Why the F should I tell BBC every year that I don’t watch TV ?

This is so annoying. I actually find their letters rude, threatening and entitled!

How dare they threaten to visit my house to "check" I'm not using their service?

What other service does that! It's despicable.

It does seem easier to just do that, I don’t blame you.

I am on medication for anxiety and while it's massively helping me, a TVL goon at the door would upset me. I wouldn't let anyone in of course and I can put on a serious face convincingly and send them off, but I'd still feel rattled for a couple hours, so if I can avoid that by clicking "no licence required" then I'd do that.

That doesn’t mean action is required. I just bin the letters.

It's not scaremongering to say that you are hounded with more letters until you submit a declaration. It's the truth.

I know what you mean. I rarely if ever watch anything on the BBC, and because of the poor content and wokery, that I really didn't want to contribute to their content for maybe one documentary at Christmas a year. But then I wanted to watch Wimbledon this year and relented, but I must admit, paying for shows about drag queens and their other agendas doesn't sit well.

That's incorrect. I get a letter every year which demands I go online and confirm to them that I still don't need a TV licence. This year I forgot to do it after the first letter, and a few weeks later I received a second evem more bizarrely strongly worded letter telling me again to go online and tell them that I still don't need a TV licence. Both letters repeating the threat that someone could physically pop round to check. I loathe the stupidly worded things.

Rubbish! It’s about £15 a month! I pay £8.99 for Amazon and get free next day deliveries thrown in too! Netflix is something like £5.99 a month if you don’t mind a few ads, and you can stream itv, C4, and 5 on demand for nothing (if you don’t mind ads). With (again) a few ads you can also get Disney + very cheaply.

Christ almighty, we get it 🙄 you love the BBC. Thousands of people couldn’t give a rat’s arse. My son is 4 and can already read. He’s never even heard of alphablocks. We don’t have a tv.

We get the message that you are “in awe”, as you say, of their kids shows, but plenty of people couldn’t care less. I know you’re finding that hard to wrap your head around.

Quite.
I eventually gave in and contacted them again as DH was stressing about bailiffs visiting (DH has mental health issues and he doesn't need extra stress) I would have just said 'bring it on'.

I get that, but it makes my blood boil all the same. I don't want to contribute financially, since 'inappropriate behaviour' in all its forms is something that keeps coming up with male presenters/celebrities.

Shame the BBC isn't such a good employer to women, sidelining unproblematic female newsreaders like Martine Croxall who sued them for age and sex discrimination.

I filled out the form a couple of days ago to confirm I'm still not paying for a TV licence.

I didn’t mind declaring every 2 years but now they randomly decide that isn’t good enough and start being aggressive partway through those 2 years you declared.
Trouble is for many years/decades you had a tv and had to watch live, or you didn’t have one - very straightforward. Now you don’t have to watch live at all and you don’t even need a TV as you can access on multiple devices.
Imo as the BBC also does little public type broadcasting clearly distinct from other channels it’s not clear why you’d pay to view, nor is it really clear why it costs to watch live. So if you declare no licence but then watch live/BBC you probably don’t feel you’re committing a massive offence, especially younger viewers who can’t remember when it was 3 channels live or nothing.
The BBC need better PR around it all and/or a different updated model. I think less and less people will see the need for a licence - my parents would never have not had one for example, once they had a TV, and I waited until I literally had no TV before cancelling, but my kids view it as an active decision to make.
I hadn’t thought about implications of being taxed to pay but that’s obviously inappropriate now it’s been explained on here.
But the aggressive approach does no favours or encouragement to return to watching the BBC.

That's one heck of a generalisation.
I ditched TV in 1985 & know several others who abandoned it around that time.
Calling people liars for disagreeing with your opinion is offensive.

I haven’t owned a TV for years, but still regularly get the threatening letters, which I find entertaining. I never respond.

They increase in severity, eventually specifying a day on which they will be visiting.

Then never come. Which is a pity, as I’d hugely enjoy acting suspicious and messing them about.

Bastards.

@SALaw Maybe an age thing? My partner and I (both late twenties) haven’t watched the BBC since leaving our respective family homes nearly a decade ago (apart from incidentally seeing stuff on my mum’s telly) and our TV has never had an aerial. Judging by our friends and colleagues, I would say that’s very much the norm amongst our age group. I don’t think I’ve ever been tempted to watch the BBC, even when at my mum’s house and free to watch it - there are loads of other (much cheaper or free) options and what I’ve seen of it when having a quick look while at my mum’s appears to be mostly absolute trash, truly dire comedy or just another version of the same “gritty drama” they’ve been churning out for years. If they accidentally make anything good it’ll get bought by a streaming service at some point anyway.

Why can't the BBC be like any other content provider? Why do they have to special and get a "licence fee"? If people were forced to pay for Netflix and Netflix sent letters out to people who didn't subscribe accusing them of watching illegally and telling them that they were breaking the law if they didn't subscribe, it would seem ridiculous. And yet that is what the BBC does on a daily basis, and people think it is normal just because it has been that way for so long.

Absolutely! I occasionally hear of something I'd like to watch on a subscription service I don't currently have. For instance, there's a series I've been watching which is complete on another service which I don't have, but part way through on Netflix, which I do. So I'm waiting for the rest of it to come onto Netflix.

It's a very odd outlook to assume criminal behaviour in people. There's stuff in the shops I'd like but can't afford, I don't steal in those circumstances either!

I watch BBC stuff so pay for the license. Am I being taken for a mug? So many people watching but refusing to pay.
It is like watching people shop lift and wondering why I am not doing the same.

It depends what you call "elderly". I'm 64 and only watch 'on demand' and never watch live TV or the BBC. My partner (at her own home), is 65 and likewise, only watches 'on demand', and no BBC. My neighbour, who is 73, is exactly the same, and my EX-SIL is 76, and she's also the same. In fact, I cannot think of one person older than me that watches BBC, live TV, or has A TV licence. "Elderly" people are often more savvy than people think....

Probably, but that’s in no way relevant to the point I was making in my post which was exclusively about the expectation that old people are all dependent on and comforted by television.

Well, that's just weird! It's 2025, not 1985! Most people stream now anyway. I have a TV licence as DH likes watching the traitors (god knows why) on iplayer. But no one else in the house watches either live TV or iplayer. I never even use the TV unless we're all watching a movie together. I prefer my laptop.

You know the No. 1 app that's watched in this house? YouTube! Now that is worth paying for the Premium package to stop all the ads!

My mum doesn't. She watches Netflix, Disney and ITVX.

How would I even know, if I’m not watching TV to see the trailers?

Do you think I am buying a copy of Radio Times every week and circling all the programmes I might want to watch, and then cursing the fact that I can’t because I don’t own a television? 🤣

From the OP:

If you look at BBC corporation’s ownership, majority stakeholders are private Ltd companies and individuals.

Isn't that fundamentally untrue? No one owns the BBC (apart from arguably the license payers). There are no stakeholders. There are no private Ltd companies.

BBC Studios is the commercial branch of the BBC (which sells content overseas) but all the profits go back into public service broadcasting.

They had to keep paying his salary until the allegations were proven. Employers can't just stop paying employees without legal backing. Protection for both parties is the whole point of employment contracts. There were reports in the press that they asked him for it back too.