TV Licence Super Thread

Soldato
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Remind me, which other news services make any sort of attempt to be "impartial"?

I suspect that you PERSONALLY couldn't care less about impartiality because you believe that corporations and the rich and powerful have an absolute right to pay to frame debate and the news to suit their agenda.

Despite your incredibly selfish perspective, there are many people who appreciate various different parts of the National Broadcaster's output, some of them may even feel that Sky / Netflix / Amazon is absolute populist, worthless, escapist soma for the brain-dead.


BBC impartial? Lol good one. The BBC bosses have their agenda and that's what they tout.
 
Soldato
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Remind me, which other news services make any sort of attempt to be "impartial"?

I suspect that you PERSONALLY couldn't care less about impartiality because you believe that corporations and the rich and powerful have an absolute right to pay to frame debate and the news to suit their agenda.

Despite your incredibly selfish perspective, there are many people who appreciate various different parts of the National Broadcaster's output, some of them may even feel that Sky / Netflix / Amazon is absolute populist, worthless, escapist soma for the brain-dead.
The BBC are no more Impartial than ITV, CH4, Ch5. Not wanting to pay for a service you don't use isn't selfish, it's sensible. In the same way I don't pay for a subscription to Angling Weekly.
 
Soldato
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i earn next to nothing tbh but although im not thrilled about paying the fee i use bbc services a hell of a lot ,iplayer on my now tv stick is defiantly my favorite app use it more than sky cinema (£2.40 a month) ,and pretty much constant live stream as my satellite dish only works when the winds in a certain direction (yeh i know ,and i will sort it eventually) so not over happy but not losing sleep over it

I have a similar experience, I use the service every day in one form or another and consider it tremendous value. The news service is world class and impartial and that's really important to me. I haven't bought a physical newspaper for many years; I go between the BBC news app and Guardian app which I also pay the subscription for (£5.99 per month, again great value). You only need to look at the likes of Piers Morgan on the ITV show in the morning and you can see why the BBC structure is absolutely essential. Radio 2 is a daily staple for me, too.

Of course, that's just the media output. All the little cheerleaders here can't see past that, which is why they make ridiculous comparisons with media companies like Netflix that charge almost as much for a tiny fraction of the content/service you get from the BBC. It's laughable. The latest foam at the mouth event has been prompted by the suggestion that they might bundle a charge into the broadband fees - which kind of makes sense to me, I wouldn't be against that in principle. If media rivals can run their business via a broadband network that the licence fee contributes to build and maintain, then why shouldn't the BBC get some pay back?
 
Soldato
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Imagine paying to live in a bubble and expecting others to do the same, all to make sure your preferred type of propaganda remains propped up?

It says a lot about your ideological leanings.
 
Permabanned
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Virgin when it was NTL/Telewest/CableTel was funded privately by investors (to lay the cable's in the trenches years before launch) this has nothing to do with BBC money.

I pay Virgin for phone and BB not TV anymore after 18 years I had no need for the 99% junk on TV esp the BBC.

License free for 7+years now

I have Amazon Prime for my Next Day Del and as a bonus if I choose I can watch/listen to the vast content and if I like something on NetFlix I sub for a month.

So again you are clueless and I have heard it more than enough times and I am under no obligation to fund the BBC any more.

You can come back and cry when the License Fee gets scrapped as it is coming but no doubt its on back burner due to this current situation in the world.
 

Deleted member 651465

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Deleted member 651465

The BBC is not an essential service, what the heck are people on about? :confused:

Whether you use it (BBC) or not is irrelevant, it's not REQUIRED. The same way Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are not required. The fact they still try and charge the licence fee in this day and age shows how behind the times they are and unless the government starts mandating that people pay for it then I can see a lot of the newer generations thinking "sod that" when you see the level of quality and content that the streaming services pump out. With Disney+, Netflix, Amazon, NowTV, Brtibox and YouTube you could dump the beeb and not miss a thing... even Attenborough is on Netflix these days!
 
Soldato
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The BBC is not an essential service, what the heck are people on about? :confused:

Whether you use it (BBC) or not is irrelevant, it's not REQUIRED. The same way Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are not required. The fact they still try and charge the licence fee in this day and age shows how behind the times they are and unless the government starts mandating that people pay for it then I can see a lot of the newer generations thinking "sod that" when you see the level of quality and content that the streaming services pump out. With Disney+, Netflix, Amazon, NowTV, Brtibox and YouTube you could dump the beeb and not miss a thing... even Attenborough is on Netflix these days!

You don't need to use the service and if you choose not to, it would mean you currently don't need to pay for it. I'm not sure why people get so irate about something like this, I suppose it's just another symptom of this strange new world we seem to live in.

As for the definition of an essential service, in my opinion (which I am happy to share, but not attempting to aggressively force others to concur with), an impartial media is more important than ever these days and the BBC is the absolute definition of that in this country. Some people will never see that because all they see is ££'s.

Let's be honest, we now have people thinking Covid-19 is caused by 5G hardware so you really need to ask yourself whether the general public are even capable of knowing what or what isn't in their long term interest and benefit, particularly when it comes to public information services.
 
Soldato
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I have a similar experience, I use the service every day in one form or another and consider it tremendous value. The news service is world class and impartial and that's really important to me. I haven't bought a physical newspaper for many years; I go between the BBC news app and Guardian app which I also pay the subscription for (£5.99 per month, again great value). You only need to look at the likes of Piers Morgan on the ITV show in the morning and you can see why the BBC structure is absolutely essential. Radio 2 is a daily staple for me, too.

