TO SAY I LIKE THE BBC....but the near £300 license fee needs questioning..Lets question

[ScousyFogarty]

BBC and COMPULSORY LICENSE FEE...(Paid by rich and poor alike.)

It has been suggested that the Beebs automatic cash-flow from rich and poor, should be looked at as the fee gets closer to £300 a year.

Victoria Derbyshire mentions this on her TWITTER site. (Dont know if she has ever done it on her programme.?)

You will notice that when a big name has a book out; they get interviewed on many BBC TV and radion shows. (They are usually rich and could be charged a fee for the free book plug.)

There will be many other ideas as to how the license could be REDUCED or the money RAISED by other means.

Do you have any ideas. ? Or are we going to sit back and watch the license fee go to £300 a year? (Its food for thought.

Victoria Derbyshire and Gabby Logan may well have ideas on this . Ask them if you feel like doing so.

'Although women are 3 per cent of the prison population, they are a third of the jailed licence evaders. Harry Fletcher, from the National Association of Probation Officers, said: 'Often it is the women who have to run household budgets and face the consequences when money runs short. Jail for a woman who has to worry about her children can be devastating.'

It is a national scandal, and the BBC's newscasters, on their super dooper salaries, don't broadcast this news on their unbiased shows. The licence fee may not be much to Islingtonistas, but there are poor people up to their eyes in debt, with large families and on criminally low wages. All of these extra government taxes and fines are a burden on them, and the penalty for not paying them is a criminal record and time in jail, after which their life chances will have been harmed irreparably - but the salaries of some at the BBC just go up and up.

The good thing about BBC for me, is that in spite of all that is bad, it still produces the kind of programming and caters for interests that no commercially driven station could/would do. I still think it is value for money.

I think the issue about iplayer. tv licensing is an ongoing battle ...

That article is interesting, but it's nearly 20 years old (it's from 1994). Is there anything more up to date?

What an attempt at propoganda! It isn't even nearly £200 never mind £300!

I think the way the fee is levied causes much irritation and resentment, and on the basis it seems to cause hardship for some, it should probably be scrapped and replaced with advertising. But the BBC is a massive employer and pretty much an institution with a life of its own, and will not go easily. Then of course people will moan about how scrapping it was the worst thing done to tv, good old BBC etc..

I totally agree with the comments re age discrimination against women. Go to the States and you will find most news programmes presented by attractive, older women who have become much more skilled, knowledgable and better to watch and listen to than most young presenters on the BBC. Come back here and its Fearn Cotton...

I find Channel 4 consistently the most watchable and innovative channel - how is it funded?

'Go to the States and you will find most news programmes presented by attractive, older women who have become much more skilled, knowledgable and better to watch and listen to than most young presenters on the BBC. Come back here and its Fearn Cotton...'

Exactly right. And why do you think the BBC do this? Because they are patronising and dumbing down with their emphasis on yoof.

Channel 4 - really? I used to really enjoy it but now they are prime example of what I meant by lowest common denominator telly.

It was probably the same with the unaccountable, privileged, fat cat, highly paid, nomenklatura in the Soviet Union before the process of perestroika.

Yes. the BBC are showing a total lack of conscience and honesty in the cases of people who go to jail over the license fee.

They defend their own backs like like a ferret attked by a pit bull terrier.

Lets have some conscience and BBC fair play over this. Many top broadcasterd do Charity.....Joan Bakewell does, john Humphries does, Kerst Young does, Jonathan Dimbleby does. So does Gabby Logan. Lets stop putting people in prison for NOT paying their enormous wages BE FAIR BBC

BBC 3 is pretty dumb I agree (although some very good comedy like Gavin and Stacey started off life there). The fact that they can provide a home for some of this banal stuff whilst maintaining excellent quality elsewhere shows the breath of the BBC's output. This would be ruined if they operated in a wholly commercial world.

The BBC thinks it can get away with having Julia Somerville (who is great) read the news every couple of months.

