To cancel my TV licence

[trampoline123]

I want to cancel my TV licence because I'm fed up of the way they broadcast the news. The language they use and the way they report is biased and quite frankly sickening. I don't want to fund it in any way shape or form.

AIBU to cancel my tv license for this reason?

I think it's a shame that people don't want to pay for a TV licence. The fee enables wonderful programmes to be made that aren't necessarily profitable, like Springwatch, or the David Attenborough programmes, which must be awfully expensive. I've heard that in the US they are very envious of University Challenge - highbrow stuff like that just wouldn't be made over there. Personally. I very much value the opinions of people like Jeremy Bowen to shed light on the ME conflict. But you could get your news from elsewhere but still value the BBC"s other programmes.

yabu - the BBC is consistently cited as one of (if not the most) trusted news organisation in the world. It is used by people from across the political spectrum, a fact which is becoming increasingly rare as other organisations go down the hyper-partisan route, to the extent that the vast bulk of their own audiences are made up of people from just one side of the political spectrum, people who only wish to consume news if it is delivered in a way that confirms their own biases.

This is one of the reasons that countries around the world are becoming increasingly difficult to govern effectively, as opposite sides of the spectrum only wish to operate within their own echo chambers, and no longer wish to be exposed to anything that they might disagree with. The ability of citizens to listen to, let alone engage with different viewpoints is completely disappearing.

For anyone who sees how organisations like Fox News function, and has witnessed their corrosive effect on democracy, the BBC’s public service driven remit is something we must never lose in this country.

Even if you prefer to get your news from other UK outlets like Sky or ITV, the News staff there will admit that it is the continuing existence of the BBC that forces them to raise their own game and keeps the UK’s news ecosystem functioning as well as it does.

They catch people because some are quite good at convincing people they have the legal power to come into the home to check. Or someone genuinely doesnt realise they shouldn't watch any live TV not just BBC. And sometimes they look through windows and can see what's on TV then that's used as evidence (a friend got caught this way but she was just told to buy a licence online there and then)

Mostly women convicted because women are probably easier to spook (I think)

They "catch" people by sending their Capita attack dogs round to the homes of people who aren't registered as having a licence. Many people don't realise that they don't have to let these bully boys into their homes. They have no legal standing at all.

I see this argument all the time from pro-licence people.

This is just your personal preference. Why should other people have to fund the licence because you like Springwatch and David Attenborough? How would you feel about funding Netflix or Sky because some random person liked their output?

By all means pay for it if you want to watch it but don't expect other people, who have different likes and dislikes to you, to fund something just because you personally think it's good.

I’m not sure if I would class it as theft. Arguably it is the theft of a service not paid for (rather than a product). But I think I would class it as a form of fraud. Personally, I think it should be classed as civil fraud and that non-payment should result in a civil case and a fine. At present, it falls under the Communications Act as a distinct crime in itself - neither theft nor fraud. Before that I think it was under successive wireless telegraph acts, but I forget.

Babies were also actually beheaded @iamtheblcksheep
What I find incredible is that that's not enough to cause outrage. It Must always be followed up with yes BUT what about the hostages/rapes etc. Nobody is denying it or saying it's a good thing. We really are living in a world where decapitation of babies won't bother SOME people purely because they're Palestinians

Also @trampoline123 YANBU. I think it's a good idea and I am inspired to do the same.

I wonder how they catch people - as they do prosecute.

I haven’t had a license for years. I did get one fora while to watch Doctor Who and there wasn’t anything what I watched. That was very expensive Doctor Who!

The only time I’ve missed it was the women’s football finals, and once a friend who watched sport whilst I was out - so accidentally broke the law.

I do however listen to bbc radio but you don’t need a license.

I will pay in the future, purely financial.

Just cancel it if you don't use it or aren't you able to without asking MN first

@MistyGreenAndBlue you are correct

I have got a few family members who pay for a license because they are shit scared of not paying it and one of them doesn't even have a telly lol it's madness.

My understanding is that if you engage with them or let them in then you are opening yourself up to be prosecuted if you have a telly they can see and they do come across as if they will throw you in jail. I don't need a license and they know this but they still knock on the door occasionally so I just say "not interested sorry" and shut the door they have no power to do anything.

It's a myth prisons are full of women who are there for non-payment of TV Licence.

For a start, it is not a criminal offence that carries a custodial sentence. What does potentially carry a custodial sentence is non-payment of the fine levied for watching without a licence.

