To think it's a terrible idea to scrap the BBC licence fee?

[dellacucina]

Inspired by this article: www.google.com/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1242927/BBC-News-Boris-Johnson-license-fee-subscription-British-Broadcasting-Corporation/amp

I'm recently naturalised and I think that the BBC is part of what makes Britain special. It makes me very sad indeed to imagine it being cut down.

I begrudge my TV licence for a service I do not watch. I have only watched one bbc item in years which was on catch up (phillip Pullmans dark materials). If it was a subscription I would possibly consider paying for the dramas and attenborough. Netflix costs me 5 pound a month and provides me with more entertainment than the bbc ever has. I dont see why I have to fund other people's entertainment. It needs to be modernised and subscription based much like other forms of viewing is the best way.

There's lots of great YouTube channels for GCSE and it's free or £1 pm for ad free

It’s not just their service though, is it?
If I want to watch any live tv, I have to pay a licence fee to the BBC.
Happy to be corrected on this, but That’s my understanding.
I think if I want to watch an advert live on ITV or Ch 4, I shouldn’t have to pay the BBC for the privilege

A black & white licence is approx £54 per year

Yes - good luck finding a working black and white telly to buy in 2020. Or would they believe you if you said you always kept the colour turned down on your set?

It’s definitely worth £150 for no ads on radio to me. I cannot bear adverts, have to turn the station off.

I’ve not watched the popular BBC TV stuff so I’d like to pay for ad free radio. Actually I’d get rid of all DJs other than Iggy Pop and Elbow guy on R6 and get rid of all drama on R4 and keep factual stuff. Personalised sounds good.

In my experience, the best local news is online and not from the BBC as I don't live in the most populated part of the region. If the BBC pick it up, it's a day or two after it's been reported by a local site.

Technology has moved on since the days of only BBC 1 & BBC 2. Times when families sat together round the TV, when millions of people watched the same programmes.

There is so much choice now

However, I assume the BBC still have an obligation to produce a certain amount of public information related news, weather, current affairs etc

I predict that people will need a subscription number to enter into the screen in future to access future BBC services

@x2boys it is good value even if you never watch it because it makes the country a better place. It improves our standing in the world and provides a service like local news that is very beneficial for communities.

There are loads of things my taxes pay for that I don't use, but in happy to pay for because they're part of living in a civilised country.

Have you watched BBC news lately? Naga Munchetty and her sidekick Charlie are utter numpties, rolling around on the sofa, giggling at the funny stories then shifting to sad face for the sad stories, all of which are pitched at maybe a 12 year old at a push. Honestly sometimes I'd be hard pressed to say which is worse between them and RT.

For another thing, Netflix and Disney etc are mostly US content. I'm happy that our culture isn't totally swamped by American stuff.

Yes, American television is the worst, isn't it.. Ozarks, Handmaids Tale, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Chernobyl, The Shield, Curb your Enthusiasm, True Detective... all crap.

I understand how someone who watches it a lot would think it was worth that price. If that's you, can't you understand that it's not worthwhile or good value for someone who isn't interested in it

This is a sample of what I don't understand. How can you say you're not interested in it if you never watch it? There is such a wide variety of programmes on, how do you know there is nothing that would interest you if you won't try it?

@PinkShinyFlowers

It’s lovely that naturalised citizens think it is quaint.
We don’t. It’s a tax

Oh, do you think I don't pay taxes then? Who are "we"?

But I have sampled the BBC - Antique Road Trip and Wanted Down Under seem to be the usual shite on offer.

And I don't think I said it was quaint. I said it is uniquely British, which I thought people here (you people?) cared about given the whole referendum and everything.

If the BBC pick it up, it's a day or two after it's been reported by a local site.

Or ... never. There was a major incident near me a few weeks ago where someone was killed in an accident - it was on the local newspaper's site within 10 minutes, but never made an appearance on the so-called breaking live BBC news feed for the region nor later amongst the stories. Why? Because we're just a small town, obviously, someone being killed in a small town is less important than the fortunes of the region's Premier League football teams which are always reported assiduously within minutes.

