BBC licence fee could be means tested everyone pays regardless of whether or not they own a telev

arknor · 18 Jul 2015 at 14:12

lovelyhead said:
Hmmm. So you think the people that are watching Ceebeebies are the same people that download the app.

That app was installed by 30 somethings to placate their kids.

When I talk about kids not watching TV, I am talking about the 7+ year olds who are too busy with Minecraft etc. to even consider turning the TV on.

Long term, TV is irrelevant. Those kids playing Minecraft are going to think you guys are mad when you tell them they have to pay for the "institution" that is the BBC.

They will think you are off your rocker when you say to them it is a public service that needs to be preserved.

You guys are dinosaurs and just don't know it.

The Minecraft generation don't give a fig about the BBC.

my kid hasnt watched TV in years lol.

he's got in his room

tv on the wall connected to an xbox 360
nintendo wii
whatever the newer nintendo console was
a gaming pc with 4core haswell and a 280x
samsung tablet.

only thing he looks at is youtube on his tablet watching people play the same games he does unless hes playing online with friends from school.

and before anyone junps in with omg he plays games for a few hours a day so what?

rather his brain be active than sat in front of a goggle box with a mindless stare.

only thing he ever view on TV is movies on dvd with his mum.

it's not like when we were kids and you would sit in front of the tv on a week end morning

Werewolf · 18 Jul 2015 at 14:32

Brenn47 said:
I used to know the company name, but I've forgotten now. They were paid to spam forum posts that criticise the BBC. Digital Spy forum was comedy gold, several people used to use the same login, and they'd occasionally forget which login they were posting from and end up arguing with themselves!

Doesn't surprise me the BBC still employ Shills.

Really they forgot to change login's that would be very silly.

And really really really easy for the forum moderators to spot.
It takes about 15 seconds for me to click on a user, go to their page in the admin panel and do an ip check which brings back any user matches.

Which makes me wonder which of the following is true.
The shared user logins by paid shills accusation is rubbish.
No one bothered to report it to the DS mods, and the DS mods never spotted it.
or
The DS mods or their forum software is so bad that they couldn't spot IP being shared among users within minutes of each other.

After all if the BBC were paying shills to post on forums and it was found out confirmed by a FOI as you say, then I'm amazed the Daily Mail and Sun haven't made a big thing about it, they're not exactly fans of the BBC and will jump on any other tenious link that suggests that the BBC is doing something wrong, or unethical, or even "wasting money" (even when the "waste" is simply the BBC following government guidelines).

linktoinsanity · 18 Jul 2015 at 14:48

xs2man said:
From your first link :

It's not the capability of doing so, but the actual watching of live TV that requires the license.

You are right, my bad. I read the source and forgot to edit my second sentence. Same to Glucaus, and of course, Euology (Hi Hippo!)

So your first sentence there, is just a rant, the second however, where you try to come out with fact based reasoning, is inaccurate. The rest I couldn't be bothered reading, as you made two fatal errors in the first two sentences.

First sentence is absolutely right though. All these threads are exactly what I described. So I count one error and it is not fatal.

xs2man · 18 Jul 2015 at 15:31

linktoinsanity said:
You are right, my bad. I read the source and forgot to edit my second sentence. Same to Glucaus, and of course, Euology (Hi Hippo!)

First sentence is absolutely right though. All these threads are exactly what I described. So I count one error and it is not fatal.

linktoinsanity said:
Another TV license thread. Another thread full of people who want to show off to all their forum "buddies" that they don't like paying "the big evil man" and don't pay it.

Sounds very much like a rant to me.

And, to be fair, in your last bit you say this :

linktoinsanity said:
Personally, if I own a TV and/or watch Live TV I will pay a TV license.

You do not need a license to own a TV, so you could have easily dropped the /or.

linktoinsanity · 18 Jul 2015 at 15:44

xs2man said:
Sounds very much like a rant to me.

Is it a rant if it is true? Genuine question. If it's true still if it's a rant then yes it is a rant, but a deserved one.

And, to be fair, in your last bit you say this :

You do not need a license to own a TV, so you could have easily dropped the /or.

That's fine, I can accept that, does not detract from my point however, but in case I have not made it clear:

If you watch live tv, you should pay a TV license fee.

Brenn47 · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:02

Werewolf said:
Really they forgot to change login's that would be very silly.

And really really really easy for the forum moderators to spot.
It takes about 15 seconds for me to click on a user, go to their page in the admin panel and do an ip check which brings back any user matches.

Which makes me wonder which of the following is true.
The shared user logins by paid shills accusation is rubbish.
No one bothered to report it to the DS mods, and the DS mods never spotted it.
or
The DS mods or their forum software is so bad that they couldn't spot IP being shared among users within minutes of each other.

After all if the BBC were paying shills to post on forums and it was found out confirmed by a FOI as you say, then I'm amazed the Daily Mail and Sun haven't made a big thing about it, they're not exactly fans of the BBC and will jump on any other tenious link that suggests that the BBC is doing something wrong, or unethical, or even "wasting money" (even when the "waste" is simply the BBC following government guidelines).

There's no *if*, it was released in a FOI request ... the BBC outsource their online PR to several companies to spam forums, Digital Spy is their main battle ground as far as I know, anyone criticises the BBC and the thread gets flooded with spam to lose the original post in masses of rubbish.

Haven't been there in about a year, but one of their logins (mossy) had about 50k posts mostly defending the BBC! He (or more likely THEY) was at it 24/7 .. the only people to get temp bans were the people who argued with the login Mossy. Mossy never got banned for anything, despite being far more obnoxious than anyone (they) were arguing with.

