[Closed] BBC Licence fee

Get rid ( or reduce it ) with sponsored programmes or adverts at the end of a programme - all you get now's adverts for future BBC stuff .

Scrap it. Sell off the BBC.

It's sort of enforced subscription, isn't it? We watch more stuff on the BBC than any other channel though, rarely owt on ITV and never on Sky (mainly because we don't subscribe). I dunno. It's worth the fee I suppose, but I resent [i]having[/i] to pay it.

Keep it or fund from general taxation. The alternatives are much worse.

Protect and enforce it.

Keep it or fund from general taxation. The alternatives are much worse.

Keep it. Or create some other hypothecated tax to fund it.

I'm sure a bunch of folk will show up saying how rubbish the BBC is etc etc

But anyone who has spent any time in countries that [i]only[/i] have commercial broadcasting will recognise that the Beeb actually drags the standards up a bit and covers things that would otherwise be ignored because they are not commercial enough.

Funny how nobody mentions that you pay a subscription for Sky, but you still get bombarded with adverts.

mikewsmith- that's a good idea. Just bung a few quid onto everybody's tax bill each year and problem solved! No ads and you get to keep the good programmes and radio stations.

edit- we love the BBC, it's brilliant. Ok, there's some utter tosh on there as well but in the main it's brilliant.

the BBC is fantastic. i can see that the fee needs to change - but it should not be at the detriment of the programming.

imnotverygood - Member
Funny how nobody mentions that you [b]can choose to[/b] pay a subscription for Sky, but you still get bombarded with adverts.

Keep it as-is.

At the moment their budget is ring-fenced by how much they get through the License Fee and whatever they can generate by selling formats/programmes to other countries. If we move to paying for it through general taxation they could easily go asking for more whenever a big event comes up eg. a state funeral or a huge sporting event. As we all know anything run financially by the government on a big scale ALWAYS goes over budget!
If it goes subscription-based then we could end up with an ITV clone or, even worse, what America has.

I'd give them an additional £100 p.a. to STFU about it.

If we move to paying for it through general taxation they could easily go asking for more whenever a big event comes up eg. a state funeral or a huge sporting event

Conversely rolling it into general taxation means the government could quietly cut funding to it. 🙁

I'd give them an additional £100 p.a. to STFU about it.

I'm in favour of general taxation which would then take into account the ability of people to pay. Seems a fair and equitable solution to me.

I'm in favour of general taxation which would then take into account the ability of people to pay. Seems a fair and equitable solution to me.

The biggest problem is that it turns the BBC into even more of a political football than it is now and opens it up to the "would you rather have three weeks of eastenders or 10 extra hospital beds" line of argument which results in it being completely devalued.

I'd expect that there would be (good) rules against it being paid for out of general taxation as it would then become a government funded organisation, and as much a people like to think that that is what it is right now; it's not.

Cut the licence fee by 50% and make the Beeb live within its means.

as much a people like to think that that is what it is right now; it's not.

Ooooh... you're going to get JHJed so good.

Keep it, hell, increase it. It is the best value for money think I pay for each year, £150 ish for above average content and some very good internet resources? I really struggle to see why anyone would either want to remove it or worse, put the BBC into private ownership. I'm a raging capitalist and even I know that would be a bad idea.

Get rid of the mandatory fee. Let people pay a subscription for it if they want it, or buy content on demand.

Personally I rarely watch anything on the BBC channels and wouldn't miss them if I didn't have them. IMO the content used to be good when the BBC "did it's own thing" but now they're just trying to compete with ad-funded/subscription TV and it's just a race to the bottom; most of the original content is drivel.

The whole idea of "TV channels" has become outdated now IMO as thanks to streaming/on demand I can actually watch something I want to see when I sit down in front of the telly rather than watch something just because it's [i]on[/i].

ohnohesback - Member
Cut the licence fee by 50% and make the Beeb live within its means.

There is something nice about not having your news funded by corporations.

But the Government set the level of the licence fee now. What's the difference between that and doing it through taxation (except taxation takes into account ability to pay)?

Scrap the license, most folk subscribe to tv suppliers. Sponsored programmes or adverts like the rest of them.Might actually wake the bbc up a bit.

Keep it as the BBC is such a huge asset to the UK.

