Government defeated over TV licence fee decriminalisation

Kronos

Kronos

Kronos

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31151821

Yet again the wholly unelected body of has been politicians, wrongly rewarded sycophants, and all the other pointless people have decided to vote against a perfectly reasonable law change albeit narrowly. I have long beleived that we should not have to pay for the BBC which has become top heavy with well paid fat cats and who treat the BBC as an old boys club who ignore scandle after scandle.

I watch very little on the BBC in a week, in fact little more than a couple of hours. Their television news coverage is woefully inadequate these days with very limited coverage of certain parts of tye world with South America being right up there. But if some celebrity stubs their toe in America then expect wall to wall coverage.

It seems fixated on cookery programs and anything to do with houses. I feel they, like the rest of the channels treat the viewers with contempt finding ever more words that actually mean repeat.

If we have to pay for the BBC then make it a subscription service rather than the current system which is little more than a tax.
 
I would love to hear mps reason for deciding to go against it.

is it in the publics best interest or your parties best interest to stay in favour with the bbc?

bunch of rich *****s out for themselfs couldn't give a crap about the public only big business much like the police force has became.

apparently icelands economy recovered almost instantly after they let the banks go under and arrested all the nob heads
:D
 
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Kronos said:
Was not the MP's mate but the Lords who voted out this bill.
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oh right would that be the unelected old farts we don't really need that are mostly out of touch with reality the ones who have that tax payer subsidised restaurant they are trying to keep exclusive to them because they think if they shared it with everyone who works there the quality of food will go down?

still waiting for the bbc to take me to court.

it will be good if they ever stop threatening like they did for the last 2 years and finally do it

assuming every citizen still watches live tv in this era is ridiculous.
I think theres maybe 3-4 docus a year on the iplayer website I watch everything else is carp

It would be cheaper for me to buy the blurays than to buy a license lol.

and for the record I do not own a TV about the only tv series I watch are all american ones I watch online on demand
 
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In this instance it looks like the reason the Lords have given for not voting for it is fairly sensible, the have voted to not make any changes before the next time the Licence fee/funding levels for the BBC are sorted out, which means that if they do decide to decimalise it they can actually take that into account during the negotiations.

Which is the sensible option as the government has already effectively cut the TVL by both holding it without taking into account inflation for several years, imposing the costs of the BBC World Service (a Foreign Office scheme that used to be paid for by a grant to the BBC) directly onto the TVL, and syphoning off money to pay for Broadband schemes.

As decriminalising the TVL could affect the income it makes sense to do it as part of the larger negotiations when the effects can be factored in to what the BBC is expected to do.

It's also worth noting that some of the logic used in the debates about decriminalising the TVL in parliament were utter nonsense, the biggest example was the number of TVL cases and the impact on the courts, where it was loudly and repeatedly stated that they make up some silly percentage of all court cases.
what wasn't mentioned from memory was that the actual impact on the courts was tiny, apparently until a few years ago all court cases used to be given a ratio based on the number seen and the time take, the TVL case ratio was tiny as the courts can/do run through dozens or hundreds in the time it takes them to do even simple things like speeding cases.

I sometimes wonder if we should follow France or Irelands example with the TVL, if the government decides that we need a national broadcaster paid for via a specific tax, it should either be collected as part of other taxes (council tax for example), or you need to sign a "SORN" type document to declare legally that you don't watch TV.
The current approach is very much a silly compromise that seems intended to allow the government to avoid getting the blame for an unpopular tax/fee, whilst also avoiding the almost certainly unpopular possibility of disbanding the BBC, or putting it behind a subscript and having a lot of very unhappy people complaining about things like the loss of local radio or their favourite TV programmes.
 
Who else is gunna back up these slimey politicians when the crud hits the fan? - The BBC is the governments mouthpiece. No way will they let it go.
 
arknor said:
oh right would that be the unelected old farts we don't really need that are mostly out of touch with reality the ones who have that tax payer subsidised restaurant they are trying to keep exclusive to them because they think if they shared it with everyone who works there the quality of food will go down?

still waiting for the bbc to take me to court.

it will be good if they ever stop threatening like they did for the last 2 years and finally do it

assuming every citizen still watches live tv in this era is ridiculous.
I think theres maybe 3-4 docus a year on the iplayer website I watch everything else is carp

It would be cheaper for me to buy the blurays than to buy a license lol.

and for the record I do not own a TV about the only tv series I watch are all american ones I watch online on demand
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So what's your problem? If you don't watch live TV don't pay for a TV licence...
 
