I "like" how the Gov are trying to use the umbrella of saving public sector spending in these austere times, to lay the ground work for culling the License. How does that work then? As I understand it the Beeb is funded by the license fee and sales of it's programming. So in effect it mimics a private company in that there is no public money used to support the BBC. Unlike such "private" enterprises as the rail system. Irrespective of whether you agree with how much the beeb spends on "talent" it does not put a drain on the public coffers. Unless of course any of you out there know better and can put me right. And isn't it funny that the Gov can defend salaries and bonuses for bankers after they have been propped up by the (tax paying) citizens of the UK as required to attract the "talent". But then criticise the BBC for paying what it feels is required to attract/keep it's talent. Not that I agree necessarily with the remuneration that some get. Just another example of double standards and a cynical attempt to undermine the licence system and the BBC. Maybe football players should have their massive salaries looked at/cut in order to acknowledge our current financial climate and help the country out?

Just strikes me that our wonderful new betters are going to use the deficit to justify attacks on all the systems that the Tories don't like (and which the Libs won't put up any defense of as long as they are "sharing" the power.

Sorry for the long winded post. Just got one on me and needed to get it off my chest.

So in effect it mimics a private company in that there is no public money used to support the BBC

Can't think of many private companies that can have you prosecuted and given a criminal record for having the capacity to use their services, regardless of whether you use them or not!

I have a choice which bank I give my business to, I have a choice whether to watch Sky, I have a choice whether to go to football matches – If I and others choose not to, then they go bust!

So you never watch the BBC, listen to any of their radio output or use their web services? I know what you are saying. I am just a supporter of the BBC and licence fee.

That £140 a year license must cripple Sky subscribers.

I have a choice which bank I give my business to, I have a choice whether to watch Sky, I have a choice whether to go to football matches – If I and others choose not to, then they go bust!

You have a choice whether or not you own a television. If you and others choose not to, then the BBC goes bust.

Can't think of many private companies that ……

It is pretty much impossible to avoid paying for example, the private water companies. If you chose to live on bottled water and to urinate and defecate in your garden, I think your local environmental health department might have an issue with that.

It's the tories paying up for their support by the Murdoch media empire.

If you chose to live on bottled water and to urinate and defecate in your garden, I think your local environmental health department might have an issue with that.

Damn this Nanny State!

The sooner the licence fee is binned and the Bloated Broadcasting Corporation fends for itself like every other TV or Radio institution/company the better

…..fends for itself like every other TV or Radio institution/company

And of course it will do ITV the world of good if they are in direct competition with the BBC for advertising revenue.

Just think how much better British TV would be, if both BBC and ITV were skint…..

ffs

There is an argument to be made for the BBC to share part of the licence fee with the more public-service broadcast parts of ITV, but not cuts for the sake of cuts. This is nothing more than the Tories returning the favour to Rupert Murdoch and his fellow moguls for having their papers and TV channels back them into power. You scratch my back etc.

The public values the BBC. There is a place for it where it offers things that the private sector can't figure out ways to make money from. Look at the way people rallied to BBC6 Music and saved it when it was threatened with the axe.

Let's hope they don't stand for any more ideologically-driven returned favours from the Tories to their benefactors, the people who offer us "choice". Choice between the Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Express, The Sun, Sky News, the proprietors of which detest the BBC for offering people a sane and affordable alternative to the poisonous, brainless, doctrinaire and over-priced garbage they purvey.

£140 a year for the BBC's TV, radio and web offering or £50 + a month for Sky TV with any of sport or films worth watching? Slash and burn the former and sooner or later you'll be left with no option other than the latter. Sounds like a false economy to me.

The BBC clearly stopped pretending to be non-biased during the Blair Glory Years so they've brought it on themselves. I say scrap the **** fee

Selective partial quotation again Fred?

Can't think of many private companies that can have you prosecuted and given a criminal record…

Funnily enough, whats the punishment for not paying your water and sewerage bills?

you can be taken to court to recover the debt under civil law, but they cannot disconnect you, and you would not end up with a criminal record for failing to pay… so, its completely different from TV tax then isn't it!

