To think the BBC license fee should be scrapped

[Flashbangandgone]

Don't get me wrong, I love the BBC, and would pay a subscription if required, but I can't see any justification in continuing with a licence fee in the age of satellite and youtube. It's a stealth tax that needs to go.

It would be a bit like British Gas charging everyone a flat fee for using gas irrespective of how much gas they used or whether they used oil, coal or electric to hear their homes. It's bat-shit crazy anachronism and must surely go.

At the very least it could be pared down drastically from its current excesses.

LostMySanity, you are in fact paying a flat fee via VAT towards a number of the things that you say you would resent paying it for. I do wonder why people accept that but make a fuss about TV licences.

I don't want to watch bake off (or any of the other cooking/game/talent/antique) shows. I have no interest in Sport on TV and I don't have any interest in Natural History programming, or period dramas, or repeats of Dad's Army etc.

But there is so much more on the BBC than those things. This is what surprises me about BBC phobics - they regularly proudly proclaim that they never watch or listen to it without apparently really knowing what they are missing. I think most of ITV is crap, but I'm perfectly prepared to check the schedules and occasionally watch something on there, despite the enforced commercials.

Could you give some examples then please? Because I can't really think of anything that doesn't come under the above examples and is specific to BBC.

Ah, see what you did there? specific to the BBC.

That just means we can stick a pin in a list and choose one broadcaster to remain licensed and the rest can just disappear!

When I said specific I meant that I couldn't get elsewhere - for example tonight the BBC is showing 'New Tricks' which is a Police/Crime drama. Which I can get from the Alibi Channel (wall to wall crime dramas). If the BBC is 'so much more' I'd like to know what that means.

I'd also be interested to know what they provide that can't be found anywhere else.

But there is so much more on the BBC than those things.

I am well aware of that - I don't want to watch any of the rest of it either thanks. As for being called a "BBC Phobic" - you can put that where the sun don't shine. I don't fear the BBC - I resent paying for its gravy train middle class book and lifestyle business endorsing, cosy payoffs and big pensions.

The examples I cited were just a few of the things that many people genuinely seem to be unable to believe I can live without - with the implication that I am a liar who really loves the Bake Off but is just being too cheapskate to pay for it. Oh, I forgot Eastenders.

I'm bemused by the idea that secretly we're watching it too. There's a world of film and television out there, very little of which appears on the BBC. At one time, they had series such as Moviedrome which did cover non-mainstream films, but they don't even do that now.

I did understand that! But you have changed the goalposts. No channel has much, if any, unique content. So you are now holding the BBC to impossibly high standards.

The so much more I was referring to was, as I said much further upthread, the other responsibilities in its charter. If you have no idea what they are then you are throwing away the baby with the bath water. Go look it up! It does the stuff most commercial broadcasters drop from schedules, stuff that make tv banal, reality based, voyeuristic, titillate and scare you, shite that the commercial channels carry more of... imagine a world where that is all you get... no, wait, America!

Bit confused about who is who - I was responding to InimitableJeeves.

I am against the licence fee as it currently exists for a number of reasons, some of which I have cited.

But you're contradicting yourself. You say there are things the BBC provide that can't be found elsewhere, then say that no channel offers much unique content.

And plenty of what is on the BBC channels is just as lame as the stuff they show on ITV, C4 and C5. In fact, I'd say over the last decide the BBC has spent so much time trying to compete with the other terrestrial channels it has lost sight of what it actually did best.

Sorry, that post was to Blanche.

I was more clear upthread, sorry - the BBC has unique requirements made of it by its charter. But the broadcast content isn't necessarily unique, Dallas introduced the idea/need for the BBC to be unique in its broadcasts to justify it existence.

I am not trying to defend the content, well not until Dallas, asked for it to be unique.

I am trying to point out that the BBC does stuff that the commercial stations do not and that the licence fee would exist if the BBC did not - but the government would spend the money elsewhere, probably on collecting it!

As I keep on saying, broadcast content aside, changes to the licence and to the BBC are not restricted to choosing a subscription model. That is why it is taking so long... well, that and all the usual blether when semi governmental depts. get involved in anything!

But no one seems to want to understand that and keep on complaining about programmes, Top Gear and salaries. None of which have anything to do with the licence fee, which is a legal requirement.

I suspect that a lot of licence fee objectors fulminate so much more against this tax because of the discrete way it's collected. But it's just a tax to provide a publicservice, albeit a highly visibly extracted one.We all pay taxes for stuff we may not like or use directly (I could bore you with a longish list), and have gripes about public services they fund, and how they are delivered. And many Beeb fee bashers seem to conflate the BBC solely with it's TV output; it's so much more than that.
I'm deeply prejudiced, as the BBC has been a much loved and appreciated companion to my life since childhood. I'd pay the fee just for my Saturday's fill of radio, when I'm an Avid from 8 to 10, then educated and entertained by R4 for the rest of the day.
(And there will be icebergs bobbing around in hell before I willingly enrich a Murdoch bank account.)

There will icebergs bobbing around in hell before I willingly enrich a Murdoch bank account - but just because Sky and Murdoch are reprehensible doesn't mean the BBC is saintly and must be left alone.

OurBlanche
Can you explain why you think "Top gear and salaries" are nothing to do with the Licence Fee?

I would pay DOUBLE to avoid all those fucking adverts!!!

I have done, several times on here...