Basically it went .. OP would criticise the BBC, the Shills would pile in and start an argument, original post get lost in a flood of garbage. It was pretty pathetic.

rossiboy001 · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:29

How does it work? I thought you need a tv license if you have equipment to view the bbc such as a telly, thought it did not matter if you watch bbc or not. I only watch Eastenders now n again, So im paying £2.50 a week just for that. So when a tv licence man peeps tyhrough your window and sees a telly as long as your not watching bbc its ok?

Glaucus · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:38

rossiboy001 said:
How does it work? I thought you need a tv license if you have equipment to view the bbc such as a telly, thought it did not matter if you watch bbc or not. I only watch Eastenders now n again, So im paying £2.50 a week just for that. So when a tv licence man peeps tyhrough your window and sees a telly as long as your not watching bbc its ok?

No,
You need a licence if you watch or record live TV regardless of channel. So BBC, all other channels, including sky/virgin.

If you only watch Netflix, on demand and similar then you don't need a license.

HungryHippos · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:41

rossiboy001 said:
How does it work? I thought you need a tv license if you have equipment to view the bbc such as a telly, thought it did not matter if you watch bbc or not. I only watch Eastenders now n again, So im paying £2.50 a week just for that. So when a tv licence man peeps tyhrough your window and sees a telly as long as your not watching bbc its ok?

No if you have an aerial connected you are probably able to receive the BBC channels, you can't selectively not do that. Same for if you have Sky/Virgin etc.

the only way you can legally not pay the licence is if you, for example:

You only use Netflix, your aerial is not plugged in to your TV to receive live broadcasts.

Same as above but add Amazon prime streaming in place of Netflix.

You only have a console connected to your TV for playing games on.

You can watch some catch up stuff via Internet without requiring one, iPlayer has some things which say you need a tv licence, some which don't afaik.

rossiboy001 · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:44

Thanks So I can just disconnect the aerial, and it dont matter if he sees a telly through the window, or the kids accidentally leaves the door unlocked and he just walks in ect.

easyrider · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:50

rossiboy001 said:
Thanks So I can just disconnect the aerial, and it dont matter if he sees a telly through the window, or the kids accidentally leaves the door unlocked and he just walks in ect.

He can't just walk in...you could have him arrested lol

Caged · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:54

It is spelt out really quite clearly on the TV licensing website. Do you watch live TV received via an aerial, satellite dish, cable, IP network etc., or record it live to watch later? Then you need a license.

Do you just watch iPlayer, 4oD, whatever? Then you don't.

lovelyhead · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:54

Eulogy said:
No if you have an aerial connected you are probably able to receive the BBC channels, you can't selectively not do that. Same for if you have Sky/Virgin etc.

the only way you can legally not pay the licence is if you, for example:

You only use Netflix, your aerial is not plugged in to your TV to receive live broadcasts.

Same as above but add Amazon prime streaming in place of Netflix.

You only have a console connected to your TV for playing games on.

You can watch some catch up stuff via Internet without requiring one, iPlayer has some things which say you need a tv licence, some which don't afaik.

Doesn't matter if you have an aerial plugged in or not. The absolute only time you need to have a licence is if you watch TV as it is broadcast. You could have a 100ft aerial in your back garden connected to 20 TV's. You still wouldn't need to have a licence as long as you never watched live TV.

V F · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:55

ChroniC said:
The arguement for Sky being crap because of adverts is such a moot point, since this is 2015 not 1997, I wonder why anyone watched live tv these days. Everything I watch is recorded, most of everything I view is through "planner" and quick 10sec blast of forward and I have missed all adverts.

I happily watch things in bulk, wait a few days and watch some more. I record whole weeks of Wheeler dealers whilst induldging in other series and then go back to them a few days later.

Why not press 2, 5 or 10 instead of fast forward?

lovelyhead · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:57

easyrider said:
He can't just walk in...you could have him arrested lol

True. Licence inspectors have all the power of a door to door salesman. They have no power to enter your home. The only way they can gain access is if you allow them to enter voluntarily or if they have a court order to search your house (never happens).

V F · 18 Jul 2015 at 16:58

Eulogy said:
No if you have an aerial connected you are probably able to receive the BBC channels, you can't selectively not do that. Same for if you have Sky/Virgin etc.

the only way you can legally not pay the licence is if you, for example:

You only use Netflix, your aerial is not plugged in to your TV to receive live broadcasts.

Same as above but add Amazon prime streaming in place of Netflix.

You only have a console connected to your TV for playing games on.

You can watch some catch up stuff via Internet without requiring one, iPlayer has some things which say you need a tv licence, some which don't afaik.

You can view Sky News on the PS3 through the Sky app.

StriderX · 18 Jul 2015 at 17:26

I think what the BBC is really scared of is everyone getting faster Internet, so people will end up using free services/subscribed services via broadband with no desire for BBC channels.

Eurofighter · 18 Jul 2015 at 17:50

I like this idea.

xs2man · 18 Jul 2015 at 18:01

V F said:
You can view Sky News on the PS3 through the Sky app.

This is also classed as watching live TV as you are watching the channel as it is being broadcast.

I now watch my news through the BBC News app (among other sources of course), which isn't a live feed of the news channel, but rather just the headlines repeated on a loop starting from when you open the app. Sky News' offering isn't quite as user friendly.

413x · 18 Jul 2015 at 18:05

StriderX said:
I think what the BBC is really scared of is everyone getting faster Internet, so people will end up using free services/subscribed services via broadband with no desire for BBC channels.

Have the dreaded feeling is going to essentially become a tax.
If you have the Internet you are capable of watching iplayer etc

They are too scared to implement a robust sign in system for it as they no it wouldn't bring in the revenue to anywhere near what they get now