The end of the TV license ?

[vehelpfulguy]

Surely we are now reaching the stage where the TV license situation is becoming a fiasco.

This news item says anyone watching the World Cup at work via the interent and broadband must have a TV license.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5074406.stm

As we get more and more TV's built into computers, cars and other devices surely it is becoming impractical to maintain a license to watch TV.

I am not anti-BBC, far from it, I think they make great television, but funding them via a license is not on anymore.

(I can also remember they days when we had a radio license. As soon as we started to get transistor radios and car radios it was impossible to collect it and it was dropped. The same is hapening with the TV license.)

[Kathyan]

If you see my post below regarding J Ross, it seems that most people are in favour of the licence. I think it's time it was abolished for different reasons to yours and I read somewhere that they are looking at different ways of funding the BBC but not until after the charter is up for renewal.

[kempie]

I see no problem in maintaining and administering the licence structure. The licence covers the address (or location), not the type of equipment (except for self powered items which fall under your main residential licence).

A TV licence provides a legal permission to install or
use a television receiver in order to receive television
programme services.

If you wish to watch television programme services at work (either on a traditional TV or via broadband) your workplace must be covered by a licence, much as it always was.

If you wish to watch television programme services at home, the address must be covered by a licence.

If you wish to watch television programme services at a second home, the address must be covered by a licence.

All receivers powered solely by their own internal batteries are covered for any address by the user�s main home licence. However, if the user plugs the receiver into the mains or connects it to any external power source such as a car battery, a separate licence would be needed.

[joko]

i am in two minds about it - obviously i'd rather not pay if i don't have to and therefore would like it abolished

however, i cannot deny that 'value for money' wise its great.

it works out a few pence a day (about 30p i think someone said, i may be wrong)

- where could you get 24 hours of entertainment for that? without even having to get dressed!

if you consider the price of a pint, or the cinema, or a magazine, or newspaper, etc it really is a bargain.

but as i say i would rather not pay if given the choice.

its a strange one.

[Big Al1st]

I read in the paper the other day that the BBC was thinking about going into the Internet business and one day wanted to challenge Google. Advertising maybe allowed. This I think is wrong. Why should people who have no interest in the internet subsidise the BBC to help in their aims in areas outside of Broadcasting.

I agree that pound for entertainment pound the BBC can be good value for money but alot of money is wasted. How much do they pay for extravagent, although very good, adverts for their own programs. Will more people watch the programs as a result of these adverts. I think not. And I do think some of their " stars " both in Radio and TV are overpaid.

Rgds

[jake-the-peg]

I think it's not a question of "should" it's a question of can.

How can the BBC make it's content available internationally via the web and still maintain the license funded public service charter?

It's a potential legal nightmare apart from anything else.

Perhaps we could see foreign subscribers paying a "license fee" for content but that effectively turns them into just another subscription channel.

It's actually the shielding of the BBC from comercial pressures which has made them the unique institution that they are and somehow that protection from commercial pressures has to be preserved - however much it may annoy those who's dogma is that "everyone must be accountable to the market"

[brachiopod]

In typical newspaper style, rather than explaining the truth of the situation, the print meeja (sic) have chosen the inaccurate, alarmist and misleading headline (seen in one London newspaper);

"�1000 Fine For Watching Football On Broadband",

thus giving the impression that every single person who sneeks a peek at the football on t'internet at work will be fined. The headline also manages to be topical ('football'), up-to-date ('internet/technology') and personally relevant ('you personally might have to stump up the money')

The reality of the situation is well explained in previous answers, however, the headline;

"Firms That Let Staff Watch The Football On An Old Telly In The Canteen Really Ought To Have A TV License"

probably wouldn't sell as many newspapers.

[cascarelli]

As has been said previously, why do we have to have a licence for a TV even if we dont watch BBC?

Why not make it a pure subscription channel(s) then all those that want to watch it can pay for the priviledge directly and the rest of us wont have to subsidise them?

The licence fee is not 'value for money' if you dont happen to watch the BBC.

[buildersmate]

Like a number of other ABers, I believe it's only a matter of time before the TV Licence becomes impractical because the merging of different technologies by which picture images can be received. Before the radio licence, there was of course the SEPARATE licence required for having a car radio! - so the nature of innovation is that the fee will become redundant sooner or later.

At that time, I believe the Government in power will modify the BBC Charter and fund it directly through taxation. Irrespective of whether you like or dislike particular aspects of what the BBC provide, I believe there is much of be said for maintaining a system that promotes a wide range of genres because otherwise commercial pressures will come to the front and result in a loss of non-mainstream areas of the current BBC's output. It also assures an underpinning of some sense of standards - having just returned from the US I was reminded again just how pathetic their TV news coverage is - they perpetually focus on a small number of stories with merely a US angle. The Independent channels here are forced to maintain a minimum quality because its what people expect. Long may the BBC continue, whether funded by License fee or tax - its the same thing.

