TV Licence Super Thread

[Psycho Sonny]

Sorry, OT again



It amazes me when people think the licence fee is bad value but a Sky subscription is good value.

The cheapest Sky TV package is £20 a month. So £240 for a year vs. £145.50.

Looking at the list of channels, for that money you get the Sky channels (Atlantic, 1, 2, News, Arts, Living) and not a great deal else (Real Lives, Comedy Central, Syfy, Fox, MTV, Gold...).

Seems like bad value to me and I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan!

What would you watch if they took all the freeview channels out? Do you only watch Sky channels, movies, and sports?

£12 a month - Plus I'm not saying take freeview channels out just BBC ones.

I get Sky Q Silver - all the channels (not the basic package) minus sports and cinema.

Plus I get it in 2 rooms not 1 for £12 a month

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18742787

Surely you would rather pay the BBC than the pernicious Murdoch tax? Why anyone pays money to Sky is totally beyond me. Programmes for the brain dead basically.

See above. Sky is cheap if you take up new customer deals when your contract runs out.

Year 1 - Sign up in your name then cancel
Year 2 - Sign up in partners name then cancel
Year 3 - Sign up in your name

you get the picture

then make sure you get discount code, money saving expert website gives away thousands every year at certain times. All you need to do is give them your full name and email address.

Make sure you use quidco (cashback up to £150 each time you sign up to sky). Which pays for several months of sky so it's essentially free for those months.

You also get new equipment to keep every time you sign up as a new customer. Which means you can sell your old equipment or new equipment depending on your preference. So every year you sell your boxes for £25 each or whatever. Which means you get more money off the bill.



Basically I'm going to have the full sky top of the range package and pay £154 for the year. I get 4K, multi room, etc, etc.

People who pay sky's normal prices are throwing money away.

When I can't get a good deal. I simply cancel and stick to freesat and await a deal like the above.

 

[Kenai]

I think they've made a misstep here. They've crossed the line from "any live TV, got nothing to do with whether it's BBC content of not" into "actually it's kinda related to whether what you are watching is BBC content".

That's going to drive more people down the "I don't watch BBC" argument and I think start to chip away at it. More people will stop paying and it wouldn't surprise me to see it go to a BBC only fee and then even less will pay before finally the BBC gets ads and the whole thing dies.

Will take a good few years mind.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Although in principle I do agree with you, it would be much harder to police as you can bet a lot of "freeloaders" out there would say "I don't watch the BBC, I just watch other channels." Yet they watch the BBC anyway. A block might work, but it's not in the government's interests to push for that, so they won't.

As a side note, Channel 4 is also part-funded by the TV license (I believe), not that there is a lot on there anyway these days...

To be honest I am glad that those who just watch BBC iPlayer will now have to pay as well. It always annoyed me how I was paying for their content.

I do hope that they do not start extending it to Netflix\Amazon Prime\NOWTV etc however, though it may only be a short period of time before they do.

I don't see how it doesn't apply to them tbh. It applies to everything else why are they so special. This is why it's a farcical tax, they need to get rid of it ASAP. Yeah you have to pay it for this and that but not that, doesn't make any sense.

A block would work. Simply encrypt the channels. With Sky they would say you need to pay an extra £xx a month for BBC channels and if you don't pay that they are blocked on your box.

Channel 4 has ad revenue.

I think they've made a misstep here. They've crossed the line from "any live TV, got nothing to do with whether it's BBC content of not" into "actually it's kinda related to whether what you are watching is BBC content".

That's going to drive more people down the "I don't watch BBC" argument and I think start to chip away at it. More people will stop paying and it wouldn't surprise me to see it go to a BBC only fee and then even less will pay before finally the BBC gets ads and the whole thing dies.

Will take a good few years mind.

Spot on. Why is iPlayer so special, why doesn't it apply to ITV on demand, etc. It should be a BBC only tax and if you don't watch BBC then you shouldn't need to pay it.

 

[muon]

I think they've made a misstep here. They've crossed the line from "any live TV, got nothing to do with whether it's BBC content of not" into "actually it's kinda related to whether what you are watching is BBC content".