This is a sample of what I don't understand. How can you say you're not interested in it if you never watch it? There is such a wide variety of programmes on, how do you know there is nothing that would interest you if you won't try it?

This is backwards reasoning, surely. It's not for you to say 'BBC offers such wide content, if you think you don't want it, you're just not looking hard enough.' Rather, the BBC needs to persuade people that they want to watch it.

Except they don't because the fee is mandatory.

it is uniquely British, which I thought people here (you people?) cared about given the whole referendum and everything.

Eh? Did you miss the results or something? 48% of us voted to remain!

I rarely watch bbc programmes, about two at most I think. Don’t watch the news as it’s so biased. Programmes they make are not as good as a few years ago, never listen to the radio as I can’t stand any of the presenters. I think the ‘stars’ are overpaid, and WE are paying them via the licence. They need to abolish and go commercial

“ This is backwards reasoning, surely. It's not for you to say 'BBC offers such wide content, if you think you don't want it, you're just not looking hard enough.' Rather, the BBC needs to persuade people that they want to watch it.

Except they don't because the fee is mandatory.”

This! Imagine if Netflix was made a mandatory fee for everyone who owned a TV - on that basis! Madness.

How can you say you're not interested in it if you never watch it?

There's a finite amount of time for watching tv. The best BBC series are included in my Netflix subscription so I can watch Attenborough this way. I am not interested in popular BBC content like Strictly, Eastenders or Match of the Day. Why wouldn't I just watch the programmes that a company like Netflix has vetted as potentially up my street? Netflix releases new content so rapidly that I don't have the time sampling terrestrial TV content.

I shouldn't have to pay an extra £150 pa (more than a Netflix subscription) for the other content. We listen to Spotify and not the radio and while we admittedly use BBC websites, it wouldn't bother us at all if there were adverts or a reasonable subscription charge for access.

The current model can't last long. Many young adults watch no terrestrial TV and prefer streaming services or YouTube. (There's obviously exceptions like sport or ITV reality shows like Love Island but sport is often premium subscription content anyway and that's not enough to fund other programmes)

@TheMemoryLingers don't worry, I know. I just assumed based on PinkShinyflowers's attitude toward a naturalised citizen that they may be the kind of voter who says they want to make Britain great again and embrace the culture, but really just want to keep outsiders out. (Maybe that's not fair of me.)

But actually I'm genuinely curious about this point - both the TV licence point (and I think that I understand the perspectives better now), and how the referendum vote interacts with supposedly wanting to save/preserve/strengthen British institutions. (What I'm getting is that a lot of people just don't care about theBBC and don't see that it has much value.)

I voted remain so your Brexit analogy doesn’t work for me. It was a weak attempt to insinuate that if you don’t want to pay £150 for a service you don’t use you must be some sort of racist.

OP, your link between Brexit and the BBC is one of the maddest things I’ve heard in a long time on MN.

Lynn “ It was a weak attempt to insinuate that if you don’t want to pay £150 for a service you don’t use you must be some sort of racist.”

You put that much better than I did, thank you.

Now making me think of this

how the referendum vote interacts with supposedly wanting to save/preserve/strengthen British institutions.
How you voted in the referendum isn't related to whether or not you value the BBC or think that a licence is the best funding method. People are not so stupid that they think anything old and established must be venerated and kept at all costs if it is British.

IMO there is no correlation between the referendum vote and the BBC. They are separate issues.

As someone who is not British I despair at how little people here value the BBC, how little they seem to understand its cultural and educational value and how it must remain public, without compromising on quality or being assaulted by manipulative every five minutes!

Nowhere else on TV do you get the quality of the BBC: Fleabag, Killing Eve, The Fall, Top of the Lake, all the adaptations of classic books, Radio 3, Radio 4.

It's not the BBC that has dumbed down, it's the people...

I love Cbeebies for the kids but only watch the occasional series on the BBC these days.