How to stop paying for my TV licence

[caravantulips]

I like the BBC and have never really begrudged my monthly direct debit but seeing the news that the licence fee is £180 this year it’s made me question it’s value as it’s only me who watches it.

I never watch BBC live (except for the news back in Covid times) but use iPlayer a lot. Should I just cancel the direct debit and delete the iPlayer app from my TV? Is this enough?

I do have the BBC news app on my phone and it’s my sole choice for news as it’s (supposed to be!!) impartial. Do you know if I can still use this? What about the videos on the BBC news channel?

A BBC licence is still cheaper than the others such as Netflix and Apple. And it's a British institution. By paying for the licence, I dont have to worry about what I can and cant do. Also, although you dont need a licence for radio, there is an element of cross subsidy there. At least the Beeb cant be trashed by 1 person viz Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post

You just tick a box to promise you no longer need a licence. They never come and check. Can’t believe we paid it for so many years, won’t be doing that again 😅

No, it’s £15 a month and to some people that’s a lot of money. I used to have four streaming services but I’ve cut that back to two, it’s just today is the first time I’ve seen the TV licence for what it is - just another streaming service. In my mind I’d always lumped it in with rates as ‘something you just have to pay’ without actually thinking about how our TV habits have changed over the years.

It's deliberately confusing language by Capita, who the BBC employs to get people to pay the TV licence.

They want people to think they're breaking the law if they watch Netflix and don't pay a TV licence. In reality it's only live TV on Netflix you can't watch, which Netflix almost never broadcasts. (In fact, for some of the very few live streams on Netflix, it's a grey area about whether a licence is needed anyway. It might be legal to just use a VPN for ie WWE, and it probably is legal to watch it two seconds behind live. And either way it's impossible to enforce)

Yes, if you have a couple of the cheap with ads streamers then licence will be expensive. It's a comparable price to the more premium streamers which are no ads and UHD picture which iPlayer is. If you pay for Sky Q and premium streaming as we do then licence is one of the cheaper things you pay for, it's all relative.

If it was £3.86 a month I would just let it slide and pay it. It's £15 a month.

I can’t believe anyone pays a tv license. I’ve lived in my property for 9 years this year and never paid one. We get the odd letter 2-3 times a year but that’s it. And they’ve came to our property once, back in 2018. It was a lovely lady and she apologised when she rang my doorbell as it was after 8pm at night. I told her I wasn’t comfortable letting a stranger into my house when I was alone with my baby and she completely understood and left. We actually got a letter a few days ago and even that’s still addressed “to the occupier” so they don’t even know who lives here!

cancel it and watch what you want.

Google do I need to pay for the tv licence and a gov site will take you through about five questions to work it out.

I dont agree with "cancel it and watch what you want"

That's theft imo

It's people like you that watch what you want for free that makes it difficult for all the people that genuinely don't need a licence.

Wait till you find out I watch it all on a dodgy firestick as well 😬

It's actually absurd in the 21st century for the BBC to charge people who never watch it. I do, and am OK paying the licence fee, but I certainly wouldn't if I didn't. No idea how they get away with it. Just change it to subscription, it's really not a public service any longer.

At £15 a month it is more expensive than Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple TV!

I cancelled mine initially because I moved house and didn't have a TV (and only a tiny laptop at the time). Realised over time that there's nothing I want to watch enough on the BBC to bother reinstating it, and I'm not fussed about watching anything live. Why would I not want to save myself a bit of money?

Exactly! The licence is so expensive and for what? The choice available is poor imo

I watch Channel 4/5 and ITVX on catch up for free. But there's nothing on BBCiplayer which makes me want to pay

Since they got rid of Doctors there's literally been nothing on the BBC worth watching.

Also, if it's theft to watch ITV live and not pay your TV licence - who are you stealing from?!

That “Great British institution” the BBC. You know the one, employed dodgy 70s game show hosts and newsreaders.

It’s less than a coffee per week. Even if you are mostly reading news those journalists need to be paid, the website needs to be maintained and videos uploaded. The bbc is an amazing resource we have, any organisation that both sides accuse of bias must be doing something right!

But if you watch BBC produced TV shows or read BBC news or listen to BBC radio, why would you begrudge paying to support the BBC via the TV licence? Would you rather have adverts?

OP - you need a licence fee to watch iPlayer. The licence fee also pays for the news, and the radio/BBC Sounds.

Before you cancel, try and have a week where you use no BBC service. No news, no radio/sounds, no iplayer. If that week is easy, then go ahead and cancel. If not, is the BBC service worth £0.50 per day?

Anyone that doesn't want the licence, Reform is the only party that had it in their manifesto to get rid of it. I would prefer it to be a choice like it's my choice to have Sky, I would probably still have it like I have all the streamers. Labour is most likely to keep the licence fee.

Thought you might appreciate this advert from the 1980s, some of it is still relevant.

People are mistaken. You can only watch on-demand or catch up on any service except the BBC, you need a license to watch anything I the bbc regardless if wether it’s live or not

Why are you proud of that??

I don't pay nearly £4 for a coffee every week and if I did I'd get more out of it than I do from BBC News, which is always pumping out stories to support the establishment