Article & Poll: Should we keep the BBC Licence Fee?

What do you think about the licence fee

  • The Licence Fee the most appropriate way for the BBC to be funded

    Votes: 109 19.4%
  • The BBC has to change its funding approach to remain relevant

    Votes: 133 23.6%
  • The BBC should become commercial and the licence fee scrapped

    Votes: 309 54.9%
  • Other, please answer in the thread below...

    Votes: 12 2.1%

  • Total voters
    563
I haven't watched any BBC channel in several years, I only watch Netflix, Amazon Pime and Blu-ray's, I cancelled my TV licence and haven't looked back.
 
Not sure what to say other than it seems VERY wrong that, you can be legally punished, and people went to prison for watching content NOT provided by the BBC, simply because if you wish to watch content from anyone live, even from another company who you have paid a subscription to, that you legally have to pay money to the BBC who you are not watching.

Can't see that being right in any context, and if someone came along today and proposed such a concept they would be looked upon as utterly crazy.
 
Voted other. But now think I should be "Change Funding Approach"
Personally I think we need a publicly funded broadcast mechanism. With IPTV happening then it needs another approach to collect funds etc. The landscape of content and delivery is changing rapidly at the moment
 
I think the BBC News coverage is good but the rest you should be able to opt in or out with different payment terms.
 
Wife is now saying she doesn't watch iPlayer any more. Will discuss this weekend and cancel TV license as we don't watch BBC.

Can I watch non-BBC channels excluding CBB on DTV without paying this atrocious TV License?

Edit: Found this

Live TV and how you watch it - TV Licensing ™
 
Not paid for years, corrupt organisation that pushed paedophilia under the carpet for years.

Not only corrupt..

BBC = Biased Broadcasting Corporation
 
I think the BBC News coverage is good but the rest you should be able to opt in or out with different payment terms.
not sure what news service you watch but their so called News Channel is appalling.
Very little actual news from around the world. In any one hour you will be lucky to get twenty minute of news, the rest of the hour being taken up with , This week in history, The Travel show, the weather, repeats of the headlines, being told what is coming up at least twice.

And this will be repeated throughout the night and most of the day, why on earth are they plugging a live broadcast during the afternoon. finally the BBC has given up any semblance of non-bias on practically every subject, made ever so clear when the BBC decided to ask members of the public what they thought of the BBC's Brexit coverage and overwhelmingly the answer was that the BBC re[porting had been predominately negative.
 
The BBC has done great work with Sir David Attenborough's natural history programming like Planet Earth, but is otherwise utterly replaceable nowadays.

Its time to scrap the license fee now I think.
 
not sure what news service you watch but their so called News Channel is appalling.
Very little actual news from around the world. In any one hour you will be lucky to get twenty minute of news, the rest of the hour being taken up with , This week in history, The Travel show, the weather, repeats of the headlines, being told what is coming up at least twice.

And this will be repeated throughout the night and most of the day, why on earth are they plugging a live broadcast during the afternoon. finally the BBC has given up any semblance of non-bias on practically every subject, made ever so clear when the BBC decided to ask members of the public what they thought of the BBC's Brexit coverage and overwhelmingly the answer was that the BBC re[porting had been predominately negative.

Things will change when i retire properly but for now when i finish work i put the 6pm news on and then the local news and that is about it. Driving to and from work i am not in the car long enough to hear the news. Major events, usually bad i tend to see on here.
 
First of all, thanks to Phil for a balanced and well-written article.

A few thoughts:

- As a general principle I would prefer it if we didn't have the licence fee sett up that we do, with people forced to pay for the BBC. However, the truth is it works. It's worked for years. And it produces some of the best TV in the world for a relatively small price.

- Look at how much Sky, Amazon and Netflix cost per month. And how much do people actually watch compared to terrestrial.

- As for commercial channels, please don't let anyone fool you into believing that you don't pay for it. Every time there's an advert on a TV channel, if you buy that product, you're paying for the TV content, whether you watch it or not. I very rarely watch ITV/C4/C5 (probably more C4 than the others, though SWMBO watches Corrie), yet I fund the lot.

- Cbeebies is worth the licence fee alone.

- People who say the BBC are biased appear equally spread across the political spectrum, suggesting they have it about right. I tend to find that those complaining will say the BBC is biased if it isn't a mouthpiece or their exact views.

- The licence fee is £0.41 a day. Let's compare that with newspapers. I'm not sure any UK papers are under £0.41. Even if you believe the BBC is biased, you must also accept that all are biased, on the BBC certainly no worse than any other. Now compare the BBC news programmes, radio programmes, 24 hour news channel and website. vs The Sun. Or the Daily Mail. It's not just a question of it being no contest, it would take someone out of touch with reality (or with a massive agenda) to even need to think about it. And that's JUST the news. Even if we didn't get all the TV channels and radio stations, it'd still be great VFM.
 
