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?

OMG did you really just compare the British Bull*hit Company to the Fire and Police Service?? They've really done a number on you haven't they? 😂😂😂

I listen to lots of radio and would happily pay a license fee for BBC iplayer but I live outside the UK so can't.

But you don't need a licence to watch tv so how you feel.about it is irrelevant
Just because you think it's the best in the world doesn't mean we all.have to.agree with you ,I think it's pretty crap,tbh,but I appreciate people disagree ,in this day and age The BBC either need to.move with times or they will.make themselves obsolete.

To.listen to.Radio I meant!!

I don't know what people find to watch on Netflix, Disney etc because we can never find much to watch, overly dramatic American stuff mostly, some subtitles (not a fan for eyesight reasons) but trash mostly. Bbc, itv and channel 4, even channel 5 have better offerings at only £15 a month. We do pay for Netflix but it's not great value, the kids like it though

Anyway it's worth the licence fee for radio 4 alone!

It is entertaining to discover that so many people are breaking the law through their own sheer stupidity.

Either that or they're the sort of person who thinks that if they disagree with a law, it means it doesn't apply to them and they can break it whenever they like.

@Nalupa

You need a licence to watch iPlayer

None of the streaming channels are great value really, you really need them all to find decent things most of the time which is quite expensive so in the scheme of things the licence isn't bad value. Netflix is £10.99 if you want a half decent picture and no adverts which is quite a lot really for not that good content

@blacksax

I know! Also they "only" have Netflix, Disney and prime - how much a month is that lot? More than my tv licence (actually I do have Netflix but it's bundled with my broadband for £5.50 a month)

It's subjective isn't it peop!e have different viewing habits .

I stopped using BBC and didn't start renew our licence when we moved. I don't watch much terrestrial TV but watch the odd show on catch-up ITVx or All4. I dont miss most BBC shows as the big dramas often turn up on Netflix, ie Peaky Blinders, the only one I miss at the moment is Ghosts but I'm not paying £159 for it.

Again it's subjective my dh,and my ds1are always watching stuff on Netflix and Amazon prime so.it's worth it tio.us too pay ,but if they don't show stuff you like than it's not worth it it to.you ,much like the BBC .

Well to watch what I want today, I need a TV licence, Sky or Now TV and Paramount +,

Because it’s not about saving the money of the licence it’s about the fact I don’t need it.

I last had it when I had a stupid £80 virgin media package yet still could never find anything that great to watch and still certainly none of it was live tv it was all via TiVo.

ok Netflix £12, Disney £7? And prime £8? But I have prime for prime not because I just want it for the tv. Internet at pro 800mb with mobile back up £32 and digital phone line.

still a saving compared to my old virgin package and tv licence fee and my internet is faster.

I find LBC far superior for news and politics. I have Spotify for music.

The title TV Licence is a misnomer. For 43p per day or around £13 per month, you are getting eight UK-wide TV stations, 10 network radio stations, over 50 local radio and TV services, interactive services such as the red button, iPlayer, and all the BBC online services such as the news, weather and sport.

That's for 43p a day.

I think 'value' is entirely subjective, depends a lot on how much TV you actually consume, and also in partly on what exactly it is you want to watch.

I have no interest in soaps, or any of the 'big ticket' Saturday night BBC stuff like Strictly, I don't habitually have the TV on as background noise, it's not a regular form of entertainment for me and it's often 2-3 weeks between the TV being turned on, indeed, I lived for 4 years without a TV entirely until very recently.

When I do watch something it tends to be because my partner is here, we have similar interests, so tend to only be interested in watching very specific things that happen to be more frequently produced by and available on subscription services, so for me Netflix represents far better value than the licence because it produces far more content I'm likely to actually want to watch, I can pick and choose when to pay for it on a month-by-month basis, and I'm also able to still watch plenty of other on-demand services without having to also subsidise the BBC. I have an Amazon account for other purposes, so that is also available and isn't really anything more than a perk of subscribing for reasons that are nothing to do with their TV service.

Someone who watches hours of BBC content every single day may well disagree, but it isn't as simple or as straightforward as one being better value than the other because they are not offering the same thing.

i havent cancelled it - it isnt that much per month imo

I don't listen to BBC radio, never have, so I couldn't care less if it ceased to exist tomorrow. That's for people who do listen to it to worry about, and if they believe the best way to protect it is to continue to pay for a TV licence then that is entirely up to them, but I'm just as ambivalent about the radio service as I am the TV so the prospect of it vanishing doesn't move my position on paying for a TV licence one iota.

In essence it's a tax that the company attempts to levy on people whether they use the service or not. Aside from the fact they harass people who are not and never have been consumers of their output, the very idea of Capita, a private company, challenging people on the basis of presumed guilt is fundamentally at odds with basic liberties and needs consigned to the dustbin of history.

I don't agree with how people are hounded to get the licence, DF was and he never watched any TV at all on any device, I am happy to pay as I watch it but it should be a proper choice like the other TV companies are

This may blow your mind ,but some people don't watch BbC,or listen to the radio,at all so wether it's 43 pence a day of 43 pence a year it's still not worth it if they don't watch or listen to.it is it?

Right - lets break this down for you as you appear to have no knowledge of how this works. If you want decent news, inspired musical acts and quality speech it needs to be funded. Commercial services have one goal - making money. BBC has one goal, servicing audiences. And they also train people, set high standards and contribute to society via World Service, foreign offices and investment in new talent. If you would like your world to look and sound like Heart, then god help you - can you not see that without the BBC we'll end with Fox News and a world of lies?

Its culture - ever watch UK Gold, Channel 4, lots of stuff on Amazon? Ever looked for an impartial news report? Thats the BBC

And how do you think LBC finds trained people to run the service? Who do you think pays the majority cost for the transmitters? Its the BBC