TV Licence

[AliFlump]

�180 for a TV licence!! Are they serious i dont see why we should have to pay anyway as it only goes to the BBC and noone watches that channel exclusively. With people getting more channels and going to digital it should be abandoned and they should advertise like the rest of them

[AliFlump]

Thats was meant to be choose not some word that looks French!

[jake-the-peg]

Thinking about this a bit more I realise that the BBCs license fee has no significant element of proportionality to it.

As I've said on threads on the counciltax/poll tax comparisom, the UK has a long history of taxes containing an element of ability to pay. I guess there's a lower price for black and white (if you can still buy them) and there's a reduced rate at a certain age but somebody with a huge plasma TV who watches a lot of the BBCs programming pays the same as somebody in a caravan with a portable.

I know most people would like to pay according to their use and subscribe or not, but there are a lot of people who don't want their taxes to pay for nuclear weapons and they don't get to pay reduced income taxes - we can't always pick and choose.

What about if there were a tax on the purchase of TV sets (It would probably have to be quite high say 50%) to fund the BBC would that be any more palletable?

[AliFlump]

Hi Jake, the more i read the posts the more i see that it isnt really that big a price ( your 50% charge on TV's scared me)

I just think its a bit cheeky that the BBC charge you to do anything with your TV, its not just about paying for the BBC's service as i do enjoy them its just that if i didnt have a TV licence i wouldnt be able to watch any TV at all be it, BBC, ITV Sky or even one of my own DVD's.

[flashpig]

I like the licence fee for all that I get for it, but the main reason is that I'm paying not to have any adverts.

I had NTL last year, it came to �20 a month. That was �240 a year, and every station had adverts. They could stretch a 25 minute program into 3 quarters of an hour with the adverts. So they get �240 and they STILL NEED adverts? They mostly show repeats too, and I think the BBC website said it cost something like �90,000 more per hour for original programs.

So when you think about it, the BBC aren't that greedy at all, considering how much all of these other stations must be making. Other channels should only be allowed a chunk of the money if they drop their adverts and make original programs.

[january_bug]

You DON'T have to buy a licence just to watch DVDs (no apostrophe! :p) on the TV!!!  You just have to take the ariel off your house, or at lease disable the ariel so that you can prove you don't watch TV.  Or you could just watch DVDs through the computer!

[AliFlump]

If they see you havent got a Tv licence but you have got a TV, you will get charged for it

[Tock389]

I think it's ironic that the BBC is trumpeting its digitial rveolution etc with Freeview and BBC4 , yet when you turn on the mainstream BBC1 on a Sunday night, you're faced with Last of the Summer Wine - a programme which should have been pensioned off years ago...

[jno]

help Alastair Campbell give the BBC what it deserves here

Aliflump I suspect you will indeed be charged, because the inspectors never listen to reason; but bug is right, you will not - in the end, and doubtless after having to take your case to the European Court of Justice - have to pay if you only watch videos. Also, I read somewhere the sum will actually be �150, not �180 - that's just the price it would be expressed in today's figures with presumed inflation added. Also, as has been pointed out, it wouldn't reach that level for years. I suspect some spin doctor has been twisting these sums a bit.

[january_bug]

Thank you jno - as I said (as if my words will be listened to! HA!) if you have a disconnected TV, it is essentially a monitor and as such , does not require a licence.  You therefore should not have to pay.  It may take an appeal, fine, but you wouldn't have to pay.  Same with car tax and undriven vehicles.  But obviously only jno will be believed (deja vu!!!) and I will be ignored or questioned.  Charming isn't it!?

[portocat]

I think that it is ridiculous that you have to have a licence to operate a television.  Fair enough having to have a licence for a car or a gun, since those could be dangerous in the wrong untrained hands, but what is the point of a licence for a telly!!  The most damage you could do with it would be to chuck it out a window of a flat, and who is going to go that with their tv.

Maybe that's it, once you have shelled out �180 for a licence, you are less likely to chuck your telly out a high rise onto innocent passersby cos it would then be a total waste of money.

I reckon they should get real and scrap the licence fees.  I have never agreed with it.  It would be better if people who wanted bbc just subscribed to it.  Has anyone noticed the amount of holidays BBC1 radio DJs get?  That's our money that pays for that.  Shocking.

[AliFlump]

Thank you Portocat that is exactly the point i was try to get across, just couldnt find the words

Bug, my friend lives in a council flat and does not have an outside ariel, she has to use an indoor ariel and has poor reception, therefore by your reckoning she wouldnt have to pay for a TV licence but guess what, SHE DOES

The same goes for caravans they use indoor ariels and if they are used at the same time as your home TV you need a seperate licence.