The only thing i watch on tv is F1 and 99% of all my other viewing is eithe Netflix or blu rays. I like the option to not have to pay and not watch tv.
The whole notion of needing a "License" to legally watch tv seems very silly anyhow.
 
Things will change when i retire properly but for now when i finish work i put the 6pm news on and then the local news and that is about it. Driving to and from work i am not in the car long enough to hear the news. Major events, usually bad i tend to see on here.
The 6pm news is also brief with the the presenters telling us the headlines twice within the bulletin, and again the BBC feels the need not only to tell us what is coming up but also what is coming up in our local news. Content is extremely thin on the ground.
 
not sure what news service you watch but their so called News Channel is appalling.
Very little actual news from around the world. In any one hour you will be lucky to get twenty minute of news, the rest of the hour being taken up with , This week in history, The Travel show, the weather, repeats of the headlines, being told what is coming up at least twice.

And this will be repeated throughout the night and most of the day, why on earth are they plugging a live broadcast during the afternoon. finally the BBC has given up any semblance of non-bias on practically every subject, made ever so clear when the BBC decided to ask members of the public what they thought of the BBC's Brexit coverage and overwhelmingly the answer was that the BBC re[porting had been predominately negative.

Hate to break it to you, but there isn't actually a lot of 'news' that needs reporting. 24hr news channels do more harm than good imo
 
I've been trying to convince the OH that due to that fact that we hardly ever watch the bbc and have been that way for many years that we should cancel the licence fee and enjoy more of Netflix, Amazon and what-ever other streaming services are available for us to choose.

The news is there sometimes as a background noise in the morning but there's been more than a few times we've both agree'd to turn it over to anything else due to their bias or poorly presented news.

I would be in favour of advertising being brought in to fund the bbc.
 
24 hour news channels were going to happen once one did it. Sky I think? I usually find they have a good mix but it is run by humans meaning mistakes are made and editorial judgments will bound to upset some whether it is right or wrong.

If people think BBC is biased (and I think it leans to the left and remain) then watch CH4 news. Snow and co. have a collective wet pants moment every time the tories fluff it up. Perhaps Foxneeds to come to the UK to counter CH4 if they wanted to balance out the UK news? Always RT and Press TV for the rest?

I take the view that if the left and the right are both harping on about the Beeb being biased then they are not far wrong.
 
I cancelled my TV license over 3 years ago now and never heard a word from them. They send me a letter every 2 years to check whether I still don't need a license, to which I don't.

It's a seriously out of date way for the BBC to operate. Millennials are probabaly opting out of their content to save the £145 or so a year as they're more likely to watch Netflix and Youtube
 
Many people's perception of the licence fee is wrong. The BBC is a public service, not a commercial organisation, and the licence fee is not a payment for a product, it's a form of taxation. Suggesting that you shouldn't pay the licence fee because you don't watch the BBC enough is like saying you shouldn't have to pay tax to support the NHS if you usually aren't ill, or that you shouldn't pay tax to support the Fire Brigade because your house never catches fire. It may well be the case that you don't watch the BBC and don't get ill very often, but other people do both of those things, and it is still quite right that your tax money should support all of those public services for them, regardless of whether you have any need for them at the moment or not. That's just how tax and public services work.

The BBC's funding model probably does need to change, for the simple reason that TV viewing methods are changing - increasingly, more and more content is distributed on demand via the Internet rather than broadcast - but instead of abolishing the licence fee, it should be replaced by a form of direct taxation.

As for BritBox, think of that simply as a substitute for DVDs - instead of paying £6 to acquire a classic "Doctor Who" serial on disk, pay £5 a month to watch as many episodes as you like whenever you want. If enough of the BBC and ITV archive is made available in sufficiently good quality, that's not a bad deal - and no one's forcing you to pay for it, just as no one forces you to buy DVDs.
 
Watching TV isn't anywhere as essential as the HNS hence why people don't begrudge paying for that.

And what I find funny is that over 75s get it for free when they are the biggest watchers and moaners about the rubbish on TV these days
 
Watching TV isn't anywhere as essential as the HNS hence why people don't begrudge paying for that.

And what I find funny is that over 75s get it for free when they are the biggest watchers and moaners about the rubbish on TV these days
Can you show the evidence that this age group are the biggest moaners please.

As for being amused that the over 75's get it for free and are the biggest watchers, you really need to keep up as the BBC are stopping the free licence or at least want to and I would suggest that for the over 75's the TV is there only link to the outside world.
 

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