Should the BBC licence fee be replaced with a compulsory utility bill charge?

[FunStork]

The BBC has acknowledged that the licence fee is no longer fit for purpose, and the chair of the BBC says she wants the money to be a tax that's paid out of utility bills, ensuring everyone pays it.

Do you think this is a good idea or not?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20yjjm7n87o

Like PP I believe it should move to a subscription model. It’s just TV and biased at that. Why should everyone pay for TV? Come on, it’s not that special! Subscribe if you want it, don’t if you don’t.

People forget how important the BBC World Service is. For many countries it can be the most impartial source of news and knowledge. Would you really trust the news given by the state media in Afghanistan, Myanmar or event he USA these days?

On Mumsnet it seems like no one watches tv. In real life everyone I know does. And they watch the BBC, everyone I know is watching and talking about Celebrity Traitors.

Something needs to change though as so many aren’t paying.

Maybe in your circles. We don’t watch traitors and havn’t had a single chat with friends nor family about it.

Official viewing figures 9 million out of a population of 70 million so just 13%. The vast majority didn’t watch it.

I can honestly say I hardly ever watch anything on BBC neither live nor on iPlayer. If it went subscription only, it wouldn’t bother me at all.

Let them pay then, or finance it out of our Foreign Aid budget.

Yes, it should be subscription only. It's crazy that people are paying for out of touch propaganda to be pumped onto their homes. No thank you.

My mum doesn't have a TV, why should she pay it?

Same we’ve never watched any of that.

BBC licence annoys me because I have to pay it because I watch live on other channels (sport).

I think one of two things. One it should separate into an infrastructure and programming licence. And the programming should go like pay tv.

I guess the question is whether or not the cost of the infrastructure licence (I think maybe about £20 from the current licence) warrants the cost of collection.

I don't think it should be compulsary.

I suppose the other thing is that the infrastructure licence will over time disappear in cost as TV moves more to streaming.

They could end terrestrial broadcasting, which would probably lower the infrastructure fee considerably, and then fund it out of general taxation.

Maybe funding the infrastructure through paytv would be a possibility, but that is just moving the tax from something I don't like to something someone else doesn't like.

Exactly this, 100%

We use a lot the bbc puts out
Cbeebees was a life saver when the kids were small
enjoy most of their radio stations
and use their website

and plus you can just have live tv if you want

so we don’t mind the fee

how could you subscribe for radio? Unless you went internet only and had to have a subscription number