The ONLY reason we have decent News channels in the UK eg Sky is they have to compete with the BBC. If you want to see what Murdoch news is like with no competition, just watch Fox news for 2 minutes.

The Beeb is a corporation; and as for it's news coverage and agenda, it's becoming more 'Radio Pyongyan' as time passes.

What the BBC should be doing is providing a high quality core service of TV and radio. I'd scrap radios 1, 1Xtra, 2, and 5, as well as convert the local radio into regional services. As for TV, dump the likes of Eastenders, Top Gear, and Flog It to concentrate on the BBC2/4 output. This could probably be contained within one or two channels with the surplus being auctioned to help fund the Beeb.

As for TV, dump the likes of Eastenders, Top Gear

[s]So[/s] improve funding by dumping the programmes that make them a huge profit in licensing so they can concentrate on the loss-making special interest shows?

Top Gear is one of their cash-cows together with a lot of the CBBC stuff. Kill those and their budget would drop considerably.

And DO NOT kill off 6Muisic, it's totally unique and worth the £145.50 on it's own!

Keep it as the BBC is such a huge asset to the UK.

The ONLY reason we have decent News channels in the UK eg Sky is they have to compete with the BBC.

I'd rather (and in fact do) get my news online from a range of sources.

And DO NOT kill off 6Muisic, it's totally unique and worth the £145.50 on it's own!

Top Gear makes the BBC vast amounts more than it costs as they sell it across the world for a huge profit. Plenty of other shows are the same, drop them and you are going to cost the BBC money.

BBC radio 1, 2 and 5 are about the 3 most popular stations in the UK, loved by millions of people as they offer ad-free content to a huge range of people, why on earth would you get rid of them?

Seriously, it's awesome.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/danmartin/26-reasons-the-bbc-is-actually-brilliant#.wglYZq9R4

I'd prefer to see the BBC distanced from any political influences than anything else.

Aside from Netflix, I have no other subscriptions and have no intention of signing up to any. Barely watch ITV tbh.

It's good value for me just for the BBC4, Radio 3/4 content. I suddenly feel old.

Driving the 1000 mile round trip to visit the folks is a lot easier with Radio 3 and 4

Divide up all the content and make it subscription only; those who want it can pay for it.

Which would completely defeat the objective of public service broadcasting and turn it into just another commercial lowest common denominator broadcaster.

BBC radio 1, 2 and 5 are about the 3 most popular stations in the UK, loved by millions of people as they offer ad-free content to a huge range of people, why on earth would you get rid of them?

Which would completely defeat the objective of public service broadcasting and [b]turn it into just another commercial lowest common denominator broadcaster.[/b]

The Beeb is a corporation;

I'd scrap radios 1, 1Xtra, 2, and 5, as well as convert the local radio into regional services.

What is the big deal about TV news? By the very nature of the format they can only cover a limited amount of stories in a limited amount of detail, plus you only get to hear what they want to tell you and with their spin on it.
I'd rather (and in fact do) get my news online from a range of sources.

The big deal is that you can get your news from somewhere a bit more independant. I also read a variety of sources but tend to find the BBC is relatively well balanced.

I would argue it's turned itself into that already to be honest.

Can you provide a metric for that(no Scottish academic links), or is it just personal perception? Genuine question.

I cant help but think that age and cynicism go hand in hand. (That'll be personal perception.)

Write a simple law that says you can have ads or subs - not both.

I hate subscription TV that then has ads. I like the BBC as it is. 90% of the TV I watch is BBC, the rest C4/E4.

I don't agree at all; I think the days of the BBC being unbiased

There was an article on R4(ironicaly) discussing how the BBC's reporting on Israel changed largely in tune with the Governments stance. And this was going back to (iirc) the late 40's

ceebeebies is the 3rd parent in our house

well worth it just for that!

oh and 6music, radio4, iplayer, BBC4, newsnight, QT, the detectorists

According to some listening figures I just found online, 29% of the population listen to R2 ... Not a compelling reason for forcing the rest of the population to pay for it!

Same argument can be made about any public funded institution and tax.

it's simply more efficient to consume news in an online format.

Yep and one of the most read online news sources in the world is the BBC:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/category/Top/News

I hate subscription TV that then has ads. I like the BBC as it is. 90% of the TV I watch is BBC, the rest C4/E4.

