TV Licence bafflement

[LividMush]

Hang on what. I go to buy a TV License for the first time in years (Doctor & Donna 🤓) and they seem to want me to pay for a whole year by April?

What, why? Why is it like tax years? No. I’m not paying over £50 in December just for Doctor Who. What’s going on with it? Why are they charging me for a year when it’s not a year?

To be clear: I know the legal requirements for a TV Licence and am very clear to not legally need one ie no broadcast TV or iPlayer. Until now, when the good Doctor nearly lured me in. But I just can’t justify this if it’s charging me a year by April.

@tommika I feel like you're trying to argue with everything I say but not sure for what reason. They kept it quiet then because I asked them and they said no. I know very well how GDPR works and you should be able to say no and still buy the tv, especially as you've already stated it's no longer required information since 2013.

They probably keep it quiet in the same way that they word the letters to be threatening and unless you know directly that you don't need one won't feel the need to purchase. They are pricks about it and don't need defending.

Don’t pay it, it’s not worth it. Subscriptions to what you want are far better, and when the massive annual BBC salary list comes out, you can be safe in the knowledge you’re not contributing towards any of it.

I wish they would hurry up with getting rid of the license!

Not necessarily.

Nadine dorries raged about it when she was culture secretary, and declared that when the current charter expires in 2027, there would have to be an entirely different alternative funding scheme. However, her assumption was that the conservatives would be in power to enforce this. And her rage was largely driven by the then (2022) BBC reporting on the Johnson govt.

Her plans to privatise Channel 4 have also been dropped.

If labour are in power, complete abolition is very unlikely. The model is likely to change, but Labour are very unlikely to take the same hard line she did.

I'm just interested do many people pay for this. In my circle of friends no one actually has a tv licence.

Only likely with a Tory government, Labour are much more likely to retain the licence fee

I do but I pay for everything else also, I like to be able to watch anything I want to, BBC isn't really much more expensive than my other subscriptions and is certainly cheaper than Sky.

The prepayments on the monthly TV Licence scheme are set in legislation. The BBC could only change them by getting the Govt to do it. I expect that will happen in due course and there is already a trial scheme for people on low incomes where they do not pay extra.

The requirement for TV dealers to notify TV Licensing was abolished in 2013. If anyone is still asking for details then it isn't for that. There was never a requirement in the UK to produce a TV Licence to buy a TV. So if that happened, they were wrong.

The licence covers local radio too, not just the TV.

@girlfriend44 a licence is not required to listen to radio programmes. This has been the case for many decades.

The licence continues to fund radio, (among other things beyond the BBC), but it’s no longer a requirement to have a licence to listen to broadcast radio

I'm obviously waaaayyyy behind the times but I pretty exclusively only watch/listen to BBC, pretty much only catch-up iPlayer or bbc sounds. I also listen to a lot of BBC podcasts. I think the standard/quality is the best. I also hate adverts (why are they do fucking loud?!?) and also prefer British programmes to American ones and feel they use less 'padding' which I get unreasonably angry about about ....I feel they are stealing precious time/patience!

My kiddo (very young) only watches a few progs on Cbebbies & I feel the quality is very good & there's so much there for pre-school/primary children I wouldn't need to look elsewhere.

I do think the 'licence' is an incredibly odd way to fund the BBC now streaming is the way most people watch TV. But there are so many things like the BBC Harmonic Orchestra etc that get played for by the licence fee and the BBC was always an important part of the UKs 'soft' global power/influence - though I realise the UKs influence/reputation is in decline globally and so maybe the BBC's too? Although David Attenborough is still doing his thing and I think being part of the BBC brand is a large part of that.

Ah this thread makes me sad. There’s no way the BBC can do all the things it does if funded by subscription. Things like education, local news, high quality international news - none of these are commercially viable on a subscription service, they rely on most people treating the licence fee as akin to a tax, in that you’re paying for everything irrespective of whether you personally use it because it benefits us all to have it.

Obviously that doesn’t work in a market where people want to pay for a month to watch one show and then stop.

This is the way it’s going and I don’t think it can be stopped, and it’s not really anyone’s fault, just a consequence of other changes. But I think when the BBC has to operate like any other provider because it charges like any other provider, we’ll miss it.

But I think when the BBC has to operate like any other provider because it charges like any other provider, we’ll miss it.

I won't, I don't watch television and I mostly use overseas international news sites as I find the BBC fails to cover a lot of what I'm interested in.

"and unbiased news" As if, with any news there will be one spin or another etc

You might miss it
Why do you assume others will?
There threads always go the same way with some posters declaring on behalf of everyone that " We will miss it"

I don’t miss it at all. Each to their own.

A model where we all have to pay for it regardless of use is outdated. I pay enough tax as it is.

I think you're missing the point that those people (inc me) are making. It's not that every single person would miss the BBC- clearly that's not the case. It's that we as a society would miss it- as a society we'd miss having a broadcaster that doesn't need to constantly consider the bottom line and can consider the needs and wishes of groups whose needs wouldn't otherwise be met because it's not commercially viable. But that seems to be how it's going.

They definitely can tell if you watch iPlayer. My DC downloaded it without knowing what it was and then deleted it. Two weeks later I got a letter saying that they knew I was using bbc iPlayer and ordering me to buy a licence!

thats usually due to them asking for eg your postcode etc when using iplayer

They do it by matching email addresses. They can tell if you're watching iplayer, but they can't tell where (which is all pretty useless).

You could be watching it at a house with a TV licence though.

Yes - you totally could be.

How can they prove anything?