Licence Fee (TV)

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

Nowhere else is he getting that salary.
If anything the BBC should be paying smaller wages than commercial radio as it's direct public money.
It's completely out of control.
Just stop funding it.
Remove your antenna.

According to RAJAR, five of the top six listened-to radio stations are owned by the BBC (Classic FM is #4). Radio 2 gets 3 times more listeners than the highest equivalent commercial station (Magic). Steve Wright gets 8 million listeners to his show which is double that of Magic's total audience.

Quite why people still want listen to others incessantly talking nonsense and playing the same songs over and over again is beyond me too, but they seem to still want to. As I have said before, the BBC is a service to the people of the UK. I'm not bothered if the licence fee stays or goes but based on the free TV channels I have seen abroad, I'd recommend keeping it.

 

[Fame Monster]

If the BBC is to stay publicly funded, I'd rather the money come direct from Government rather than the licence fee model where the BBC are wasting money terrorising and criminalising single mothers who can't afford to pay £160 a year.

 

[BlueMoonRisin’]

Just pay your fuckin' licence fee or the TV detector van will drag you down the street kicking and screaming; )

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

If the BBC is to stay publicly funded, I'd rather the money come direct from Government rather than the licence fee model where the BBC are wasting money terrorising and criminalising single mothers who can't afford to pay £160 a year.

If it's ended up in a criminal conviction then something else has gone wrong along the way. There is free help and advice to individuals in managing money and ways to pay for the licence. Most people on very low wages manage to pay but obviously some don't - it's a complex subject because having a TV and/or radio isn't mandatory and therefore neither is the licence fee so there's a simple option available there. You'd have to be in very difficult circumstances to genuinely not be able to afford £160 /year but there will be cases of course.

Making it paid through the tax system opens up criticism from those that genuinely don't use the services. I think the system is what it is, there'll always be outliers to any system, and in any case the BBC say they don't pay much (as a proportion of the fee) in collecting the money.

I am though disappointed the over 75s are not going to be exempt any more. That's terrible - we should be reducing it to pension age not scrapping it.

 

[Fame Monster]

You'd have to be in very difficult circumstances to genuinely not be able to afford £160 /year but there will be cases of course.

A lot of people are in very difficult circumstances though and the last thing they need is a £160 bill from the BBC whether or not they're working.

Universal credit is normally about £4000 a year and the average person spends over £3000 on grocery bills. Any housing element of universal credit is normally short of the actual housing costs so a lot of people end up in dire straits in this country and are having to rely on family/friends/foodbanks/savings to help them out and too many are ending up on the streets.

Unfortunately, those same people are the target demographic of BBC prosecutions - single mothers especially.

I am open to the idea of the BBC being publicly funded still but its current model is unconscionable to me.

I think the poll tax is a good analogy because this is effectively a tax on people whether or not they can afford to pay.

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

A lot of people are in very difficult circumstances though and the last thing they need is a £160 bill from the BBC whether or not they're working.

Universal credit is normally about £4000 a year and the average person spends over £3000 on grocery bills. Any housing element of universal credit is normally short of the actual housing costs so a lot of people end up in dire straits in this country and are having to rely on family/friends/foodbanks/savings to help them out and too many are ending up on the streets.

Unfortunately, those same people are the target demographic of BBC prosecutions - single mothers especially.

I am open to the idea of the BBC being publicly funded still but its current model is unconscionable to me.

I think the poll tax is a good analogy because this is effectively a tax on people whether or not they can afford to pay.

What you are describing is that the benefits are too low not that the licence fee is too high. You might not realise it but having a TV and/or radio is a choice so you don't have to have one and by default would not require a licence. Therefore any prosecution is because the individual has chosen not to pay for something they have used that should be paid for by law. For some reason, because it's the BBC, it seems that people think they are being unreasonable in them trying to recover what they are owed.

When you're skint, and like most of us I've been there, you look for every opportunity to save on bills, and can easily become convinced when people say it's okay to not pay up, like what we are seeing in this thread. Doesn't make it right though and most will know the penalty if caught.

 

[Fame Monster]

What you are describing is that the benefits are too low not that the licence fee is too high. You might not realise it but having a TV and/or radio is a choice so you don't have to have one and by default would not require a licence. Therefore any prosecution is because the individual has chosen not to pay for something they have used that should be paid for by law. For some reason, because it's the BBC, it seems that people think they are being unreasonable in them trying to recover what they are owed.

When you're skint, and like most of us I've been there, you look for every opportunity to save on bills, and can easily become convinced when people say it's okay to not pay up, like what we are seeing in this thread. Doesn't make it right though and most will know the penalty if caught.

I think a lot of people know they are breaking the law but take the risk anyway.

My issue is that I don't believe the law is right and asking people to pay £160 to watch live TV, irrespective of whether they can afford it or not is wrong when there are better funding models out there. I agree that universal credit is, generally speaking, too low, especially when it comes to the housing element.

 

[marco]

So its looking like the Civil Courts for non payers, dont start rubbing your hands together to soon because if its dealt with by the way of a fixed penalty notice by a commision bassed enforcemet officer people will be getting stitched up left right and centre, even the legaly licennse free, the other option is through the court system with a county court summons issued,trouble with this a lot of decisions in the county courts are decided on the likely chance that you have commited an offence 'probability' and of course if your found guilty you will be awarded a CCJ for your trouble which in turn wrecks your credit file,its unsure which way the BBC will go with this but it should be interesting over the next few months, its bad news for the non payer IMO as the system they have now is not water tight unless they have a signed 178 form along with admittance of guilt

 

[Garry's Coock]

I didn't pay mine for 6 years about a decade ago, and rightly so...i never watched live TV.
Things did change and i paid the license again since others in the house watched live tv, but it was interesting to see the changes made after that.
There was never a detector van, a tv is a receiver not a transmittor...enough said.
The license changed from not just watching BBC but any live broadcast from any station, taking away the BBC channels only.
It was great you could catch up but the iplayer got locked down into this hence why you now need to register. The internet messed things up but needed locking in.
As many have said you could shut the door, even remove their implied right of access. This was then challenged by Capita so the courts gave them rights to a warrant if you served this so it's best not too and just shut the door.

 

[Bill Walker]

I think a lot of people know they are breaking the law but take the risk anyway.

My issue is that I don't believe the law is right and asking people to pay £160 to watch live TV, irrespective of whether they can afford it or not is wrong when there are better funding models out there. I agree that universal credit is, generally speaking, too low, especially when it comes to the housing element.

I think the other thing that irks people is the fact that you need a licence even if you don't watch the BBC it seems as soon as you buy a TV you need a licence.
If I lived in the UK this is what would really irritate me surely if you did not have an antenna to receive live TV signals you wouldn't need a licence ?
But it seems you do.

I mean you could in fact buy a big screen computer monitor and just watch Netflix, Prime eccetera and have that as your TV without a licence ?