If the BBC mimics a private company then it should only be able to enforce its debts through civil courts, its ridiculous that the BBC can have its debts enforced through the criminal courts

So you reckon it's a political motivated decision made by vindictive Tories enfht ?

Surely not ? 😐

The chance that the licence will be dropped is pretty remote. You pay for the right to own a television receiver; the Beeb gets it's funding as a public service broadcaster from that money.

its completely different from TV tax then isn't it!

The services provided by the water companies and the BBC are indeed "completely different"……..well done for pointing that out ratty.

And also well done for pointing out that you 'cannot be disconnected' from your water supply………..at least with the TV license you have a choice – ie don't get a TV.

So Fred, are you going to give me an example of where a private company can have you prosecuted?

Do you think that Specialized should be able to charge me a tax for owning a Mountain Bike perhaps?

Maybe Dunlop should charge me an annual fee because by bike's got rubber tyres?

OK ratty, Fred has told me to tell you on his behalf, that you are completely right – no one has to pay the water companies any money at all, if they chose not to.

You've won ! Well done !

How does it feel ? 🙂

To be fair I was hoping you'd bite more at the Fred comments Che 😉

BBC political bias ?
Surely not.

Why does that web page have a direct link at the top to Sky News and Sport ps44 ?

It's almost as if it might be a little "biased"

💡 Maybe it's because nothing owned by Murdoch is biased ?

I suspec the things most British people are most proud of are the BBC and the NHS. It is unfortunate that the right wing folks see them as some sort of socialist left wing eneterprises.
It is also unfortunate there is no way of avoiding the licence fee if you [unlikely though this is] choose to not engage with any BBC products and live off a diet of Sky – surely these folks would miss Top Gear and the footy if not the Prom series.
Due to not having to make money the BBC can do a variety of programmes that would not get funding otherwise. Proms and the documentaries spring to mind. They also make a lot of their own shows rather than just buy a succesful USA series.
Not sure what method others think we should ude to fund it. I suspect using adverts would actually harm the other private companies much more than it would help them or harm the BBC.
PS on choice can I have some live footy without having to give Murdoch some of my money …darn this private sector and it's "choice " principle it looks like sometimes big companies can bully the small ones – see latest price hike re BT having access to Sky Sports…the private sector is not always better or fairer. Sometimes they are protectionist and exploitative.

Having the BBC lose the license fee and become just another channel is horrifying.

The sooner the licence fee is binned and the Bloated Broadcasting Corporation fends for itself like every other TV or Radio institution/company the better

Yeah the BBC needs to be more like ITV doesn't it. 🙄

Obviously a lot of beeb/gravy train employees on here 8)

Not at all, just educated enough to realise how the rest is shite 8)

let those who want the BBC pay for it i say … make it a subscription channel only 🙂 … errrr "End of" Lol

"The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?",

Jeremy Paxman

James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, Aug 24th, 2007.

It works, its cheap, the BBC provides good content free at the point of use.

I see no downside. If it ain't broke why fix it?

I don't really understand people that watch the drivel on ITV and think "Wow, I wish the BBC churned out more mindless shite like this".

Not to mention the excellent radio and web offerings.

Keep Public Service Broadcasting please, it's one of the last bastions of intelligence in a commercial, lowest common denominator world.

"The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s".

That is actually a fair point. It all started of as a licence on radios to fund the BBC. It was then combined with the TV licence when TVs first appeared. By the 1970s it was decided that as almost everyone owned some sort of a radio, it would apply only to owners of TVs. But we now a situation where no significant amount of people do not in some way use the services of the BBC – be it their car radio, TV, schools, or on-line news service.

I reckon there is now an overwhelming case to make that the BBC should now be funded through general taxation. Enforcing the licence fee costs the BBC £100 million annually, that's £100 million which could be ploughed back to actually produce programmes.

