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 😆

You honestly think it's in the same category as education and social care... That's madness.

Yes, what’s that about? I cancelled that too. Money grabbing so-and-sos.

Stop sending letters. That must cost a fortune in postage.

When my DS moved into uni accommodation, I swear there were about 50/60 BBC licence fee letters cluttering up the hallway. They see students as an easy target and try and frighten them into paying. They’re like a bloody protection racket.

I want more than just the basics of life. Culture is vital.

You know google js a content aggregator not creator, right? Google doesn’t produce news.

I disagree.

My local council funds many useless 'arts initiatives'

The arts should fund theirselves if they are unable to then they don't deserve to exist.

I haven't had one for years. They did come round and check a few years ago. Every so often they'll ask me to sign a declaration that I don't need one.
In my opinion, it should become a subscription service.

Because they know television as we know it is in decline. The youngsters don’t watch television. So how else is the BBC going to pay their pervs get their money?

The BBC themselves produced an article last year about the decline amongst teens/20s for watching traditional live tv. Most of them just aren't interested. They prefer Netflix and Disney Plus, or platforms like YouTube and TikTok. They want on demand streaming services available to watch on several devices, not waiting until 7pm on a Thursday to be able to watch something. The BBC will have to massively change anyway in the next couple of decades as the older viewers start dying out and aren't being replaced.

Yes I don’t think my children know what a tv guide is tbh. Or that you can only watch some shows at certain times. Even when we had live tv they still used to use TiVo and on demand.

What a terribly sad thing to read.

Council funded arts initiatives help artists make a living and support themselves. Not everyone can sell to Saatchi straight out of Goldsmith’s.

Once upon a time there were benefits and squats or cheap rooms that could be used by people as they learned their craft or found their voice.

How does anyone expect artists and musicians to get good enough to sustain a career unless they start small and work hard?

Or should only rich kids be allowed to be creative?

Council funded arts inactives cost council tax payers money.

I have met many who work in this space it's a joke of horrible cliquishness individual's.

Nope I don't want to pay for shitty vanity projects. If you want them fund them yourselfs.

A lot of the streaming shows are weekly though, all the new Apple and Paramount+ ones are, I started watching something on Disney and that's weekly so no different to BBC or ITV, which have older shows you can stream all of

I’ve met plenty who are lovely and do really interesting community focussed projects on stuff that would never find a commercial home.

Theres plenty of stuff I don’t want to pay for through my taxes, but society doesn’t work like that, thankfully.

But why should we all pay for your lovely experiences.

The arts should fund itself like everything, if it isn't viable it should fail like anything else, why does art get special status.

You only need to pay avTV lisence of you are watching or streaming BBC you can access the website and radio without the need for a lisence. If don't need for other channels or subscriptions

I will never pay for the BBC. They won’t make it subscription based as it’s been haemorrhaging licences for years; they know nowhere near enough people would subscribe to make it viable.

I wouldn’t care if it was gone.

Its been six years since I cancelled my license every month a letter arrives threatening me sometimes with a "we will visit you on this date". No one's ever visited but I'd like to see them try and enter my property without a warrant which they obviously won't have haha

That's what they want to change. Read the article.

because market forces aren’t conducive to creating things of cultural importance. I don’t want the art and culture around us to be driven by commercial pressures.

Doesn’t advertising impinge on enough of our lives? There’s another thread where an 11 year old is distraught that her £20 blusher got dented. That’s thanks to TikTok or you tube or whatever soulless ‘content’ she’s been consuming.

I sense you have a very consumerist slant on life, though, so thankfully it’s not up to you what cultural activities tax payers fund.

Actually $17.99 a month is $216 a year, which is about £173 in sterling. The price of a TV license now £170, so it is about the same as your Netflix, and I would argue you get much less for that.

But why should you be sheltered, my bills are going up why should be ' nice experiences' for you be priotised they aren't viable so should fail.

Is all very nice until you realize 100s of thousands are being wasted which could be spent on better things.

And I agree with PP. We shouldn’t need to fund ‘the arts’ unless we think it’s good enough, and we want to; same as anything else.

I agree. The other week I watched the documentaries about the 7/7 bombings. It was a really good one.
Im now watching the murder trial one and recording the knife crime programme.

Well arguably, why the fuck should I pay for old people who didn’t save enough pension to pay their care in old age? Or people who smoked themselves into cancer? Or for days out for other people’s autistic kids?

Because those people matter and looking after them matters.

Culture enriches our lives. It makes us happier and better people. It promotes community cohesion and makes life worth living.

You and your narrow understanding of art and culture doesn’t get to choose what ‘better’ things to spend everyone’s money on. Thankfully

You are equating the arts with people who didn't have to knowledge to save, and with people who have cancer and people health.

Wow, just wow, your nice experiences' must be nice for you.

If your arts are so good they pay for there selfs nah don't think so you want everyone else to.