or not via a tax on TV use.

As has been stated lots of other countries have a similar TV licensing system.

Yet you keep repeating the Murdoch mantra.
PS you do receive lots of other channels you do not want in your Sky thing including the BBC.

[Edwards]

Have I got this straight?
One person does not like the BBC and objects to paying for television broadcasts. Yet is prepared to pay an insidious corporation large sums a month? Then repeats what that corporation claims almost word for word.

We must keep the BBC as The Murdoch empire needs to be kept in check.

Murdoch reminds me of an Elliot Carver in a James Bond film with the way he does business.

There must be something very very wrong if I have to pay £140 per year to buy something I don't want just to keep a different company "in-check".

Ian

I just think of it as a donation to a keep one empire out fighting fund. News International would probably not have been stopped by Sky News.