[portocat]

thats mental about the caravans.  i reckon tv licences are well dodgy. 

one time these tv licence inspectors came round to the flat i was living in at the time, to see if we had a telly cos we didnt have a licence.  They tricked their way in by pretending to be delivering a parcel to one of my neighbours, so I let them in via the entryphone system, next thing there was a knock at my door and it was honestly like something out of a cartoon. One of them was small, skinny and specky (i am short sighted to no offence intended to visually impaired people!) wearing a suit, and he did all the talking while a massive huge bloke at the back wearing dark glasses, black polo neck and leather jacket looked intimidating.  Very bizarre. 

Surely there should be more effort put into catching real criminals!! 

[simont]

Hi,

3 years ago my wife and I made a radical decision that was the best thing we've ever done.    After 6 years of me coming home after a long day and plonking down on the coach and watching drivel with my wife hardly saying anything to each other we finally had enough.  We were saying less and less to each other. 

So we decided to get rid of watching general TV.  We do like our DVD's so I phoned the BBC licensing helpline and said "Your TV programmes are affecting our marriage.  I want to stop watching TV programmes but still watch DVD's.  Do i still have to pay the license fee?".  The answer - "No sir, just unplug your aerial, detune all the channels and take your aerial down."   So i did, that was 3 years ago.  We get a letter once a year trying to convince me to watch telly, but that's it.    I now only watch quality DVD films (or telly programs on DVD!!) and spend the rest of my time having stimulating conversation with my wife...  or in tonights case surfing the web and answering questions on the AB!

We've not had a single TV license detective round here, nor any demands we pay the license fee.

Do it! It'll be the best thing you've ever done!

[THECORBYLOON]

portocat as a licence payer, you pay 3.3p a day for all five UK BBC radio stations and you begrudge DJs having paid leave?

[venus]

the fee is actually paid to the government who then give the bbc just a share of it, the fee is a legal entitlement set down by law if you want to receive a signal or record a signal. unfortunately there is no pleasing the whole population of the united kingdom in the programmes the bbc broadcasts at one time, the price is going up so that the bbc can provide better programmes for the nation...something i think you will like

[venus]

the fee is set down by law BY THE COURTS not the bbc, the fee does not fund radio programmes, just telelvision, freeview is a completely separate company, and lastly if you are not covered digitally it is because there is no more 'room to expand' on the airwaves and thus the reason for analogue/digital switchover so that 100% of the UK will be covered and with more channels, and with freeview being as little as �30 one off cost, its not bad...

[venus]

oh and definately lastly, the licence is for ''using television receiving equipment to receive or record broadcast television programmes'' so if you just use your television for watching videos/dvd's (yeah right)and you have no aerial installed then you dont need a licence.

[THECORBYLOON]

venus you are incorrect on a few matters.

The Television licence provides the majority of income for the BBC. There is a breakdown of what the licence pays for here and it pays for BBC radio too.

The fee is set by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, not the courts.

TV Licencing are the agents responsible for the collection of the Fee not the Government.

[pimlico]

The BBC isn't just there to watch eastenders - think of all the radio programmes, the 5 orchestras, the BBC Singers, the Proms, the World Service etc etc. Maybe none of you lot are interested in culture, in which case you probably would be fine with watching the endless re-runs of reality TV on Sky etc -but - the BBC is the major commissioner of new music in this country, runs the World Music week. Take a look at the website - one of the biggest in the world - and see the vast array of things going on that your 50p a day pays for. And no, I don't work for the BBC! I just really care about the cultural reputation this country has, which would be massively eroded without the BBC. Go to America, you find that anybody with any intelligence watches BBC News 24, beacuse it has an integrity that US Tv cannot match - CNN!!!! Imagine that taking over here. We should all be fighting to support the BBC.

[twiglet4frog]

What happened to choice and options in this country? why am i forced to pay out more than the cost of a 28inch telly these days to just watch one channel if i want to or not? Where is the choice? We have Sky and Cable who offer different costs to watch what u want and doing very well thank u very much offering the choice so why not BBC? Ok, so no ads but who cares now if they had them? everyone is used to them now, it only really effects sporting programs and i am not wanting to pay 180 a year to have a program without an advert in!

If they must still have a licence then surely they can cut the cost to �60 or less and then incorporate advertising breaks between the programmes if not in the middle of them? surely with all these silly women in red doing strange things with curtains and dance moves could be replaced by one advert of the same sort of length that would help pay towards the BBC and the public donate approx �60, thats still a billion for them without the advertising fees recouped too and we the public have a lot cheaper fee to pay!