BBC vote. Would you pay a subscription?

[YerMotherWasAHamster]

Inspired by the thread in AIBU regarding the public consultation.

Just a vote. I'm curious just to see the numbers.

If the government removed the licence fee and all bbc services moved to subscription only - like Netflix, sky etc, and this subscription was the same price as the current tv licence - would you subscribe?

You would not be able to view or listen to any BBC content without subscribing.

Subscription would be completely your choice and you would be free to watch other live tv eg itv etc without it. Just like if you dont have a sky account you can still watch channel 4.

You need it for youtube if you are watching something live tv via it
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/what-does-your-tv-licence-cover

A lot of BBC stuff is watched on other channels like netflix, amazon etc. Without the BBC producing this content the quality would go down IMO

Yes, the same is true for any "as live" broadcasts by any recognised TV broadcaster no matter the format and no matter the platform of delivery, but it is not the case that you require a TV Licence for accessing Youtube per se.

The vast bulk of the content on there is not subject to Licencing, and you do not require a Licence just for the purpose of watching any content whatsoever on Youtube.

This is yet another of the BBC's deliberate ambiguities they refuse to clear up because it means more people will purchase a licence they do not actually require "just to be on the safe side". The BBC's own literature says you require a Licence to watch ANY content on iPlayer, and even this is misleading and untrue, because S4C content is hosted on iPlayer, S4C content is not subject to the Licence, and you are totally at liberty to watch it completely legally without a Licence even on iPlayer, but the BBC has a vested interest in leaving that unclear.

Currently the license is around £170 I believe. If the funding system was changed to a sign up and cancel at any time system, the monthly cost would have to be way more than 170:12=~14 to ensure sufficient funding- so I’m not sure there be much to be gained by people who want to subscribe for just a few months.

I pay for a TV licence, and wish I didn't. I would prefer a subscription model like Netflix where you can drop in and out - the only thing I can think of that I would use it for is the Sewing Bee (I would have said GBBO and Pottery Throw-down as well, but they moved). Genuinely cannot think of anything else. News is Sky, early evening is ITV, Saturdays Sky or BT Sports and anything else is Amazon or Disney+

I rarely listen to the radio, when I do my choice is R1, but I'd happily listen to Heart/Magic/Similar if I no longer had the choice.

BBC was once world beating, it isn't now. We are paying for something we remember, not for something current.

No. I don’t watch anything on the BBC so it would be a pointless subscription.

Of what exactly?

I don't pay for the licence fee so don't watch BBC now.
If they made it easy, like the Netflix model, I'd love to sign up for a few months then quit without issue but not currently whilst the TV licencing is so forceful/ threatening.

Well quite. I'd happily have a licence fee for Netflix which everyone has to pay to enable it to produce the content I enjoy. Doesn't sound fair does it?

They indeed do.

Waitong for when live written coverage of news will be included🙈

Exactly.
I don't pay tv licence anymore. We just don't watch anything live. Fill in form, ignore their weird letters later

Apologies if already mentioned, but I’d much prefer to keep the license fee but make a way that you can only access iplayer if you input a valid / unique license number. Would that not be easier for them to build?

Not really, because if you hold a Licence you are free to watch iPlayer from as many different locations and on as many different devices as you like, so all it would take is one licence number to be posted on the internet, and everyone immediately has access to all the iPlayer content they want.

If they want to start limiting Licences to specific devices, or limit users to a set number of locations in which they can access iPlayer, that is a totally different kettle of fish, but as much as they'd like to even companies like Valve haven't figured out yet how to get away with this re software licencing over platforms like Steam, and the BBC is decades behind proper tech companies so there's no chance they'd be able to gerrymander such a thing anyway.

This.

I’d happily pay the licence fee for an impartial national broadcaster.

unfortunately the bbc has demonstrated that they are incapable of fulfilling that remit. Whether it could be overhauled and the processes put in place to ensure that it delivers that is doubtful.

like the NHS, I think the rot has set in so deep that the only way to resolve it is to blow it up and start again. It’s not fit for purpose and I don’t think any amount of tinkering round the edges can fix it.

I no longer have a licence and barely even listen to bbc output any more. The weather and news apps on my phone started wanting me to log in so I’ve deleted them. I don’t miss it at all. It’s superfluous

No, I do not trust their news and with other content they sell anything good/popular on and it can be watched commercially on other channels.

The BBC is bias and state controlled imo

I was forced to do this to get BBC news online, as I live in the US.

I decided to download another trustworthy (and free) app instead.

This and This again.

@JustGiveMeReason. Totally agree. Do we want to pay multiple fees to
a number of unbiased providers. Let’s not think/believe that paying an annual fee to a private provider will be any better, they all have an issue / mission.
I’d happily pay £200 p.a for a ‘controlled’ provider rather than pay to orange people.

It is amazing when you speak to people from countries all around the world how many envy us for the BBC. A genuine British success story - once we lose it there will never be anything like it here again.

Never perfect, but still the gold standard for public service broadcasting around the globe, the one that every other PSB tries to emulate. Still the world’s most trusted news organisation and producer of world beating Natural History content.

So of course what you do with an asset like that is destroy it! How dare this tiny country have anything that good! Much better if we just let the US provide us with all our tv and let the execs in LA tell us what we can watch.

Much better to support the US media industry, make their companies and shareholders wealthier while we let a service that actually belongs to us as a nation wither and die!

I suppose it is all part of the acceleration of our decline. Kill off the BBC, sell off the NHS to the US pharmaceutical companies and eventually we will look around, realise we have nothing left and will finally be as small and as insignificant as some people seem desperate for us to be.

I don’t care what anyone else would do really, I stopped paying our tv license as we were just paying out of fear ! We watch Netflix and YouTube, so I thought enough is enough, and when we moved house we didn’t renew ! They can piss off

I would pay but I would want it to be banded. I wouldn’t pay for sport. I’m just not interested at all and it is completely possible to put sport on another channel. I resent paying and sometimes every channel has sport on.

I pay my fee but very rarely watch the BBC, perhaps 3 or 4 shows a year. I pay a sports subscription with better coverage so use that and don’t rate the BBC news.

I hate paying the TV licence as I watch/ listen to nothing on the bbc. They should absolutely make it subscription/ do adverts, and not make us who don’t watch it pay for it.