About the TV license potentially being extended to streaming services?

[Haruka]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/28/netflix-users-could-forced-pay-licence-fee/

I already pay enough for the services themselves. I don't watch live TV and especially not the BBC. I am fed up with this potentially becoming a lack of choice; it feels like extortion and yet another tax.

I know that in other countries any device capable of receiving live TV and/ or radio needs a licence (including car radios, laptops, iPads and smartphones), but in this day and age it's taking the piss potentially having to pay for a service I don't even use, just to get access to things that I do.

AIBU to take a very dim view of these proposals?

I'm surprised I haven't seen any other threads on this yet, but maybe I'm blinded by fury 😆

YANBU its bloody cheeky and just another way to extort more money from the taxpayers! I don't watch the BBC their shows other than Call the Midwife and Happy Valley are a pile of shit. I cancelled my liscence and refused to pay it after everything came out about Jimmy Savile on general principle no way am I paying money to an organisation that used our liscence fee to employ and cover up for a paedophile. On the rare times they have contacted me I tell them I don't watch the BBC so I won't be paying for something I don't use. If they do this to Prime, Disney + etc I will cancel my subscriptions no way am I paying money to watch streaming services I already pay for they're massively taking the piss doing that!

It’s not insular to want to see stories that come from closer to home. I enjoy a wide variety of programming, but I also understand how the industry works and there will be no space for docs about UK matters.

There are lots of excellent docs on Netflix and Sky and all the other streamers - but there are very few UK focussed ones, or indeed many from anywhere except North America.

I don’t want my cultural offer to be entirely Americanised. You might want that, but not everyone does.

I can’t make you understand why PSBs are important, but hopefully someone else reading this will take a breath and realise how lucky we are to have a strong PSB.

It’s all part of the same system as our first rate free museums and galleries. Art and culture should be accessible to all and for a wide range of tastes. As soon as you make them subject to market forces and advertising money, you get a homogenous soup designed for the mythical young audience advertisers chases.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t huge issues with the way they champion very problematic men far too frequently and with the way the licence fee is administered.

But I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water.

No issue with it. The BBC licence fee is worth it for the radio alone.

that's nice for you but why should people be forced to pay if they don't want to watch or listen to any BBC?

That's your opinion though. Many other disagree and therefore they should be entitled to not pay don't you think?

I’m happy to keep paying for Eastenders.

I’m forced to pay for a lot through my taxes that I don’t use. That’s life.

Edited to say that I would expect to do that in a society where we support the needs of others.

Also it’s worth adding that a lot of docs are acquired by the streamers - either from independently funded theatrical sources or channels - including the BBC.

The BBC puts quite a lot of money into feature docs, so that will go. Plus BBC films.

The BBC also trains a lot of the next generation of programme makers, so you can expect standards to drop once they aren’t there to do that.

The other thing to note is that the streamers are tightening their belts because the venture capitalists want a return on their money. That means fewer commissions and risks taken on ideas, so in the next few years you will see fewer original series from all of them.

@Feelslikewinter
OK, how about this:
I think that if the BBC were forced into proper competition with the other channels via a subscription model, they would actually produce better programs.
At the moment, it matters not a jot what sort of bilge they put out as they get their money anyway.
The likes of netflix have to react to what the audience want as they vote with their feet and immediately cancel if they don't like what's on. When they see decent stuff is back on they resubscribe.
If people were leaving the streaming services in droves ( like licence payers are leaving the bbc) they would find out why and produce content people wanted, whether that be more uk based programs or more lithuanian folk dancing.
As it is, they are lazy, have no new ideas, and churn out the same dross with the same people in as they have no need or incentive to up their game.

You have to have Sky broadband for those prices, plus some of us prefer not to give money to Murdoch.

The licence fee is currently £15 a month, so not ‘considerably cheaper’ and it’s free for pensioners.

Social housing, education and healthcare, fair enough. Entertainment garbage from an obsolete, misogynistic, has been organisation, no thanks.

OK, disney+,
you tube ( free)
amazon prime ( £8.99)
there are tons of options for all budegets ( and haters of Murdoch!)

I know you think that, but you’re wrong.

They would be forced to make programmes that appeal to a large audience - that is not the same as good. See Kardashians, TOWIE, Made in Chelsea etc.

Anything niche or that wouldn’t sell in North America would be gone.

Ok but things like social care and education are actually beneficial and essential to society I don't think we can really argue that the BBC is in any way in the same category.

I think they should go to a government grant.

We can and should. PSBs are very important culturally both at home and abroad.

The BBC also wields a lot of soft power abroad through the world service and the cache of its top quality programmes.

In my view we should do away with the licence fee and the bbc should get a modest amount from general taxation for things like the World Service, documentaries and current affairs. General programming should be paid via subscriptions or advertising.

there are lots and lots aand lots of very niche things on netflix, you tube. honestly, you should have a look Honeslt, live tv seems so restrictive

I think they would always be rubbish.

People are voting with their feet and they still air a load of rubbish.

Then again I wonder who’s keeping eastenders, corrie and emerdale? On air. Surely by now they have ran all the stories they can. Are the dingles still about… lan Beale and whoever else from when I was a child and my granny watched it.

Oh I did this years ago.

Que letters asking repeatedly if 'anything had changed' along with veiled threats about watching TV without cover being detectable and I really could be swopped on by one of their undercover licence enforcers any day.

In other words the implication was I must be lying and watching live TV or iplayer

I think a mixed service would be best, i.e:
(1) Free service/no subscription/no licence - CBBC, News, BBC1, no sport, no access to iPlayer except for CBBC, news, weather.
(2) 'Lite' subscription, monthly, no licence - all BBC channels except for sport, limited iPlayer access, i.e. recent shows
(3) 'Full' subscription, monthly, no licence - all BBC channels, plus sport, full iPlayer access, i.e. older shows too.

Thanks for explaining tv to me - but it’s unnecessary. I am intimately aware of the offer on all the channels.

We’re going round in circles.

Culture shouldn’t be limited by market forces.

No, thank you. Amazon Prime already pisses me off by wanting me to pay to watch certain shows despite already paying a subscription fee.

Being forced to pay for entertainment is hardly the same as being forced to pay for other essential services.

It's entertainment. Not roads, the NHS, policing etc. Nothing justifies a forced tax for entertainment.

Journalism I grant is more important but you can get that via Google.

I would have agreed when I used to listen to Radio 2 all day every day, but only listen on a Saturday now between 1500 and 2000. GHR the rest of the time.