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.

Yeah, but most of us feel like that about a great many public services. It's only the (much more transparent, much less subject to political pressure) funding model that makes this one any different.

Much as I love Bake Off, Strictly, Mr Tumble (ok, not so much the last one) and my weather app, they are not a public service! Perhaps certain bits are, such as current affairs and the news. These could be funded under taxation but with the same BBC charter in place ensuring it was no more political than, say, the Office for Budget Responsibility

By political I mean politically influenced

I have to concede that point Queeltie, news channels in the US do make me thankful for the BBC!

The Office for Budget Responsibility? Created by the current chancellor?
If you are merely saying fund it through general taxation then you are effectively making it less voluntary. People now can choose a B&W licence (my MIL until recently) or indeed no licence at all if they don't watch live TV. Fund it through general taxation and it becomes like HS2 or Trident. You do have some say right now.

Yes. I think the BBC will go, and when it does, only then will most people realise what we have lost. The standard of so called news programmes in the US is absolutely dire.
I also love Radio 4.

I think it should be scrapped, for several reasons:

. There are so many companies providing free TV channels that it makes no sense to force us to pay for one particular snowflake company out of sentiment. If the BBC disappeared tomorrow, we'd still have 100s of channels to choose from.

. I've nothing against BBC TV & radio, but I don't watch or listen to any of their programs, so it's like making me pay a licence to British Gas when my gas comes from EDF.

. I am against flat taxes on principle. Even for those who for some reason regard TV as a public service, we don't pay a flat rate of say £3,000 p.a per family to fund the NHS.

. There are about 200,000 prosecutions p.a. for non-payment of BBC licence, which is about 10% of all criminal prosecutions in the UK. Ridiculous !
Women make up about 70% of those prosecuted and convicted and half of those jailed for not paying the fine. So much pointless misery caused, usually to the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

There's nothing impartial about the BBC's reporting/ non reporting, and really I can't think of any good programming or productions
so what is there to lose? sorry, some inconvenience in advertising? it's awash with that anyway if you pay attention. It's really archaic, inapposite and quite horrifying to think of the number of lives destroyed by being prosecuted over a TV licence just to fund that glittering tackball. Any good journalists can move across to another channel. Who'd really miss it? those who watch Eastenders? anyone else?

Much as I love Bake Off, Strictly, Mr Tumble (ok, not so much the last one) and my weather app, they are not a public service! Perhaps certain bits are, such as current affairs and the news.

Define a public service? Some things the BBC does for entertainment and for revenue (Bake Off is a good example of that), but how do you decide what's the public service bit? Only the bits you think are good for people? If people are enjoying it, it doesn't count as a public service?

It's funded by the public, and provides a service. It's pretty much a textbook definition. The nature of the service it provides, and whether it should provide certain parts of that service, is a matter for debate. But I find it very odd to argue that a publicly funded service isn't a public service simply because it's not 'improving'.

^These could be funded under taxation but with the same BBC charter in place ensuring it was no more political than, say, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Broadcasting and OBR are quite different beasts. Particularly when it comes to the day in, day out provision of news and current affairs - versus economic forecasts and fiscal analysis. And goodness knows that the OBR hasn't been without accusations of bias in its short history.

We've already seen quite a bit how governments and political parties (of all colours) hate being criticised or held to account by the BBC (and other broadcasters to be fair - but few have the authority or reach of the BBC when it comes to broadcast news). Most complained about bias against them during the GE.

The Beeb doesn't always get it right - it's run by humans - but it's perceived as one of the least biased news outlets, and seems to try harder than most for balance.

I am against flat taxes on principle. Even for those who for some reason regard TV as a public service, we don't pay a flat rate of say £3,000 p.a per family to fund the NHS.

This is a good argument I think. I'd very much welcome a more progressive system, but I'd prefer something a step removed from general taxation (having experienced the even worse political football that is the public broadcaster in Australia, where it is funded from tax).

There are lots of excellent BBC documentaries, films, history programmes and news programmes. The BBC nature programmes are of world class excellence, and nature programmes of that quality are rarely made by anyone else.

BigChocFrenzy there are 100s of channels to choose from but not many others without advertising. I do watch some commercial TV but I don't want to watch exclusively commercial.

Then you could pay a subscription for the BBC. Ads aren't so dangerous that we need to force people to pay, so that you don't have to watch any.
The ads are sometimes cleverer than the programs.

Ads aren't so dangerous that we need to force people to pay, so that you don't have to watch any.

They do skew decision-making, and in particular editorial decisions, however.

They aren't dangerous but they only spend money where they think their return will be worth it. Unless you are the demographic that spends then why bother financing programmes for you?
The World Service has no commercial gain for UK companies. It plays a diplomatic role.

Someone on v low income might be given a TV, or have bought one in better times. Hardly anyone is given a TV licence as a present though.
TV is a great source of entertainment for those who are skint and they are the ones who risk prosecution and criminal record.

It's a trivial amount for those of us on decent incomes, but so many people are really struggling that I think ditching the licence and saving them £145- is more important than preserving a broadcasting company.

If I don't watch the BBC, then I'm paying so you don't have to see ads and so you can watch the "purer" news.

You do have some say right now.

Not really. Your choice is to have access to live streaming or not. When there are hundreds of available channels, and you are forced into paying for just two of them even when you don't want them, it doesn't feel like much of a choice.

The onus should be on the BBC to provide people with some kind of blocking device or something so that if people don't want to pay the licence fee and are happy to have every other channel except the BBC ones, then that should be an available choice.

It is irrelevant that there are good documentaries and nature programmes that aren't made by anyone else. If we don't want them, we shouldn't have to pay for them.

So why not encrypt the signal(and iPlayer), introduce a subscription and keep enjoying ad-free BBC products? Then the rest of us who don't want to use the product can enjoy other telly channels free of charge when we want to.

I dread the scrapping of the BBC. It's such an institution, and, yes it has it's problems/scandals - but if you think you'll get the same quality of service from a subscription service, you;re kidding yourself. We'll just get Rupert Murdoch-type-TV the whole time. The BBC adds such extra value - niche programmes that wouldn't necessarily be made if in a commercial arena. Plus. I think the sheer quality of the BBC keeps commercial TV in the UK on it's toes now - if it all goes commercial - well, it'll be a race to the bottom. Who can make the cheapest, most sensationalised TV, that gets the ratings...

We will realise what we've lost, once it's gone

And I hate adverts.

Oh and I think the World Service should still be paid for by the FCO. God knows what the government were thinking when they dumped that back on the BBC

It is irrelevant that there are good documentaries and nature programmes that aren't made by anyone else.

There's obviously a demand for them - nature documentaries are one of the Beeb's highest revenue spinners (after Top Gear, Strictly and Doctor Who, I think).

Why doesn't anyone else make them (or make them as well)? Good question. Different ethos, maybe? Different funding model making it more difficult without a corporate sponsor on board from the outset, and less appetite for risk? Don't know.

What about radio? How do you encrypt that? How do you fund the World Service?
How do I block ITV?
I don't pay for it or want it. There will ultimately be no free telly if ITV and Channel 4 don't have the competition of the BBC

And the other thing about the BBC that's shown time and time again is its appetite to be a testing ground for ideas, which are often 'slow burn' - programmes that start out as very niche but then gain quite wide (and commercially successful) followings as well as providing a quality product. Similar programmes would have been drowned at birth on commercial channels.

Charles - it's budgetary. Slashing the budgets of govt departments and shifting expenditure elsewhere. Purely ideological.

Jassy Blackadder is a case in point as is Monty Python and Fawlty Towers.