BBC iPlayer Catch-up to Require TV License... closing in

  • Thread starter Thread starter LiE
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At least I'll feel like I'm getting 1 hour of entertainment, maybe once a week, for my TV licence then :rolleyes:

£12 a month for an hour or so of entertainment every week. Mmmm, so fair.

Why do they need to tackle ad-blocking?
 
What are their options for this? Make it a subscription service? Get money through advertising? Force ISPs to hand over personal information of customers that access their service and then send the same dreadful letters they already send out to terrestrial broadcast bandits?
 
It will surely get to the point where it's just mandatory, since you can watch catch up on everything. Currently you don't need a license if you don't have a way to watch live TV which they simply classify as having a aerial or dish hooked up to the TV. But if they include catch up, well that's going to be way to broad to define.
 
What I don't understand is : (taken from the TV license site)

Do I need a TV Licence if I only ever watch on demand or catch-up TV online?
No you don’t. If you only ever watch on demand services or catch-up TV and don’t watch or record live TV, you don’t need a licence. On demand includes catch-up TV, streaming or downloading programmes after they’ve been shown on live TV, or programmes available online before being shown on live TV.
Services that provide on demand or catch-up include: BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Channel 4 All 4, Sky Go, Virgin Media, BT Vision, Apple TV, Now TV, YouTube, Roku and Amazon Instant Video.
Remember, if you watch any live TV through these services, you need to be covered by a TV Licence.
Live TV means any programme you watch or record at the same time as it’s being shown on TV or an online TV service.


So I can in theory have virgin media TV, and only use the demand service from it and the netflix channel and I do not need a license?
 
Seems utterly nuts to me - they have finally taken to increasing usability and monetisation with the bbc media store though.

I know this won't please everyone but I don't know why they don't leave SD streams free to access and lock HD behind either an account authorised off the TV license or pay per view as an alternative i.e. a common sense middle ground.
 
tom_e said:
What a waste of time that's even more unenforceable than the TV licence is now.
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Can be enforced with TV licences assigned to user accounts (and then accounts can be actively monitored for sharing, similar to other subscription services).

As for my view, i'm not a huge fan of the BBC edging towards a subscription based model but i'm less of a fan of adverts disrupting viewing and the current model of viewers paying for others to 'sponge' content isn't sustainable.
So i'm generally for it; it's only seems fair that those who don't want to actively pay for BBC services (which in the current state of licenses is fine) to be restricted in some form or way.

Only downside is that it'll push those viewers to pirating content but then i guess those viewers aren't paying for services/programming as it stands anyway.
 
Zefan said:
What are their options for this? Make it a subscription service? Get money through advertising? Force ISPs to hand over personal information of customers that access their service and then send the same dreadful letters they already send out to terrestrial broadcast bandits?
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Probably just an online account linked to licences.
 
Ace Modder said:
What I don't understand is : (taken from the TV license site)


So I can in theory have virgin media TV, and only use the demand service from it and the netflix channel and I do not need a license?
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That's always been the case since god was a lad, if you only ever watched pre-recorded programmes or only used the TV for DVDs/gaming then you never needed a licence.

It was just a myth that "if you owned a TV then you HAD to have a licence" you've never needed one for anything other than watching live broadcasts.
 
I can't understand how we still have the license fee. It's a legalised tax to fund the BBC, why should you have to pay it if you don't watch the BBC.
 
visibleman said:
Can be enforced with TV licences assigned to user accounts (and then accounts can be actively monitored for sharing, similar to other subscription services).
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So long as there is no limit to the number of users per TV licence, say a shared house with 5-10 people in it, the majority of whom will not share a name.

I can also see lots of students using their parents license while at uni etc which in my view is perfectly acceptable.
 
Mariusz said:
I can't understand how we still have the license fee. It's a legalised tax to fund the BBC, why should you have to pay it if you don't watch the BBC.
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It is officially a tax, and we have it die to the government setting the BBC charter. To maintain some control of useful to the public programming that isn't commercially successful. News and education programs. Then the remaining they have to make sure they produce x-amount of new content created in uk not just imported etc.

So that is why we have a tax.
 
LiE said:
It will surely get to the point where it's just mandatory, since you can watch catch up on everything. Currently you don't need a license if you don't have a way to watch live TV which they simply classify as having a aerial or dish hooked up to the TV. But if they include catch up, well that's going to be way to broad to define.
Click to expand...

May as well scrap the TV license and fund the BBC directly through taxation then. It would make more sense.

visibleman said:
Can be enforced with TV licences assigned to user accounts (and then accounts can be actively monitored for sharing, similar to other subscription services).

As for my view, i'm not a huge fan of the BBC edging towards a subscription based model but i'm less of a fan of adverts disrupting viewing and the current model of viewers paying for others to 'sponge' content isn't sustainable.
So i'm generally for it; it's only seems fair that those who don't want to actively pay for BBC services (which in the current state of licenses is fine) to be restricted in some form or way.

Only downside is that it'll push those viewers to pirating content but then i guess those viewers aren't paying for services/programming as it stands anyway.
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This is probably what they will do, but I'm not sure how they will control sharing. Currently you can use your home TV licence to cover you anywhere if using a portable device, so short of banning people that have hundreds of concurrent streams I'm not sure how the BBC would work out if you had shared your licence with a friend.

I'd hope if the BBC did that then they would introduce a two tier licence system. A full licence (current price) for access to live broadcasts and a reduce price Online licence, for those that would only want to stream catchup content.
 
LiE said:
It will surely get to the point where it's just mandatory, since you can watch catch up on everything. Currently you don't need a license if you don't have a way to watch live TV which they simply classify as having a aerial or dish hooked up to the TV. But if they include catch up, well that's going to be way to broad to define.
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This isn't true, you can have what ever you want hooked up. Courts might just not belive you.
The offense is watching or recording live broadcast, nothing in it about equipment etc.
 
Glaucus said:
This isn't true, you can have what ever you want hooked up. Courts might just not belive you.
The offense is watching or recording live broadcast, nothing in it about equipment etc.
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Spot on. TV licence bods can ask to come in and look to check you don't have the aerial or box connected to the TV, but they have no power of entry, you can refuse.
 
Telecaster said:
Spot on. TV licence bods can ask to come in and look to check you don't have the aerial or box connected to the TV, but they have no power of entry, you can refuse.
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...and even then, you can have the aerial hooked up for the radio stations!

I think it's about time they made this change to include iPlayer. However, longer term, I do feel we either need to:
a) Have the license fee included as part of council tax
b) Scrapped, and the BBC funded out of general taxation

Keeping it as a separate fee just won't be sustainable longer term.
 
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