Why don't the BBC waive the licence fee for anyone on low salaries? Why do they insist on extracting it from everyone, with the threat of jail for those who don't? Let them cut their cloth accordingly.

claig, what would happen is that they'd put the price up for everyone else. Which would not be fair on everyone else and doesn't address the fundamental issue of choice. Can't see the BBC voluntarily cutting it's income.

The fee is worth it for Radio 4 alone.

I LOVE the BBC.

Go and live in another country and then see how you miss being able to watch television uninterrupted by stupid adverts.

I like the PSCHOVILLE black comedy BBV 2 TV It works

question for my wife....darling Do you think anty BBC STARS SHOULD BE PAID 5 TIMES AS MUCH AS A NURSE?

reply NO

It's almost feudal, like the nobles forcibly extracting tithes and taxes from struggling peasants. It's "let them eat cake" all over again, as they enjoy their astronomical salaries and turf some of the peasants in gaols.

claig - why should people on low incomes not pay though? Would they be allowed to be exempted from the license fee and yet still pay for Sky or whetever else? When I had no money I would have preferred to pay for the license fee than get rid of my telly - as would a lot of pensioners.

And if you're not paying for something are you still a 'shareholder' do you still have a vested interest in programming etc? Isnt the whole point that we all pay it - as we do for schools and healthcare that we may not be using.

If you have Sky/channel4 or 5/ITV then you do have adverts. No need to move abroad to see what it's like.

It is an unfair blanket charge, but surely administering and trying to get a fairer system in place will just be an added expense open to abuse.

THE WIFE IS VERY FIRM aND WAS A NURSE, bUT SHES RIGHT

I'd scrap it too. Its expense we could do without.

thecrackfox do you work in the industry? I do, for both sides, it involves long hours, anti social working hours and lots of travel etc etc and yes it is hard for women with children. Now you might say well so do plenty of other jobs, the city and much of the law is a case in point. I have lawyer friends who've had to give up working because they cannot find childcare to cover the 14 hour days they are expected to put in, esp until they get partnership. So it's not just the BBC that is biased against women with children. Of course the burden of childcare shouldnt' fall on the shoulders of women? Of course it shouldn't. I'd actually go as far as saying the tv industry isn't a place for anyone with children. My BIL has gone through three marriages and barely seen any of his children growing up because he's worked in tv all his life..

It's a different discussion as to why women's careers always seem to suffer because of poor childcare options. That said, there are plenty of women working behind the scenes in tv. My sister is a very high up manager in tv, my boss is a women and her boss above her. But I agree there needs to be more women on screen and more women above the age of 40 on screen too. But nowhere is perfect, not the BBC, not ITV.Doesn't mean you should scrap them.

Sorry this thread has possibly moved on massively, at work and posting between jobs :o

If you can do without it oohlaalaa then you can and not pay - its quite simple.

Why would adverts make the programmes better? (For watching rather than funding). Are we going to be forever condemned to watching ever smaller chunks of actual prgramme between great swathes of advertising.
Buy! Buy! Buy! Consume more! You know it's good for you!

A small amusement is to go through the Daily Mail or Telgraph news of the day and guess which stories will have an anti-BBC ranter.... Mark your Bbc-ingo card now.......

At least with the BBC if you have a complaint about the lack of older female presenters you can at least complain... ITV and Sky would tell you to f off! (I'm only joking about that last part of course, but in theory if enough people complain to the BBC they have to act. It's part of the BBC charter)

'claig - why should people on low incomes not pay though?'

In exactly the same way that the LibDems wanted to exeompt people earning under £10,000 paying any income tax, and in the same way that people don't pay tax on the first 6 or so thousand. With Sky it is their choice whether to pay for it or not; there is no choice with the BBC.

We are all citizens of the country, and those who cannot afford to pay should gain relief. Islingtonistas and high-paid lawyers can afford it, but why should poor people be jailed because they are struggling to pay it, along with rising fuel bills and food bills and everything else.