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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?
[i]Does anyone think it is acceptable to watch live BBC broadcasts with out paying the licence fee?[/i]
No
[i]Long term then, the licence system my be increasingly unattainable. What then?[/i]
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