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 😆

Just move to a subscription or advert supported model already. The Beeb have had years to restructure. They sell enough of our programmes abroad, and already try and charge us for re-runs.

They could have been a good netflix competitor. I watch about 1 hour of BBC a week if that. I view a load of Channel 4, and sometimes contemplate spending £4 a month for no adverts on that service.

I still don't really get why we have to have the news repackaged into about 20 shows across BBC TV and Radio. Also give the state their own 3 minute bulletin per day and clearly label it.

The online streaming networks won't let it happen. They know all too well that it would negatively affect their subscriber numbers. Amazon, Netflix, Apple etc have enough power if their bottom line is about to be reduced. Make your opinion known to those companies.

Licence.

LICENCE.

L I C E N C E.

I’ve recently signed up to Netflix again and was amazed to find that the basic package is £4.99!

Just going from the headline (I can't read the article as it's behind a paywall) this is a non story. Government have refused to rule out, just Jesus they are still considering all options. It's good that they are not being forced into making decisions to please journalists when those decisions have not been properly considered. So no need for anyone to get their knickers in a twist about yet.

Having said that I'd support a proposal like this. I think it ensures that there is funding for a public service broadcaster, which I fundamentally support - I think we need a broadcaster who at least attempts to be independent and who is not beholden to its wealthy owners or advertisers. I think this would simplify the license fee conditions which are currently quite confusing for people. It also modernises them. A significant proportion of people no longer watch live TV so it's non sensical to continue to make this criteria for a license.

At least 50% of what is on television is repeats, we've already coughed up for the BBC shows when they were originally shown. The BBC could just have ads between programmes & no ad breaks in the middle of shows or have sponsorship for flagship stuff like Eastenders, Strictly etc. They could raise more revenue that way if they really wanted to. The TV licence is a con, I worked out I watch 1 hour of BBC a week, which is costing me nearly £4 a week, I never listen to BBC radio, just independent stations. I would happily give up watching Question Time to not have to pay the licence fee. I don't mind paying for Sky because there are so many programmes to watch or Prime or Netflix.

A single declaration won’t work
You have to update that declaration every 6months

🤣

I would happily buy individual series. I stopped watching Dr Who when the script became awful in the JW era, but I have been told that the new series is much better quality. However, one series alone isn't worth a TV license for me. It wouldn't take much to allow access to individual programmes through a download and pay on demand service.

But if you are watching programmes on Sky that is what the licence covers, it's not just BBC, it's all the stuff that is on Sky as well.

Buying the Sky package already covers that. The issue is with being asked to pay twice.

My apologies that, as a foreign national, I still get bits wrong occasionally. I'm sure your proficiency in my native language is second to none.

(That's how you spell "knob", isn't it?)

That’s not how it works. Shows are commissioned on the basis of a certain number of showings. Anything above that, or expanding the rights into different territories or for longer periods of time requires additional payment.

So repeats, whilst cheaper, still cost money. Same with acquisitions.

Sponsorship comes with pressure to reach certain audiences, so programmes will change to appeal to them. No more shows for older people - especially women - as we are not an audience advertisers want.

Serious question - if you are happy to stop watching QT and save £4 a week, why don’t you? If you don’t watch live tv or any BBC shows, you don’t need a licence.

Well, to be fair that poster probably isn’t on a message board in your native country espousing negative views about one of the great cultural institutions of said country.

I have Sky and it doesn't include the TV licence, I have to buy it separately

The poster has Sky, which you need a licence for, they would probably save a whole lot more than the licence fee by ditching Sky, though they may have Now TV which is a completely different thing and doesn't usually need a licence unless the live TV is watched but is not Sky though some call it Sky.

I wasn't aware of a rule by which I have to adore everything about the country I have chosen to move to, more so than folk born here? Or that only perfect spelling was allowed? I thought it was a great, cultural norm in this country to internally roll your eyes, ignore a faux pas and then bitch about it behind a person's back after they're out of earshot?

A single declaration won’t work
You have to update that declaration every 6months

You don't have to though. You can just ignore them. I duly filled in my declaration for the first couple of years then I just thought fuck that and have ignored them since. Nothing has happened. Haven't had a licence for about 10 years now. They still email every so often and I just delete.

Why without the K, the offensive slang is knob as per the Cambridge dictionary if this is turning into a spelling thread

But to take your point seriously, I do think it’s a bit much to come into a country and undermine its cultural landscape. Every nation has its peculiarities of humour and interests. If nothing on the BBC appeals to you, that’s fine - but PSBs are a really important voice for local stories, and without them we wouldn’t have a place for niche local interest programming.

You clearly care deeply about it, because you have started and are very active on this thread. Perhaps consider that it isn’t your place to pass judgement on this, because it won’t be your cultural heritage that is affected.

The insanity is people thinking that the fact that they "don't watch bbc stuff" should be a reason not to pay it. Most years of your 80-ish year life you don't use hospitals, the police force, fire or ambulance service, schools, prisons or the judiciary either but we all benefit from these being funded and functional.,

The existence of the bbc benefits everyone. Every other source of news entertainment and media has a vested interest in maximising the profits and self-interest of private owners. Its existence reduces the profits of the likes of Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay Brothers and the 4th Viscount Rothermere so naturally it gets a huge pressure of hate campaigning from other media pushing public opinion against them.

The BBC is owned by and run for the benefit of all of us, not for shareholders/owners and it is right that everyone should pay in. It's also right that the mechanism should be separate from the tax system so that the bbc has a solid barrier between it and the government to enable it to be robustly critical when needed.

The fact that I no longer have young children doesn't mean I no longer care about there being dedicated advert-free channels providing educational entertainment to the young. The fact that I am no longer trying to gain any qualifications doesn't mean I'm not glad of the direct support for education that the bbc provides in revision resources and schools programming. The fact that I'm not into sports doesn't mean I don't care about the bbc providing universal coverage for the Olympics and a good mix of other sports including less commercially-geared sports. If I wrote a similar sentence about every other field of potential interest that the bbc operates in, this post would take hours to read because its mix is so broad.

The BBC's remit to inform and educate as well as entertain leads to a diverse mix of programmes that obviously will be 95% irrelevant to any given individual because you aren't like 95% of the population. Claiming that there's nothing there for you just makes you look ignorant and ill-informed and captured by the profit-focussed marketing ego-massage of whatever biassed source of media you are favouring instead.

im sorry but I hate this line of argument, it’s totally in the OP place to pass judgement, she’s being asked to pay it potentially if this went through. She lives here, she should have a say in how and why she’s being asked to pay for things. She’s living and contributing and discussing things that has an impact on her, it’s her culture too now.

Regional variations, innit.

Where I am from, the slang term has no ‘k’.

Regional programming would have no home without the BBC, by the way.

Will be much harder to keep Gaelic or Welsh alive without centralised funding for language programming.

Bye-bye programming for deaf and disabled people, too.