To stick two fingers up at the bbc

[ginandjuice]

Finally ditched our Virgin box after we realised we only use it to watching corrie. Which means no more to licence and no more funding the bbc. Good old Xbox

Isn't the BBC looking at closing the iPlayer v license gap. If they do then it will mean that If you watch BBC at all even not live via iPlayer you'll need a license.

Seems fair to me.

I have no issues with paying for the license. We watch a lot of BBC and listen to BBC radio, both live and recorded via iPlayer, etc, so seems fair to pay up.

And I'd rather avoid adverts - that's the worst bit of commercial TV. And why we end up recording other channels and watching them about 15 minutes or so after they start, so we can whizz through the adverts!

I'd rather pay upfront than watch several adverts every 20 minutes!

I think it'll become more subscription based eventually if that's what they want to bring in, though it wouldn't be possible to cover radio

Wood - watching live tv on iplayer is the same as watching via an aerial or satellite dish - illegal unless you have a licence. The "loophole" people are talking about is that it is 100% legzl to watch bbc iplayer "catchup" programmes without a licence (at present).

I love the bbc and think places without ad funded tv have worse quality broadcasting.
CBeebies is worth the license fee plus radio 4.
Bbc 1 is hit and miss but can do some amazing stuff.

Sooper - I think the BBC is scared of subscription as they fear not enough people will cough up if it's not compulsory.

Nearly everything I watch is off the Beeb - Sherlock, Dr Who, Luther (new series yay!!), GBBO, and now Last Kingdom. I also listen to Radio 4 absolutely LOADS.

I'm happy to pay for the service I receive.

I would gladly pay the £90 I give to Murdoch for sky every month on top of the licence fee to the Beeb if they would invest it in sport (which is the only reason I have sky anyway)

I resent paying for Sky.

I love the Beeb

I assume you have not lived abroad ginandjuice (Spain with a sky box doesn't count as you watch the same as here) - Australia, USA, China - tv is pretty dire, radio non existent.

I get down on my knees and thank god for the BBC every morning - it's what makes living in the UK the best.!!!!

We've not watched live TV for years and I'd stop using iPlayer if I needed a licence for it - I only watch three BBC programs anyway and one of those is Sherlock which averages 1.5 episodes a year, if that. I'd manage to live without Masterchef the Professionals and, sadly, I'd probably not miss Doctor Who much either as that's gone massively downhill.

Aside from that, I wouldn't pay for iPlayer even if it was a quid a month because I don't like them as an institution - they're massively biased politically and deeply misogynistic.

Having lived abroad, I have seen MUCH MUCH better programs than there is here on the BBC.....
That's why we don't have a TV. I can't find anything to watch.

If you think the BBC news coverage is very biased, where do you get reliable impartial news from now, instead?

Where was that Woodheaven?

wasonthelist who says I'm watching the BBC live ???

What I'm saying is that IF you want to do so, it's extremely easy. You just have to click 'Yes I have a licence' and off you go. That is what I'm surprised about. That the BBC has put the programs live on the iplayer rather than just the catch up.

But I have to say, as the licence fee only goes to the BBC, why should I pay it too to watch Channel4 or ITV?
And if the iplayer was to stop, you could still watch catch up on all the other channels (and all the other ones all over the world, again that's very easy to do).
So I can't see the BBC doing that. Or rather, I can't see how it would affect the way I watch programs over the Internet.

So the licence is very much about the privilege to watch programs live (It's not a loophole as something really bad and criminal to do, all the others TV providers also provide catch up TV for free, as the licence has nothing to do with them).
Take away that possibility from the BBC iplayer and let people enjoy their catch up TV when they want.

Just a few points about Virgin.
1.You are not paying £70 for TV. Most of that is for the broadband and phone.
2.The TV service includes the TiVo which is bloody brilliant.

1. It's not owned by Branson any longer. A US company bought it.
2. It is too expensive, but so is Sky.

I'm pretty sure the licence fee subsidises Ch 4 too? It certainly used to.

sharon yes I have one child and no i won't boycott their website, because I don't need a licence to use it..

