Should we pay BBC licence fee

Its almost exclusively far left or right wing loons who think the BBC is politically biased against their side. While there will always be the odd leaning dependent on editor etc I think on the whole it is extremely balanced.

"Rubbish drama and repeats" is another accusation. That may be true but the same people will lap up the website, local / national radio etc.

I think it's exceptional value for money and an important service. As soon as you introduce subscription and it advertising it has to play to a particular audience and loses its entire raison detre. Local radio, minority language programs would disappear.

yeah but a lot of people don't actually have critical thinking skills...

Oh how i hate the line trotted out " You probably engage with it in more ways than you think." Guess what? No we don't, not at all 🙄

Believe it or not alot of people have zero interest or interaction with the BBC at all. If people want to pay the licence and think its too cheap then by all means by extra licences or send extra cheques to the BBC directly I'm pretty sure they wont say no.

They're probably aren't many. However, how many big corporations bombard people with threatening red letters? Or door step people trying to force their way into these people's homes trying to squeeze nearly £200 out of them through scare tactics 🤔 pretty damn underhand I'd say.

I think if people want to watch if they should pay, if you don't fair enough. Don't watch it & not pay though.

That’s even worse.

Currently going through iPlayer and watching everything of interest to me, which is almost entirely old documentaries and a couple of very old dramas. Then I'm cancelling. Other than Lucy Worsley, I don't think I watch anything on the BBC and haven't done for many years. The quality is just terrible across the board, and I'm disgusted at the racism and political bias. Plus it costs a lot more than most streaming platforms; I'd much rather spend the money on Now TV or Netflix, and even ad-free I'd have enough left over for a coffee. Crazy.

They are not balanced in their reporting

BBC is a cesspit

I don't have a tv

If I did I would never ever pay a penny for them

I become very bored with the supporters of the licence fee who try to use the argument of left wing people saying it's biased towards the right, and vice versa to dismiss people's concerns.

It's nowhere near that black and white.

And for the record I don't think it's particularly either. I think it's got a tendency to be embedded in the establishment more than anything, although not always, and that brings an element of partiality with it that isn't helpful. I'll just mention the demise of Newsnight again, and the awfulness of Question Time.

There are also a variety of issues with different aspects of BBC output. So there's news, there's journalism as a whole, which is probably what frustrates me the most.

But others have cited drama, and general output.

Where are the documentaries that used to fill BBC4 for instance?

I sometimes subscribe to History Hit for documentaries. But I'd be pretty pissed off if Dan Snow told me I HAD to in order to watch any online programmes!

I mean I’m sure we wouldn’t need the bbc to update us on a war we would be in too much and I’m sure if we didn’t have a bbc there would be some actual government way of informing its people. Bit like the mass texts.

No because I have a skill called critical thinking and am able to get my news from multiple sources to check for accuracy. I don’t need to pay the BBC £174.50 for their opinion too.

Thank goodness all the other big corporations in the country are squeaky clean 😂

It's funny how we had exactly the same discussion with very similar arguments in Czechia. (In the end our the parliament voted for slight increase in licence fees).

I see national public broadcaster's license fee as everyone's investition into democracy. Because democracy isn't about my personal access to information, democracy is about vaste majority having access to good information.

Public broadcaster generally operates by different rules than the commercial ones, have less click bait and misleading stuff.
Programs cover the less affluent and older population, which is generally the more vulnerable population in current information space.

By paying the license we are not paying for our fun. We are paying to have someone keeping some reporting standard, controlling the politicians for us, and making information and (some) fun available to everyone, so people don't have to pay by their souls (private data and being advertised to) to be able to be members of the society.

Yes, individual programs can be questioned, neutrality should be tested, but those are relatively small things compared to the main goal.

I'm saying it's editorially lazy for the most part.

You only have to look at some of the dirge in local newspapers (funded by the BBC's Local Democracy Reporting Service) to see the end result of that.

(Sorry, lost the quote I was replying to!)

Thank you 😊

Im gonna go look on tik tok 😎

I mean, they haven’t reported reliably on an awful lot of wars in recent years have they? There’s always a spin, even on the BBC, even if it’s just what they choose to include or omit.

I honestly don’t engage with it at all, even though I’m paying the fee at the moment. The only things I’ve watched on the BBC in years weee Inside No.9 and Detectorists. Everything is else I’ve tried has been low quality, lowest common denominator trash.

I use my phone’s native weather app, listen to podcasts, read Private Eye and stream on Mubi/watch my DVD collection. It’s a shame because I used to love the BBC but it’s not what it once was.

Netflix doesn't have a journalist reporting from the courts.

Niche programmes about art and science they make wouldn't have any interest from commercial advertisers, and couldn't be produced.

What about the BBC Sport, BBC Weather App, BBC News app? You probably engage with it in more ways than you think.

^ Yes, this.

The BBC is doing too much, particularly low-quality entertainment, e.g. The One Show, Strictly, etc. There is no justification for shows such as these to be shown as a public service.

Similarly for big budget sport. For instance, the BBC licence fee should not be used to pay millions to football organisations and (until recently) dubious 'talent' such as millionaire Gary Lineker.

The BBC at the very least should offer a subscription service much like ITVX, i.e. free with advertising, pay for no adverts, with the only exception being Children's programmes streamed before 6pm.

I think it should be subscription, I would pay as I pay for all the other subscription TV services and I also pay extra for no ads. That way is the fairest for everyone

I don't watch any BBC content so I've never paid it. And yes, I know you still have to pay it to watch the other channels, but I don't care. I also don't listen to BBC radio at all.