Of course, that's just the media output. All the little cheerleaders here can't see past that, which is why they make ridiculous comparisons with media companies like Netflix that charge almost as much for a tiny fraction of the content/service you get from the BBC. It's laughable. The latest foam at the mouth event has been prompted by the suggestion that they might bundle a charge into the broadband fees - which kind of makes sense to me, I wouldn't be against that in principle. If media rivals can run their business via a broadband network that the licence fee contributes to build and maintain, then why shouldn't the BBC get some pay back?
Just because you are gullible and think the BBC is impartial doesn't make it so. The BBC is an outdated system for old fashioned people that doesn't offer anything of much value. While it was once impartial it stopped being that years ago. BBC's content is both tiny and inferior to the better alternatives.

We are not little cheerleaders making ridiculous comparisons. You are just old fashioned and do not get the modern superior ways the rest of us get to our content. Which is fine, you are free to use your choice of content but do not expect the rest of us to be happy about anything that trys and forces us into paying for something we do not use.

Which is why we are so against being forced into paying for something as antiquated as the BBC.

EDIT: The BBC didn't pay for the broadband network I use so why should they get my money when I do not use any of there systems what so ever? The BBC can run there systems on rival broadband networks that the BBC did not pay a penny towards. So why should the BBC then get further money off those networks?
 
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Soldato
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You don't need to use the service and if you choose not to, it would mean you currently don't need to pay for it. I'm not sure why people get so irate about something like this, I suppose it's just another symptom of this strange new world we seem to live in.
We get irate about it as those of us that do not use the service get treated like criminals by the BBC and some people on here try and make it out like we are wrong and guiltily, when we are not.
 
Soldato
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Just because you are gullible and think the BBC is impartial doesn't make it so

That's just a statement with nothing to back it up. The BBC is impartial to a fault, with a robust complaints process, The BBC charter etc. Commercial media organisations don't operate a fraction of the checks and safeguards that the BBC do because they are different. That's the point.

Just making bland petulant statements saying "The BBC is a biased organisation" offers nothing. It means nothing without something that many people now dismiss as an inconvenience... Actual evidence. Facts. The truth.
 
Soldato
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Whereas super-cool, trendy fashion and technology leaders such as yourself get your incredibly valuable entertainment and "impartial" information from where exactly
For me Prime and Netflix offer vastly superior entertainment both in quantity, quality and superior ways to watch. As for impartial news I never found a perfect source so I use multiple sources and cross reference to make my own judgment. Like a lot of people, I found BBC has massively slipped compared to what they used to be. Even the director general of BBC agrees in 2019 saying in reference to being impartial “weakened in recent years”

Various reports over the years mention BBC is more bias and less impartial then they used to be. One report from Ofcom in 2018 listed BBC as worse than ITV, Sky News and even CNN. That is how much BBC has slipped.


That's just a statement with nothing to back it up. The BBC is impartial to a fault, with a robust complaints process, The BBC charter etc. Commercial media organisations don't operate a fraction of the checks and safeguards that the BBC do because they are different. That's the point.

Just making bland petulant statements saying "The BBC is a biased organisation" offers nothing. It means nothing without something that many people now dismiss as an inconvenience... Actual evidence. Facts. The truth.
You are living in the past and it’s not just a statement as there is plenty of evidence to back it up. 20+ years ago BBC was impartial. Today they are hardly any different from CNN, ITV, channel 4 or Sky News. Since 2005 and onwards there have been lots of reports from lots of different places critiquing BBC bias and lack of being impartial. Below is just a tiny handful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Fake_news_and_deliberate_misrepresentation

How about all those fake news articles and deliberate misrepresentations? the old BBC would never have done this. Not simple mistakes either, entire award-winning investigative journalism reports that turn out to be entirely fake and made up by the BB but reported as real. One-sided documentary's are other thing you wouldn't have had in the old BBC but get now.

There is plenty more evidence, BBC even ran their own inquire in 2005 where BBC admitted there own failings in impartiality and promoted an institutional pro-EU bias. More recently Ofcom report in 2018 https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/116529/news-consumption-2018.pdf page 91 and page 95. Shows how far they have fallen just compare how they are viewed to CNN, ITV , channel 4 or Sky News.

To quote BBC own annual report 2019 (you can get the annual report from there website)

“As the data in this report demonstrates, we need to do more to show that the BBC is effective in providing impartial news and current affairs that can help audiences make sense of events.”
There own report said only 48% of people see BBC as impartial and 52% think BBC are not impartial. These numbers have been getting worse year on year.

There has been a clear and steady decline in the BBC over the past 15+ years. Back in the past I would have agreed with you. But not now with them pushing out fake news articles, one-sided documentary's, bias news and pushing agendas they are not what they used to be. If you are watching the BBC and think they are still as high quality as the 80's or 90's or very early 2000's your are fooling yourself. BBC is no longer special its just another channel like Sky News, channel 4/5/ITV.


" Commercial media organisations don't operate a fraction of the checks and safeguards that the BBC do because they are different. That's the point."
Now who is making a statement with nothing to back it up. BBC used to be different but around about 2005 something started to go wrong and they had been on a steady decline. I see no evidence BBC of today are any better or have better checks and safeguards. BBC is no longer any different from the other channels that is the point.

If we are talking about BBC of old then yes I agree. But I do not see how you can view today's BBC as anything special. Which is why I am so against everyone being forced to pay for them as they are not worth it. There is nothing standout worth while about the BBC anymore.
 
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