What is the big deal about TV news?

Depends on whether you care about a Democracy or not.

BBC News is independent and unbiased (as much as is possible). This keeps Sky etc in line and they in turn, stay pretty unbiased to compete. In the US, the equivalent of Sky (FOX news) is 100% a GOP publicity machine, about as biased as you can possibly get. I'd hate to see the UK go the same way.

the bbc is lossing it (radio 4 news anyway) they were having a go at the brits for being too white and too middle class ! 😯

try living in a country without the BBC.

'so, politician our owners approve of, would you like to tell us how great your policies are?'

Besides which, it's simply more efficient to consume news in an online format.

Handily the BBC can help you with that too...

'so, politician our owners approve of, would you like to tell us how great your policies are?'

Keep the licence fee, in fact raise it, the BBC's great, although having said that C4 manage to be almost as good and still have adverts (but IIRC their licence if heavily biased towards factual TV?).

Get rid of the mandatory fee. Let people pay a subscription for it if they want it, or buy content on demand.

The problems with this as I see it are:

1) people won't pay, they'll just download the torrent.
2) It's like VED/road tax. You pay it upfront then it's free so you tend to use it more than you would on a pay per view (or pay as you drive) basis. The difference, unlike driving, is I believe it's in the national interest to have stuff like question time, radio 4, BBC news (if you think it's bad, just try watching anything else for 5 minutes without poking your eyes out), OU programing, etc. It boils down to What do you want more of, yet another re-hash of pop-idol or big brother insipiring kids to become coked up 'celbrities', or Brian Cox discussing physics inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers?

Keep it, it's a valuable institution and importantly freed from the need to keep advertisers and other backers happy it's unbiased.

For the sake of £10 a month or whatever it costs it's a bargain - we pay Sky multiples of that and still get bombarded with ads.

I would personally prefer it if they reduced output and increased quality, but in that respect they're well ahead of ITV (no one needs ITV4) and Sky (1200 channels, of which you'll watch about 4 that aren't BBC, ITV or C4 based).

I've lived abroad, trust me the BBC is very much worth the fee. Where else would Countyfile etc be made?

I don't watch much terrestrial TV but that doesn't mean it doesn't affect the shows I do watch, the Beeb forces the competition to meet a standard.

I figure when you get lefties saying it's too righty and righties saying it's too leftie, it must be about in the middle somewhere.

[quote=P-Jay ]we [b]choose to [/b]pay Sky multiples of that and still get bombarded with ads.

I figure when you get lefties saying it's too righty and righties saying it's too leftie, it must be just shit.

we choose to pay

Yeah, that really needed clarifying. 🙄

I figure when you get lefties saying it's too righty and righties saying it's too leftie, it must be about in the middle somewhere.

[quote=deadlydarcy ]

we choose to pay

when you get lefties saying keep the licence fee, I think the lefties might not fully understand what leftism really means. 🙂

It's the single most regressive tax in the UK. There's nothing else like it.

It's hard to claim that a national TV service is not a "necessary" utility, and so apart from a few grumpy old buggers who dont watch TV lest their minds are warped by lizardnews, and another couple of dozen with de-tuned TVs, a pile of DVDs and claim that they only watch stuff on iplayer, it's literally the only "poll tax" in the country.

Even VAT is linked to consumption and excludes necessities. Like cake. And that's a bad-boy regressive tax too.

[quote=Stoner ]It's hard to claim that a national TV service is not a "necessary" utility, No, it's pretty easy.

If we really want some form of Public Service Broadcasting then it should be fully costed, fully funded and farmed out via competitive tender.

Handily the BBC can help you with that too...

It boils down to What do you want more of, yet another re-hash of pop-idol or big brother insipiring kids to become coked up 'celbrities', or Brian Cox discussing physics inspiring the next generation of scientists and engineers?

If we really want some form of Public Service Broadcasting then it should be fully costed, fully funded and farmed out via competitive tender.

which a lot of non-news programming is already.

However for editorial control, it's pretty clear that you have to keep most of the PBS stuff in house if you want a semblance of impartiality. Or we could outsource it to Russia Today I suppose....

Surely "Public Service Broadcasting" and "competitive tender" are pretty incompatible ideas.