The TVL is like any other tax - snidey and misused :)

The BBC is an ancient and unneeded organisation, and I do not feel that I should have to pay for a TVL simply for having a TV, or to fund the BBC (or whatever else the government decide to spend it on). I would happily sign a SORN type form to say I don't watch the BBC though :)

I could get on board with most of the taxes I pay if they were not wasted on top heavy organisations and jobs for the boys. Local councils are now complaining hard about all the cuts they are getting - it's about time. They have been a den of money wasting untouchables for far too long and need cutting down to a proper size. But, alas, it isnt really happening because the jobs for the boys attitude is still prevalent. All they are doing is cutting back services they could still provide if they had 2 less managers per department. But I suppose that would insert a level of akwardness in the club house down at the golf course wouldn't it? So they set about sacking the little people who actually often do a very good job and start giving the tax payer less services for more council tax etc etc rinse and repeat.

If the private sector operated with anything like the levels of inefficiency, waste and incompetence that the public sector often exhibits we would have no economy, no success and far more poverty.

I am not anti taxation, I believe it is a total necessity. What I am, though, is anti BS, and unfortunately the government and local authorities have shown time and time again how our taxes are wasted on their incompetent and needlessly inefficient BS.

A complete overhaul from top to bottom is what is needed, but it will not ever happen because essentially the politicians place more importance on themselves than they do the people they are elected to represent and they are in the perfect position to manipulate the system for their own ends. The entire system is corrupt.
 
zoomee said:
Who else is gunna back up these slimey politicians when the crud hits the fan? - The BBC is the governments mouthpiece. No way will they let it go.
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Shhhh don't tell anyone, but pretty much every government in the last 30+ years has hated the BBC's reporting a lot of the time ;) (IIRC several ministers have actually threatened the BBC over it pointing out failings in Government policy repeatedly).
 
Werewolf said:
Shhhh don't tell anyone, but pretty much every government in the last 30+ years has hated the BBC's reporting a lot of the time ;) (IIRC several ministers have actually threatened the BBC over it pointing out failings in Government policy repeatedly).
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yeah but the other parties who haven't been in power at the time have loved them for 30+ years for pointing out the governments failings and givin g them airtime to say how it should have been done with full hindsight.
 
The BBC makes some great programmes, it should be funded somehow.
It's probably just as valid as an educational tool as some lessons in school.

(and nobody complains at how all our schools are now overrun with PC leftie feminazis)
 
Kronos said:
Yet again the wholly unelected body of has been politicians, wrongly rewarded sycophants, and all the other pointless people have decided to vote against a perfectly reasonable law change albeit narrowly.
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An unelected second house makes perfect sense, because it ensures the peers don't need to respond to populist sentiments.
 
Moses said:
They make different things to satisfy different parts of their audience? Hold the front page! :eek:
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I don't see how reality TV fulfils their mandate as a pubic service broadcaster. Save that **** for ITV.

The BBC became obsessed with ratings a long time ago. It's like a commercial channel that we all have to pay for.

Only 20% of its output is any good.
 
bitslice said:
The BBC makes some great programmes, it should be funded somehow.
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But very few of them almost half of all content on BBC2 (49.8%) was repeats in 2011, while they made up 32.5% of programmes on BBC1. The average number of repeats was however bumped up by digital channels BBC3 and BBC4 – which had schedules comprising 84.2% and 78.8% repeats respectively.

When was the last time you saw a 'blockbuster' film on the BBC? The news on its news channel is woefully inadequate amounting in a any hour less than twenty minute of news. The rest is filled with headlines 2-3 times, what is coming up later in the program at least once, weather twice. The travel show (news?) Click. which news on technology which in my view should be on mainstream TV as we do not seem to have 'Tech' program yet we all have loads of it. And world coverage is pretty limited to conflict zones and anything that happens in the US.

The BBC has spread itself far too thinly and coupled with the great salaries to the top heavy management and the even better redundancy payments to recent leavers the BBC does not have the cash to spend on decent programs preferring to fill the schedules with gardening, cooking, house and antique shows/programs.



It has spread itself far to thinly in particular
 
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