BBC license fee proposals...

joeyjojo said:
Guess we just disagree on the value of having a public broadcaster then.

I suppose it's easy to take it for granted when we live in one of the more open societies in the world, with fairly strong press freedom and little/no government interference.

Contrast with countries that aren't in this position (there are many, Russia and China are two obvious ones) and the benefits of having an unbiased state broadcaster are clear.
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There are loads of developed countries that don't have a state broadcaster and they have freedom of the press and have not devolved into a totalitarian state, but the morality issue is more of a concern than the value issue.
 
joeyjojo said:
Guess we just disagree on the value of having a public broadcaster then.

I suppose it's easy to take it for granted when we live in one of the more open societies in the world, with fairly strong press freedom and little/no government interference.

Contrast with countries that aren't in this position (there are many, Russia and China are two obvious ones) and the benefits of having an unbiased state broadcaster are clear.

Also compare to Western countries with fairly weak public broadcasters, e.g. the USA. The most watched news channel here is the BBC news. There it's FOX News, which a poll found was 'the most ideological channel in America'. The point of this it seems to me is unless you have respected and trustworthy news then people are going to turn en masse to whichever 'news' suits them best ideologically (I know the same thing is true here with commercial news e.g. Sky, and the red tops, but it's got to be worse there in the absence of a BBC-like option).

The public broadcaster in the USA (PBS) runs on 'pledges' (sponsorship basically) which pop up before, after, and during programmes. In 2011 they also said they'd be switching to advertising during programmes (but I'm not sure how widely this was rolled out). Needless to say this was unpopular, but it mirrors the direction some people (e.g. edscdk in the post above) think we should go, and it's not pretty.

/ramble :D
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The amount of people on this forum who take Russia Today's reports as absolute gospel will disagree with you there :D
 
So I'm thinking of taking the step of cancelling my TV package and TV licence.

However I watch the following, what could I do instead:

Celeb Jungle (don't hate) ITV
News channel
Discovery

Could I replace the above with Fire stick and just internet?
 
If you're watching them live no matter how it would require a license as you'd be watching them as a "broadcast".

If you watched Discovery and Celeb on catch up you'd not need one.
 
stopper said:
I can't believe people are STILL fretting over how to keep the bbc away. Blocking the iplayer at router? Really?
Just slam the door on them, it's YOUR house, they have absolutely no rights of access to your property, they have no legal powers, and it's unlawful for them to force money out of you.
Our whole legal system works on contract law, so don't contract with them. Simple.
Write them an annoymous letter telling them to stay away from your house, they will leave you alone for 2 years.
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I only came into this post to see what nonsense T100 was writing in this as the Tory topic got locked and he made some random comment about Ryan Giggs having a smelly knob in sports!

But I do like stopper's comment above in bold. Write an anonymous letter telling them to stay away from your house. Not very anonymous really if you tell them your address so that they can stay away :D
 
Filled out the online "I don't need a TVL" form and received the lovely "Thanks for letting us know" automated response.

2 days later received another "You have until 26/09 to let us know" letter... assuming this is an admin error, I've binned it but knowing how useless they are I'm almost expecting a threatening letter to which I'll reply with a copy of my automated response :p

Glad that I dropped live TV for streaming. Can't say I use BBC iPlayer anymore now that Top Gear (the real one) finished.
 
I live on the third floor of a building. No way to see in. I never watch tv, and tend to just stream stuff from netflix or youtube. Basically, I don't answer the door to ANYONE unless i'm expecting someone or someone calls.

Get all my deliveries/parcels etc delivered to work so there's literally no need to answer the door when it rings randomly because let's face it, it's not going to be anyone i know or want to speak to. We're past the age of people 'popping round' randomly any way, now that everyone has mobiles.
 
Cosimo said:
Roll on the day when they make you add your licence number and this thread explodes...
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I don't understand why they don't do that. All they need to do is make sure every licence number can only be used once and an automatic check every year to see if it's valid could come into play.

I have a feeling they doing all of this on purpose just so they can make a lot money on fines rather than people actually pay a licence.
 
mrbell1984 said:
I don't understand why they don't do that. All they need to do is make sure every licence number can only be used once and an automatic check every year to see if it's valid could come into play.

I have a feeling they doing all of this on purpose just so they can make a lot money on fines rather than people actually pay a licence.
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They're probalby aware that there is generally more than one person per household who might use Iplayer, and part of the reason for the "BBC ID" is to let you customise what it recommends and displays when you use the service.

They may limit the number of accounts you can link to the licence number, but I can see that ending up with them having a lot of calls to find out the licence fee numbers (I can't remember mine as we pay for it by DD and I'm not sure where the letter is).
 
Werewolf said:
They're probalby aware that there is generally more than one person per household who might use Iplayer, and part of the reason for the "BBC ID" is to let you customise what it recommends and displays when you use the service.

They may limit the number of accounts you can link to the licence number, but I can see that ending up with them having a lot of calls to find out the licence fee numbers (I can't remember mine as we pay for it by DD and I'm not sure where the letter is).
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Assign a static ID to every house in the UK just like a street postcode. Or what I'm in favour of is add it to a tax system where you pay it in with council tax or something and get rid of the Tv licence all together... also get rid of all adverts on the TV if the tax method is implemented.
 
mrbell1984 said:
Assign a static ID to every house in the UK just like a street postcode. Or what I'm in favour of is add it to a tax system where you pay it in with council tax or something and get rid of the Tv licence all together... also get rid of all adverts on the TV if the tax method is implemented.
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What about when you're travelling and want to watch iPlayer?
 
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