AIBU cancelling my TV Licence direct debit?

[Heliosdeep]

In the wake of the Gary Lineker saga and the weakness of the BBC I cancelled my direct debit. Currently at £159 for a yearly licence I thought this was a waste of money. The only thing I would have missed would gave been the Great British Bake Off but now that Alison Hammond is fronting it I would have struggled to get past her incredibly irritating voice.

I've not watched it once since cancelling and haven't missed it. Has anyone else done the same and AIBU cancelling?

You are absolutely fine legally if you don’t watch live tv or iPlayer. My personal view Yanbu if additionally you don’t listen to BBC radio.

These threads come up regularly and the balance here of people that don’t watch live is much higher than I know irl. I value BBC. I also think certain programmes would be lost almost completely- local based children TV and regional news.

It’s not the same though is it? I have no objections towards paying my taxes and other fees that feed back into emergency services or the betterment of society and infrastructure - things we all use and need every day. What the BBC is doing is using an antiquated licensing model and threatening people with fines and jail if they don’t pay for a TV service which many may not even use. Imagine YouTube suddenly started knocking on doors and insisting that a license is needed or you could be sent down? What gives them or the BBC the right?

National broadcaster or not, it’s a ridiculous setup and there is no reason nowadays why they can’t switch to a modern subscription service like Netflix, Amazon and many others do - only I suspect they know they would see a sudden drop in their revenue by using an opt-in model instead of their current brute force method. Maybe if they reviewed some of the insane salaries they’re paying then overheads could be lower and the whole proposition would be more attractive to customers, but I sense that’s unlikely to happen either.

I've never understood paying for propaganda voluntarily. Bizarre behaviour.

If the licence fee is scrapped I fear we might have to. I could live without bbc tv but losing bbc radio in its current form would really impact my daily life.

"I also think certain programmes would be lost almost completely- local based children TV and regional news."

What's local based children tv?

Weird that you think itv would scrap their regional broadcasts because the bbc didn't bother anymore. I think they'd ramp it up!

Sorry - local based I meant British rather than American.

Regional TV is part of the requirements of ITV as a public service broadcaster and I think would push for that to go. If it was profitable there would be other non public service apart from some very small companies that now exist.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/broadcasting-reforms-to-create-new-golden-age-of-british-tv-and-help-nations-public-service-broadcasters-thrive

That’s obviously not the same thing. I don’t pay for other people’s McDonalds orders or pay for other people’s car insurance. Council tax is a tax. A TV license is for people who use one. 🙄

I haven’t got a TV or a licence because there’s practically nothing I want to watch. Handmaid’s Tale on All4 & that’s about it.

We cancelled ours just over a year ago along with our virgin box and do not miss live TV! There was never anything on we wanted to watch anyway.

Saved us a bit of money and we just have Netflix, Disney and prime now.

We have had the letters and someone called round too but they didn't come in and dh just told him we don't watch live TV or iplayer and that was that.

I don't really understand the "no live TV' aspect. If the whole point of it is to fund the BBC and no adverts etc, then why can't I watch other live TV channels that aren't them... That have adverts.

Because Channel 4 and ITV rely on from advertising revenue. If people without TV licenses weren't allowed to watch All4 and ITV Hub then adverting revenue would suffer badly.

Why are posters saying she can watch 'bake off' on 'all4' when this is on the TV Licensing webpage??

^You need to be covered by a TV Licence to watch live on streaming services - such as ITVX, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go. You don't need a TV Licence if you never watch live on any channel, TV service or streaming service, or use BBC iPlayer*.

people saying they don't pay, but use Prime?

I'm well confused.

Because she can watch Bake Off on all4 as long as she isn't watching it live?

"You need to be covered by a TV Licence to watch live on streaming services"

@MarchMadness23 you can watch on demand content on All4 etc without a TV license but not the live channels. I still watch it though.

We dont watch any live TV now (ditched virgin so quite literally can't other than through the apps on the tv)

However we do watch BBC dramas through iplayer and used to watch cbbc which I think is worth the fee. As an aside I love radio 4 and if bbc went under I'd really miss the breadth of public interest programmes made on radio 4 which are not driven by commercial interest.

People saying they'll watch it later - we'll they'd need a license for iplayer to watch later. But obviously not for those that don't watch any bbc stuff.

I cancelled several years ago but I did it via their website officially so I don't get any hassle off them. Had one recent letter asking if I still didn't need a license which I responded to online with no issues

I don't object to the license in general but it would be nice if there was some adjustment for ability to pay. Even a token single person household discount like with council tax. Or if you could pay for a certain amount of content or something. I don't watch much on BBC but do value it. However it's twice the cost per month as a basic Netflix subscription, of which I watch far more.

Isn’t Unforgotten on ITV? misses point of thread entirely.

If I cancel mine what can't I watch or do?

Currently we don't have a TV package so don't watch live TV, I used to watch BBC player but haven't done since last summer-ish.

I often wonder why I bother paying it.

I haven't watched live TV for years, I cancelled the TV licence last year when I cancelled virgin. Someone dod come round and quiz me about it but haven't heard anything since

Can I cancel if I use BBC iPlayer, but without watching live TV on it? I only watch a few episodes of things in catch-up.

Cancelled mine years ago. As long as you don’t watch LIVE tv or use Iplayer you do not need one.

Catch up tv like All4 and Netflix and Disney plus are Amazon prime again is fine as long as it’s not LIVE.

Cancelled last year, wasn't watching live TV and the BBC's attitude to women's rights is fucking appalling. Filled in the online form, got a refund on what we hasn't used (paid the DD yearly), no probs. Don't miss it.

You don't need a TV licence if you don't watch or record live TV (on any channel) or use BBC iplayer. So you can't watch catchup on BBC, but you can on the catchup services of other broadcasters like All4 and ITV x.

Listening to BBC radio or using their website, you definitely don't need a licence for that.