[Tweed]

The license fee ought to be scrapped. Though the license is supposedly a requirement to own a TV, not to watch BBC, it's the BBC who benifits from, and is partially funded by it. So the BBC broadcasts TV & radio throughout the world, run a website, produce magazines etc. and it's the British who pays for it. Someone in Holland, for example can view these broadcasts without the need to have a license. The BBC make one or two decent programs a year and fill the rest with utter shite such as spelling tests, Eastenders, 'celebrity' this, 'celebrity' that. It jumps on the bandwaggon of successful shows by other production companies and do it abysmally. They fill air time by having the weather forcasts lasting 10 minutes, having the live audiences cheering and clapping at every banal utterance from a 'celebrity', and advertise themselves relentlessly. The news is dumbed down and pro government. They waste huge sums of money paying the saleries of top management, not to mention the performers themselves, and other daft things (�60,000 for a bird on a stick by Tracy Emin). They give in to government demands - remember the apology and resignation of Greg Dyke because of the Hutton report. The BBC could and should fund itself, it already makes millions from selling it's programs worldwide, though it will gladly take all it can get. Refuse to pay.

[jno]

if I watch only the BBC I still have to pay for ITV - through the higher prices people charge for products so they can afford to advertise them on commercial TV. There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a free TV service.

[kempie]

Clearly, many people do not understand that the TV licence is a tax

...is a tax which must be paid to legally watch any of the television channels, not only the BBC.

...is a tax that is set by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, i.e. the Government, not the BBC.

...yet is a tax that you can opt out of paying. No-one is forced to watch or own a TV.


If the BBC disappeared tomorrow it is improbable that the Government would abolish a tax which covers all of the remaining channels. They would just add the funds to the coffers and mete it out as they see fit.


Those that complain about non-UK residents watching UK channels for free; this is hardly a feature unique to the TV licence. They can bring their cars into the UK and use our road system without having to pay for a Road Fund Licence also.

To continue the motoring analogy, funds from the Road Fund Licence were used to finance construction of the M25. I see very little evidence of drivers who never use the M25 using that reason to complain about Road Tax.

The nature of any tax is that it funds some things we need or agree with and some things we do not.

[buildersmate]

Exactly, Kempie, its a tax - whether charged separately (as the Licence Fee as now) or funded through General Taxation (as maybe in the future).

Reading some of the above posts, there's also some confusion about the BBC's commercial ventures - DVDs, magazines etc - they aren't funded from the Licence Fee. The BBC was split about a dozen years ago into (at least) 3 separate business units - there is one that designs and specifies the Programme Outputs and the News (this is funded by the Licence Fee), the one that produces some of the programmes (this is funded by the 1st one and has to compete with independent producers in an open-market to make the BBC programmes). The third one is the commercial arm that deals with other products and services and sells BBC programmes. This has to be self-funding.

[Catso]

I agree, the 'simple' licence system is probably on its last legs. As technologies change, merge and split it just seems plain daft that you should have a TV licence in order to be able to (effectively) open one particular sort of computer file, from one particular source.

And as someone has already said, what about non-UK people watching? Will the BBC be pursuing them for licence fee evasion? If not, why not? Is that not racist? Shouldn't the same laws apply to everyone in the EU? I feel a European Court of Human Rights case coming on!

It's just not sustainable in its current form.

[kempie]

buildersmate - so you would prefer that the funds come from general taxation i.e. you pay for it whether you own/watch TV or not and cannot opt out.

That seems even more of an inequity than the present system.

[brachiopod]

(joins conversation late)

kemps, I would agree with buildersmate's post. Why not fund the BBC through general taxation?

I haven't been to a doctor for 20 years, never been to the opera, and never driven on the M62, so, can I have a discount?

As someone pointed out "the BBC make one or two decent programs [sic] a year" the rest is filled with "utter shite", well, tweed, have it your way, and the BBC will be full of the 'shite' you mention.

Caught between 'elitist' rubbish (opera, documentry, Newsnight), or 'populist-to-justify-the-licence-fee' (hence the shite programmes you mention - 'Celebrity-Dance-Spelling- Make-over-In-The-Sun',) the BBC can't really win, can they?

Bearing in mind, that most people who complain, do so becaue they pay �30+ a month for repeats of BBC programmes, whereas, the innovaters, and the providers of the oft-repeated-any-time-you-like broadcasts you so like to watch are...... the BBC.