Anyone making a competitive tender will be looking to make a profit and the point of public service broadcasting is to cover some of the non-profitable bits.

adverts ? really ? the thought of childrens programming (which is utterly superb btw and 1000% better than when we were kids) being interspersed with adverts for plastic crap made in china or added sugar drinks and snacks? NO WAY, just try watching the adverts on C5 during milkshake with a 4yo

sponsored programs? once you start with products in drama then it's a short hop to factual content that 'reviews' products, then the news and journalism is tainted by association

I'd like to stick with the licence fee please - if you really don't want to pay it, just unscrew the aerial lead and see how often you actually watch BBC content, and no iplayer or BBC online services ok ?

The fact is though a couple of hours of decent programming a week are costing us £5 billion quid a year or however much it is.

[quote=GrahamS ]Surely "Public Service Broadcasting" and "competitive tender" are pretty incompatible ideas.
Anyone making a competitive tender will be looking to make a profit and the point of public service broadcasting is to cover some of the non-profitable bits.
Not at all. Decide what TV programmes are providing a "Public Service" and get someone to make/transmit them (as someone already suggested, aren't there some terms within the C4 license?)

The BBC is brilliant and apart from Eastenders is well worth the licence fee. I really don't understand the love of Eastenders and why it has to be on quite so much, even Emmerdale and Corrie are more 'real life' they at least have washing machines!!

I'd prefer to see the BBC distanced from any political influences than anything else.

Compared to Spanish TV it's [b]very[/b] unbiased, and that includes both the public and private broadcasters.

costing us £5 billion quid a year or however much it is

License fee revenue is £3,722 million a year, or at least it was in 2014.

Commercial income (from licensing etc) generates £1,340 million.

Total operating costs are £4,738 million.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/2014/executive/finances/licence_fee.html

Sky TV, Media and Sports pulls in £7.6 billion revenue a year.
https://corporate.sky.com/about-sky/reports

just try watching the adverts on C5 during milkshake with a 4yo

Try "Tiny Pop" it's even worse. 🙁

Worth it for Top Gear alone.

[quote=Drac ]Worth it for Top Gear alone. 😆
Top Gear apparently makes lots and lots of money so doesn't need a license fee....

So those trusty politicians, completely uninfluenced by the commercial TV market and who aren't irritated by their lack of control, suggest pulling down the core funding of the BBC.

Of course they're not financially or politically motivated 😯

Top Gear apparently makes lots and lots of money so doesn't need a license fee....

The BBC isn't perfect but it's so much better than the majority of TV, Radio, or web news.
However the license fee is outdated and on one level why should those who don't use the BBC subsidise people like me. Subscription has been talked about but how would that work for radio?
Whatever replaces the license fee model it must not turn it into another advertising funded media organisation.

why should those who don't use the BBC subsidise people like me.

Because that's how national institutions work. I've never used the welfare state but I don't object to paying for it.

Not getting a penny off me till they drop shite like the voice and bring back Wogan and AJP Taylor style historical lectures.

Doesn't wogan still have a radio 2 show? Sounds like you owe them ha'penny.

edit: oh, Wogan the show... before my time that.

I like BBC but I certainly do not want to owe some ZMs a living so I propose 50% reduction in fees, which means they should cut out all the crap programmes from being broadcasted if their funding are cut by 50%.

So people don't want to pay the licence fee yet somehow want to keep advert free boradcasting from the BBC, are these the same people that won't pay £1.49 a month to hide the ads on here?

I like BBC but I certainly do not want to owe some ZMs a living so I propose 50% reduction in fees, which means they should cut out all the crap programmes from being broadcasted if their funding are cut by 50%.

Trouble is no one would agree which are the good and which the crap. So Everyone should be equally (un)happy.

For every Wolf Hall there is a Mrs. Brown's Boys*

For less than 50p a day split between a household, I personally think it pretty good value.

*whilst not bringing out the cliche about 'worth the fee for this alone....' Wolf Hall was absoulutely fantastic as a piece of drama. I have no doubt someone else has the completely opposite view re. Mrs. Brown's Boys. Fair enough, both of us enjoyed something. That's how public service broadcasting should work.

Wolf Hall was absoulutely fantastic as a piece of drama. I have no doubt someone else has the completely opposite view re. Mrs. Brown's Boys. Fair enough, both of us enjoyed something. That's how public service broadcasting should work.