The fine can be "up to" £1000, but more typically, in Scotland at least, it's usually in the region of £50-£75

Prosecutions for watching without a licence have plummeted over the past 15 years from around 200k-250k per year, to 44k most recently. In Scotland, it is a literal handful of cases per year, around 4-5, suggesting that Capita have simply given up trying to police the Licence north of the border.

The latest Gov FOI figures show that across the entirety of the UK there has not been a single TV Licence-related imprisonment in the UK since 2019, and IIRC before that, there were two cases since 2016, both of whom were males.

The reason this myth arose, is that it used to be the case that many women facing imprisonment on much more serious charges often had an outstanding prosecution for non-payment of fine, so as they were going to prison in any case, their lawyer/solicitor would ask the Sheriff/JP/Magistrate/Judge to take this into account, and as they were serving a custodial sentence in any case, let them serve a concurrent sentence to strike this from the books, as unlikely as it ever was to actually be prosecuted. This is why prisons were "full of women with convictions for non-payment of TV licence avoidance fine", even though that's not the actual reason why a single one of them was in prison.

Basically, nobody goes to jail for non-payment of TV licence, and the precipitous fall in numbers of fines for watching without a licence would suggest that even Capita aren't making the effort to catch people that they once were.

If they were that desperate to copy the BBC they could piss it.

Labour Party will unfortunately keep it anyway so more years of people whinging about it.

Fair enough re the vans being a myth, I thought it sounded bizarre! How can they get away with saying they have them on their website? Surely that's misleading?

The best thing about the BBC is that forces other channels to provide higher quality TV

There's a reason the likes of Murdoch and the wanker that owns gbnews hate it and constantly denigrate it.. because as long as BBC exists we will never have fox news which is a good thing

Certain things in this country are done on a collective basis, as that is the most effective way for that thing to be done properly. Public service broadcasting is one of those things, and is in no way unique to the UK.

It is a funding model that allowed the UK to create one of the very few non-US media brands in the world that is widely recognised and consumed outside of its own country. You would think that would be considered a success, but of course the UK can’t have nice things any more, best kill it off!

I think the vans in some form were used in the 60s and 70s, also then the only reason for having a TV was to watch live tv, hence all the stuff about if you have a tv they will fine you, this is all rubbish and is left over from the 60s and 70s when this was probably true. Video players arrived in the 80s or possibly just before so started to stop this thinking of TVs only used for live telly

If you're going to stop using bbc products entirely then yes, cancel.

Is that any BBC channels, or any channels?

you must not watch any live tv or streaming tv of any channel

you can't use catch up for abc channels only

so you can watch non live tv on any other channel and Netflix Disney plus etc

You send them a letter withdrawing rights of access and they don't send you threatening letters either

if you purchase a new tv, the shop is duty bound to ask for your address - so the threatening letters etc starts again - so don't give your address or send another withdrawing rights of access letter

If you're going to stop using bbc products entirely then yes, cancel.

you can use BBC radio products - no need for a licence for those

They certainly used to have vans with "TV Detection" branding on the sides, but they did not carry any sort of "detecting" equipment, at least, not in the way they were portrayed in the BBC's own propaganda films.

At best, they carried a bog-standard TV set, and an operator would watch while concurrently looking at the glow coming through your window or curtains, and if the "glow" matched, then this would be considered a good basis on which to challenge that you were, in fact, watching live TV.

They never carried any sort of equipment that could "view what you were watching", or locate the TV to your front room, etc.

One of the most telling things is that in all the cases of people being taken to court for non-payment of the Licence, not once, ever, in the history of TV has the BBC or Capita ever attempted to present any sort of evidence gathered by a "detector van" as part of their case. First of all, they would be challenged to display this tech and demonstrate how it actually functions, which they argue would be "giving the game away", but more pertinently, no such evidence ever existed, because the vans themselves were nothing more than a double-bluff.

if you purchase a new tv, the shop is duty bound to ask for your address - so the threatening letters etc starts again - so don't give your address or send another withdrawing rights of access letter

This hasn't been so since 2013, obviously some stores might be ignoring this

I didn’t say women’s prisons are full of licence fee non-payers. It was, however, statistically true quite recently that it was the single biggest offence among women serving custodial sentences. There are recorded cases of women whose only offence is non payment of the licence fee, though it has become so unpalatable that this route, which the BBC has the power to pursue, is still open to them.

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Don't be silly that was all smoke and mirrors nonsens they tried to frighten us with years ago