Yet again: the licence fee is a legal requirement, levied to allow you to watch 'as it is aired television' all channels, Sky etc included. The BBC Charter demands that they collect it. The government then uses that money to partially fund the BBC, but it is not collected solely to do so. If the BBC did not exist the licence and its fee would probably still exist, as it does in other countries.

OK?

But no one seems to want to understand that and keep on complaining about programmes, Top Gear and salaries

Rubbish. Many people have made perfectly valid points that have nothing to do with these things and haven't been addressed with any arguments more robust than "but it's the Beee Beee Ceee" or "you'll be sorry when Murdoch rules the world" or "I don't want adverts" or "quality programming" . The really big thing is that we need a licence to watch any live telly and that can't be justified, especially by using emotional/hysterical opinions, it being the 21st century an all.

Where we are now the problem is that the BBC (in its current form) needs a shitload of money to keep operating. I (and many others) have been complaining about the fact that we are required to buy a tv licence to watch any live tv broadcast. These things do not need to be linked and it would require a very simple change in wording to the Communications Act of 2003 to rectify it. Let me suggest one - change "any live tv broadcast" to "any live BBC tv broadcast". This would, naturally, render the current Act completely useless so let's just get rid.

None of which have anything to do with the licence fee, which is a legal requirement It doesn't have to be a legal requirement, it can easily be changed(see above). If the government can find House time for the Hunting Act it can sure as hell find time for this.

The BBC can raise their revenue by charging a direct fee for their programming. If they do perform other services on behalf of (for example) the government(spying), minority language speakers(S4C) or BT Openreach (rural broadband) then that should come from general taxation. They don't have to fund transmitters btw, that went out years ago and rent is now paid by all broadcasters for their use.
I'll say this again - in the 21st century requiring a licence to watch tv is absolutely ridiculous. There are workable alternatives and they must be explored, or the BBC will die an even quicker death than predicted as fewer and fewer of us pay up.

Ooh! There is even a term for it - a hypothecated tax, ring fencing but all gussied up

Can you explain why you think "Top gear and salaries" are nothing to do with the Licence Fee?

Because Top Gear is one of the top sources of the 20-25% of its revenue that the BBC generates itself? So it pays for itself, and still turns a tidy profit.

But Blanche is right - some form of taxation (which is what the licence fee is) exists in many countries to cover broadcasting. In Britain the majority of that is ring fenced to fund the public broadcaster (and the piblic broadcaster forced to collect it in a neat diversionary tactic by the government).

OurBlanche

I can't help feeling you're saying "this is the law as it is now and it must always be"

That doesn't seem all that progressive in a world where technology - especially around the making and delivery of audio visual content is changing so rapidly.

Just continually restating how things are in a huffy superior patronising way is one of the things I'm objecting to - it's the behaviour of folk like Chris Patten, a failed MP who was rewarded with being made governor of Hong Kong and then Chairman of the BBC trust until last year.

Oh and
OurBlanche and JassyRadlet

I think the Top Gear complaints were to do with Jezza smacking the producer - (but not sure) and the salaries (and in my case my objection to the sickening payoffs) thing was separate. Since the millions in pay-offs and pensions must come in part from licence fee money I don't understand why thats "not the same thing" - and I don't accept "because the law says you need a TV licence" is either a cogent nor logical response to complaints about the how the licence fee is spent.

This thread for me is dealing with two really different questions:

1. Should there be a publicly-funded broadcaster, full stop.

1. If there is a publicly-funded broadcaster, how should that funding be collected and delivered, and is the licence fee the best way to do it.

For me:

1. Yes, for reasons I've stated previously. I think it's a net public good. It's not without faults and need for change and reform, but in my view a public sector broadcaster is a net benefit and does things commercial broadcasters find very difficult.

1. I think the licence fee is both outmoded and regressive. I favour progressive taxes (which means VAT and council tax also come in for my ire). I also think the licence fee is a bit of a PR con job the government uses to absolve itself of responsibility. However, I do not favour funding the public broadcaster from general taxation as it enables the government to act in the same way as a shareholder or advertiser on a commercial channel, and try to exert political influence over output, especially news output. I don't have the right answer, I'd love to hear ideas for a workable model. In my head, I favour more universality, not less, rather than silly rules about live television.

It's all getting a bit tangled when the two issues are conflated.

LtEve, I didn't suggest that the "so much more" that the BBC offers is necessarily unique to the BBC. It is quite bizarre to suggest that, because you can watch, say, crime dramas on other channels then there are no conceivable circumstances in which you would want to watch a BBC crime drama. If you like crime dramas, why would you deliberately refuse to watch a good quality BBC one when it is first aired when it costs you nothing to do so?

I haven't disagreed with your general point, Charles, nor made any vapid responses.

I have pointed out that alternatives are being explored, and tried to outline some of the reasons why it might take a long time to find the right solution (I have absolutely no idea what all of them are). I have repeatedly tried to explain that it is not as simple as a change to the law. You can repeat that as often as you have the patience. It will not make it true. There are other things, as I and others have pointed out. Your simplistic change will not work. Not without a lot of other work needing to be done by someone else and that needs to be addressed before any changes can be made. And as this is a governmental thing, that will, of necessity, take an age. Not the fault of the BBC.

As for transmitters, I know, and said so earlier, you must have missed that post. But future build will need to be funded, as will the repair to the current stock. The infrastructure is now owned by an Aussie bank (that may have changed again recently) an Arquiva sub out the work... as I said, that has been DHs job for 20+ years... what changes will that bring?

There are a great many factors at play. No one simple change will be enough.