Stand corrected - ch 4 doesn't.

Still don't begrudge it.

I don't just mean that their news is biased, I mean that their bias permeates through everything that they produce.

Anyway, I get my news from Mumsnet - MNers as a group seem to be better at researching news stories than journalists are.

I'm getting rid of my licence too soon! So pleased. They must be haemorrhaging licence fee payers.

sally no our phone and broadband is with sky but we moved and couldn't get a signal for sky tv, much as we tried. So you are wrong there.

They sell programs we've paid for to be shown in countries who haven't paid for them.
em, if they sell them to these countries then they have paid. That is what sell means.

LOLOL?

Unless it's that definition of "sell" that means "give away".

Let me explain, it evidently needed. We pay the license which is supposedly used to fund the BBC and produce programs. These programs re sold to other countries who the show them. They haven't paid for production of the program, we have, they bought a product. They then show the program to people who haven't paid for the programs production, we have.

Eg: Top Gear brings into the BBC around £40Million a year from selling it different broadcaster and products endorsed, yet we pay for it still? Surely £40million in profit is enough to sustain Top Gears production? So I'd like to not pay for it.... Tough, I have to pay for it.

Dr Who sells around the world to people who haven't paid to make it for an estimated £60million a year, why do we pay for it again if its making that much? I'd like to not pay for that either, sorry, you must pay or get fined.
Every popular program they sell to broadcasters makes them pure profit because we have paid for the things to be produced so why do we still fund them?

Where does this money go? Investing in sport broadcast?
No, they've lost F1 to Sky, football to ITV and Sky, Olympics so on and so on.
Investing in impartial news coverage?
Nope, they were universally criticised for their biased coverage of the election, they're accused of bias of the migrant and refugee crisis etc.

So where does all that money go? www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2856908/The-91-BBC-executives-paid-Prime-Minister-Eleven-including-Director-General-BBC-One-controller-head-radio-earn-100-000-Cameron.html

Next time you here about some poor fecker who can't afford to pay their licens its important to remember that the money they're legally forced to give the BBC pays for the likes of Graham Norton to earn £2.6m, which evidently means he's more valuable and important, works harder etc. than the Prime Minister. Seems fair that we get a choice doesn't it?

ginandjuice In that case you are on the wrong tariff. I pay that much for broadband as well.
I suggest you call them and threaten to leave. You'll get a much better deal.

We did. We cancelled it and now only use the Xbox and laptop to watch catch up Netflix and Amazon prime. Hence no to licence. It's awesome.

I refuse to have a licence (and so don't watch live tv either) because I think the whole idea of having to pay just because you could be watching live tv, or be prosecuted if you don't pay, is hideous. Imagine if your neighbour charged you £12 a month towards their unsecured wifi just because you have a smartphone so could decide to use their wifi whenever you liked - you'd tell them where to go wouldn't you? Wouldn't matter how good their wifi was or how much of a public service they said it was providing you still wouldn't stand for that - you'd tell them to secure it and charge for it or just forget the charge.

That's exactly what's happening with the BBC, just because you have a tv/other access to broadcasts you have to pay them to broadcast or prove you don't watch live tv (which they make pretty intimidating and difficult). Why can't I have a tv for dvds/playing games etc if I want and not be bothered by anyone? If they release their broadcasting unsecured then that should be their business and their hard luck if someone uses it without paying. I'm all in favour of them either using adverts to pay for it (they put enough adverts on already for their own programming) or making it subscription based. If there's not enough love for their 'extraordinary' programming to continue paying for it then that says a lot about how needed the BBC is anyway.

I'd argue services like BT maintaining phone lines, gas companies maintaining gas pipelines etc is far more valuable than the BBC yet they don't get to force you to sign up to their services under threat of criminal conviction do they? You don't agree to pay for gas, you don't get gas, end of story regardless of whether you live in a house that could get gas if it was freely pumped out - what makes the BBC so special?

Will get off the soapbox now