There are some who argue that the licence fee keeps the BBC independent from the government. Whilst that might well have been true many decades ago, I think it is probably fair to say that that is no longer entirely the case – specially since the New Labour government. After all as an example, the only person in Britain to lose his job over the fcukup which was the Iraqi War, was the Director General of the BBC Greg Dyke. And iirc it was the government which decided and forced the BBC, to redirect £millions away from programme production and into funding the digital switch-over.

Stumped up the annual £145 on Friday, feeling pretty sore about it, what with Paxman, Ross & co's [not to mention senior management and execs'] hyper inflated wages . It's a public service broadcaster, so they shouldn't look for parity with a private operation [which they do]. If they don't like it then they should leave the bbc.
'
Then just watched hours of bbc4, doc's on Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, Rich Halls' Dirty south' on the portrayal of the South in cinema etc. Outstanding stuff.

Bbc 4, [ along with Radio 6], produces broadcasting with a depth and passion that quite simply has never been seen before and probably couldn't be found anywhere in the world; The history of jazz, blues, rock, latin music; The art doc's on spain, the baroque etc, etc etc. All done with small budgets and the devotion of the program makers.

This is what a public broadcaster should be doing and I certainly feel I'm getting VFM from some dedicated souls at the beeb. However, I'd be glad to see some cuts at the top, Quality people will always want to work for them, so ditch the fat cats and stop trying to compete with commercial telly. They did it with Radio when they got rid of all those smashy & niceys', so show the same judgement with t.v. output, it's long overdue.

I hardly watch TV by I like a fair bit of R4.

The few TV programmes that get my attention are from the BBC. All the commercial channels produce utterly commercial sh1te IMO. All the foreign TV stations also produce utter sh1te.

The BBC is the beacon of broadcasting quality. So in typically British fashion, lets screw it up.

Long live the BBC I say.

The main benefit of the BBC is that it doesn't need money from advertisers to run and therefore should be less biased than other broadcasters. I hate adverts and avoid them whenever possible so only really ever watch BBC channels. Films, box sets and the occasional BBC documentary are enough for me. Don't mind the licence fee as I use their web services a lot.

This is nothing more than the Tories returning the favour to Rupert Murdoch and his fellow moguls for having their papers and TV channels back them into power. You scratch my back etc.

Murdoch has offered to buy BSKYB out completely, and now a possible cut in the BBC's licence fee. Coincidence?

It's no surpise that the right wingers here would love to see the end of the licence fee, I wouldn't have expected anything different from those who have utterly no consideration for anyone else but themselves. I'm sure they'll say something like "choice", but the type of choices are determined by whether you can afford them or not. The BBC doesn't charge for web services…unlike others. Choice.

Political parties often change policies and the like to make them electable, it seems the good old tories are just picking up where they left off in 1997. They seem to be in an awful rush this time around.

"A History Of The World in 100 Objects" is worth this year's licence fee by itself.

Try getting something like that commissioned in commercial broadcasting.

I think it's fair to say that the BBC are seen the world over as a top class broadcaster, and they set very high standards for the other broadcasters to aspire to. Having said that, with the luxury of a permanent fixed income for ever, the output should be top class.

The BBC churning out cheap and nasty ads like ITV and Sky would be a shame, but if it saved me £145 a year I could get used to it.

The BBC churning out cheap and nasty ads like ITV and Sky would be a shame, but if it saved me £145 a year I could get used to it.

Really? for £3 a week?

40 mins programming & 20 mins ads per hour is not something I'd fancy seeing on the beeb

And do you really think those "very high standards" would continue once they had to make more populist stuff to bring in the advertisers?

Radio 4 with adverts?… *shudder*

Radio 4 with adverts?… *shudder*

As a regular radio four listener, I have to question if it really doesn't have adverts – the only difference is that its the inane, senseless, constant, repeated, mind numbing advertising trailers for other radio 4 programmes, such as "A History Of The World in a Million Trailers" that drive you to the point of despair.

that drive you to the point of despair

Good gracious dear me 😐