Do you pay your TV license poll

I think the reason the bbc hasn’t gone subscription is because they would lose far to much money.

I know of family members who pay because they think watching any tv at means you have to pay, or listening to the radio. People too scared to not pay just in case.

Where as once it’s sub only those who truely want bbc channels will actually pay and I bet there are not many and even fewer who would want it all year rather than just hopping on for a month for say strictly.

All those avid must watch Eastenders everyday lot must be dying out surely.

A lot of them went to the pub or community centre or club for those big events.

They enjoy it more in a crowd.

Because I’d rather spend it on Netflix.

I haven’t had a TV Licence in 10 years, not since we got rid of Sky. I don’t watch live TV or the BBC.

Richness? Are you forgetting about all the scandal?!

Probably best. These massive automated systems that send out letters cannot handle any sort of nuance. Best to wait until an actual human appears so you can explain it. It's not your fault they operate that way so why should you have to spend minutes of your life on hold to a call centre so you can tell them something they'll probably ignore?

You still need need a licence, even if it’s just Strictly and Traitors. A TV aerial is irrelevant.

I don't pay. I don't watch live TV or Iplayer - most shows end up on Netflix eventually anyway. It's simply not worth £14 per month to me, I don't watch a lot of TV and there might be one show I'd be interested in every couple of months.

I sign the declaration every year or so when I'm sent a reminder letter and I've never had any bother.

The BBC provides a non-partisan news service, and a range of pretty high quality television programming, as well as a vitally important network of local and regional radio stations, plus Radio 4 and the World Service.

It's a pretty central part of the UK's "soft power" and the World Service, in particular, is seen as one of the most reliable and non-partisan news services in the world. That is super important.

The BBC also trains people for the whole industry: journalists, producers, sound engineers, camera operators, floor managers, gofers, designers, writers, actors - the whole lot.

No commercial streaming platform does that - they mostly recycle other producers' materials.

Why wouldn't you want to pay for all that richness & quality? It costs about the same as Netflix without the ads. It's tuppence really, considering what we get for the licence fee.

I've thought it for years. Maybe it's either because of a technicality or because of some sort of tradition, I don't know. But surely employing all those enforcement officers is quite costly. I don't know how many they have and how far they travel.

i think the last think I watched of theirs was the World Cup. It’s not like they produce anything great is it. It’s just there if I wanted to watch it but they only have crap. I’m more a series or film kinda gal!

You're right @Suchevilforebodings, I've never really thought of it like that. If I don't pay for Netflix, Now, Disney etc I can't watch it. So why not make the iPlayer work in the same way?

Although I suppose that the people who still have aerials or Sky/Virgin (we don't have either) could still watch that way although you'd have thought that modern TVs could block the signal without a valid licence number or something?

We own a house that’s empty and needing renovation. They keep threatening to come out and prosecute us so I let them crack on with it.

Yeah I can live with that.

So you are happy to label the BBC as "pedo's" but enjoy what they watch.
So by your standards, "pedo's" are okay if you are getting something for free from them? What does that say about you?

Bet you don't see anything wrong with shoplifting from supermarkets either, do you? It's the same thing, getting a product that you haven't paid for.

Ive had a TV license all my life, even when I was a mature student on a crappy council estate. When I hit 75 I stopped paying because they were free then. Then the BBC reneged on the agreement and reversed that decision. Its only free for the slackers who pissed their money up the wall and failed to save. In other words those on pension credit. I wont pay now on principle.

To all those that say they no longer watch live TV can I ask what you actually watch. Don’t reply “Netflix” or “Prime” etc, I mean what tv shows specifically you tend to watch? Because if you like comedy, drama, true crime, sport, science, nature, history etc etc I’m struggling to get my head around depriving yourself of those things on bbc, itv, channel 4, Sky etc?

I think it's a very weird way of doing things. I don't know why the BBC let everyone access their stuff without paying and send officers round when they don't, instead of just cutting them off. Surely it would be cheaper and more efficient for them to switch to some sort of subscription service? or is that not possible for some technical reason?

I pay, but if we cancelled it they would have all our details and hound us, we've lived here for 12 years paying it so it'd look sus. We don't actually watch any live telly via an aerial we don't have one, we just use apps and I do watch strictly (though probably not this year!) and the traitors on demand, but nothing apart from that. We don't exactly get our moneys worth out of it, we pay for a few other streaming platforms (netflix, prime, disney+) that we use far more and they are much cheaper!!

It’s incredibly hypocritical.

Want to boycott something? Don’t use it!

We cancelled it around a year ago. We never watch live TV and I was the only one who had used the iPlayer in years and I don't think it's worth paying £180 to watch about 10 hours of their content a year.

We usually pay for one or two streaming services at a time so until you can pay for BBC month to month like every other service, they're not getting any more money out of us and I'll just do without watching the odd couple of things I do miss.

We've had a couple of misleading letters since we cancelled and I think their tactics are pretty disgusting really because anyone who's not very literate or where English isn't their first language would probably be worried they do need to have a licence, a colleague who was from a European country asked me this very question, but I showed her the website and asked her what TV she watched, which was only Netflix so reassured her that she didn't need a TV licence unless she watched live TV, which she had no way of doing, or used the iPlayer.

The number of people saying they watch the BBC illegally but “would never give them money” is mind boggling.

You’re not making any kind of stand or having any principles by doing that. Don’t want to pay money to the BBC? Don’t want it or any other services that require the TV licence.

What you’re doing is just a form of theft, and many miles from principled.

Too tight, I’ll watch their shit but I wouldn’t pay them a penny for it! How anyone can is beyond me.

So you don't want to give the "pedo" BBC your money, but you don't have the moral fibre to refuse to watch what the "pedo" BBC produce? Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

You can add pedo to license and program. Perhaps more decent TV would help in spelling. That one at least is never correct.