good shout, bad analogy but doesn’t change the fact that bbc are quite happy for none licence payers and internationals who wouldn’t be able to get one anyway to watch iplayer.

The Beeb don’t have adverts.

They would if the licence fee went away.

Slight flaw in your STW comparison – adverts displayed to the forum users pays for the forum.

The Beeb don’t have adverts.

Playing devils advocate on that basis, if I never watched BBC channels on the TV, why should I pay for a licence?

I do wonder, idly, if the licence fee’s days are numbered.

Back in the day, the BBC ostensibly was the TV, and if you watched telly, you got a licence (or at least, most people did). The Licensing people operated on the basis that pretty much every household has a TV, so there was a high likelyhood that unlicensed properties were watching illicitly.

Nowadays we’ve got a cornucopia of televisual entertainment beamed about the place, Auntie Beeb being a relatively small part of that. We’ve got film services, on-demand satellite stations, Internet streaming… you could quite easily have a TV and never watch ‘broadcast’ TV in the traditional (licence-requiring) sense. I can only see that trend increasing.

So now we’re getting towards a point where people aren’t going to be automatically getting a licence, they’re going to be stopping and thinking “actually, do I need this?”

Long term then, the licence system my be increasingly unattainable. What then? An enforced subscription model (as opposed to the unenforced subs model they operate currently)? Would you pay 10 quid a month to get the BBC’s combined output? Or adverts and programming sponsorship?

I’ve long believed the concept of a tv detector van is physically impossible, in the same way that it’s impossible for a tree that falls down in the forest to know whether anybody heard it.

plenty of people on the forum who don’t have a P next to their name

What does that prove ?.

Perhaps, there are subbers out there who don’t want a ‘P’…..

They should’ve gone before I chained them up.

Whatever you do don’t film them or they’ll set the cops on you:

if I never watched BBC channels on the TV, why should I pay for a licence?

For me, this is the main problem with the way TV licencing is currently applied.

Would it not be better to let your customers choose what they wanted to pay for rather than forcing them to pay for something they might not want?

I can’t think of anything else in life that’s charged for by default regardless of whether you want to use the ‘service’? (although I’ve probably overlooked something obvious 🙂 )

I can’t think of anything else in life that’s charged for by default regardless of whether you want to use the ‘service’?

mains water

I can’t think of anything else in life that’s charged for by default regardless of whether you want to use the ‘service’? (although I’ve probably overlooked something obvious

council tax, public libraries

council tax, public libraries

Exactly.

NI

mains water

You can choose to be cut off if you wish. Buying all that bottled water would get expensive though 😕

council tax

I knew there was something obvious I’d overlooked 🙂

As an aside, you’d (probably) be amazed at how many households forget/neglect/refuse to pay their water rates too – ostensibly because “…water is/should be free…”

My understanding is that it’s currently illegal to ‘cut off’ someone’s water supply, so, given that there’s no real ‘punishment’ for not paying, the rest of us are subsidising this bunch of freeloaders too. It’s obviously sheer coincidence that many of these households were ones I also visited regarding TVL matters…

You can choose to be cut off if you wish. Buying all that bottled water would get expensive though

They charge you even if they don’t supply a feed

You could also choose not to watch TV and not buy a licence so I’m missing the point of that argument

OK, let’s get to the real point.
Does anyone think it is acceptable to watch live BBC broadcasts with out paying the licence fee?

Does anyone think it is acceptable to watch live BBC broadcasts with out paying the licence fee?

No

Long term then, the licence system my be increasingly unattainable. What then?

Now all TV is freeview, cable or satellite, they should charge for the channels as a package.

No payment, no channels. There could be a lower rate for those who only want to watch iPlayer.

Long term then, the licence system my be increasingly unattainable. What then? An enforced subscription model (as opposed to the unenforced subs model they operate currently)? Would you pay 10 quid a month to get the BBC’s combined output? Or adverts and programming sponsorship?

It would be somewhat ironic if the BBC’s push into new media ends up being responsible for the abolition of the licence fee

Much BBC Internet content is blocked from foreign lands. This suits me. The sat feed on Astra 2 worked for free but as I haven’t watched recently I don’t know if it stil does.

The BBC has no mandate for using the license fee for online services, by definition the fee must be used for programs that are available for all user of analogue/digital areial broadcasts and not for the internet.
Regards the license itself IIRC there was a Guardian journo that refused to pay for his license fee on the basis that he only watched ITV\C4\ cable TV, I think he’s still waiting for the BBC to challenge him in court which it won’t as its position is not defendable.
As for the BBC not doing adverts – they already do but on TV that is mainly for their own products. Online I have just had to sit through an advert for Indian tourism as I used the BBC website from outside of the UK.

Much BBC Internet content is blocked from foreign lands

What’s curious is that BBC content is often freely available to watch via tv player’s from other countries.

We watched Frozen Planet via a Danish TV player (in the UK). All episodes available at the same time whereas iplayer expired them after 7 days. No restriction on being in Denmark to watch as with iplayer, Borgen was available to watch online long before it was shown on the BBC.

What’s curious is that BBC content is often freely available to watch via tv player’s from other countries

That’s because that particular broadcaster has bought the rights for Denmark
Part of yhe deal may well have been that the beeb don’t compete with them