BBC Decriminalising Licence Fee

[hiddenmnetter]

So I'm not a lawyer and was wondering what the opinion of any lawyer was on this move-

As I understand it at the moment licence fee dodging being a crime means that the state are held to a burden of proof that is beyond reasonable doubt. This I imagine makes conviction quite difficult because you would really need extensive surveillance to actually prove it, unless someone screws up and essentially admits to being in beach if licencing requirements (which I kind of suspect is the way they get most convictions).

My question is this: if they decriminalise the licence fee requirements and just have a fixed fine to apply won't this in essence make it easier to apply? Won't that lower the threshold if the burden of proof is simply the balance of probability?

The minute the BBC doesn’t have a license fee it will mean awful advertising and less good programming. Minority programmes won’t be sustainable. What about radio programmes? When it’s down sized and poor, we might think we have lost something special. The cost is £3 a week roughly. The cost of a cup of coffee. It’s worth way more than this.

I am happy to pay. The end result is that we won’t get something good for nothing. It will eventually be a shadow of its former self and minority programming will be dead in the water.

If it came from general taxation, the BBC would be state owned. The current system has state interference as it is!

If it came from general taxation, the BBC would be state owned.

True, but as a lecturer said, irrelevant.

The current system has state interference as it is!

It's entirely possible to create state owned bodies whose governance is independent of the government. It's been done many times in the past, and as soon as it's advantageous for the government (of the day) it will happen again.

The fact it hasn't happened is just a demonstration there is no political will for it. Which in a society where people like the Murdochs pay the campaign fees of their preferred candidates, is hardly surprising.

Countries without trusted state broadcasters are where you get the lunatic fringes thriving amongst the populous. You could almost plot a graph of anti-vaccination codswallop going up as trust in the BBC goes down over the past 20 years. Or Holocaust denial.

The courts will do what they are told

No they won't. That really is not how our courts work. In case you haven't noticed, the courts have been quite happy to tell the government they are wrong. And getting the courts to change the meaning of "balance of probabilities" would be ignored by the courts on human rights grounds.

A problem which seems unique to TV, given that our taxes go on things that I find deeply objectionable

I believe the argument by those campaigning for the licence fee to be abolished is that TV is an area where, unlike most other things paid for by our taxes, you have a genuine choice. If you don't like the BBC there are hundreds of other channels you can watch. If you don't like nuclear weapons you can't go and find someone else to defend you instead of our armed forces. However, as I say, I personally support the licence fee in its current form so I'm not the best person to put these arguments.

The fact that no one has tried to move the BBCs funding to come from general taxation speaks volumes

What we have now is a hypothecated tax (which is highly regressive since the amount you pay is independent of income). If it moved to general taxation it would probably reduce the level of trust in the BBC still further and it would mean that BBC funding would be treated the same as other departmental expenditure, to be reviewed annually by the Treasury with the new level announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the budget. In my view that would not be good for the future of the BBC.