That's going to drive more people down the "I don't watch BBC" argument and I think start to chip away at it. More people will stop paying and it wouldn't surprise me to see it go to a BBC only fee and then even less will pay before finally the BBC gets ads and the whole thing dies.

Will take a good few years mind.

Or just have a plan which realises the BBC funding model is doomed to fail in the internet age where live tv is becoming less important.

If it is so important to have state media then fund it from taxation.

 

[Narj]

The BBC have upset quite a lot of people with their perceived lack of impartiality over the last few years. Not to mention the fact that in the past, doing coke off a hooker's norks would have got you fired but fiddling kids was apparently fine and was covered up no questions asked.

No wonder so many are keen to not give them any cash!

 

[Billies Bangers]

£12 a month - Plus I'm not saying take freeview channels out just BBC ones.

I get Sky Q Silver - all the channels (not the basic package) minus sports and cinema.

Plus I get it in 2 rooms not 1 for £12 a month

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18742787



See above. Sky is cheap if you take up new customer deals when your contract runs out.

Year 1 - Sign up in your name then cancel
Year 2 - Sign up in partners name then cancel
Year 3 - Sign up in your name

you get the picture

then make sure you get discount code, money saving expert website gives away thousands every year at certain times. All you need to do is give them your full name and email address.

Make sure you use quidco (cashback up to £150 each time you sign up to sky). Which pays for several months of sky so it's essentially free for those months.

You also get new equipment to keep every time you sign up as a new customer. Which means you can sell your old equipment or new equipment depending on your preference. So every year you sell your boxes for £25 each or whatever. Which means you get more money off the bill.



Basically I'm going to have the full sky top of the range package and pay £154 for the year. I get 4K, multi room, etc, etc.

People who pay sky's normal prices are throwing money away.

When I can't get a good deal. I simply cancel and stick to freesat and await a deal like the above.

I think you have missed my point - Sky is just total dross IMO - very little worth watching. I wouldn't want it even if it was free. We struggle to watch the BBC output as it is there's so much quality programming.

 

[Billies Bangers]

The BBC have upset quite a lot of people with their perceived lack of impartiality over the last few years. Not to mention the fact that in the past, doing coke off a hooker's norks would have got you fired but fiddling kids was apparently fine and was covered up no questions asked.

What relevance has any of the above to watching iPlayer for free pray tell?

 

[Narj]

What relevance has any of the above to watching iPlayer for free pray tell?

It boils down to, "do I want to give them my money for the content I will consume?"

Most will take what they can get for free. If you have to pay for it then you justify it. I quite like some of the iPlayer content but on balance, I think I'll just choose to miss out on principle. I think there are others out there with a similar attitude approaching antipathy towards the BBC at the moment.

 

[Werewolf]

The BBC have upset quite a lot of people with their perceived lack of impartiality over the last few years. Not to mention the fact that in the past, doing coke off a hooker's norks would have got you fired but fiddling kids was apparently fine and was covered up no questions asked.

No wonder so many are keen to not give them any cash!

Perceived lack of bias.

IIRC every time it's actually been looked into there was no lack of bias found, or it was balanced out.

Given we've got people on here who claim that the BBC is being biased because they're not reporting something, and it's regularly shown that they did infact report on it, the perception seems to be far from the truth.

 

[Btone]

Because most people simply are lying. They do watch live TV even if it is infrequently.

in the 10 years I've lived in my current home I've NEVER watched live tv, the only time i do see live tv is when i'm down the pub (which ****es me off as i want a pint and a to chat to my friends not listen to some ******* on tv)

 

[ov_sjo]

I get the monthly letters from TVL with all kinds of threats. I am planning to get a solicitor to send them a letter over harassment. I know someone who got a few hundred quid out of them.

TVL don't know who I am. They just write to The Occupier. One month it's "What to expect in court", the next "We have authorised a visit to your post code", and so on. It's offensive and shouldn't be allowed. Especially pretending to be 'olfficers' and reading out a caution. If they walk anywhere near my front door i'll serve them with a notice that their implied right of access is revoked and then shoot them with a nerf weapon.

I don't watch any live TV, at all, no lies. Hell my multiswitch in the cupboard isn't even patched in. I do watch iPlayer, but nothing live, so doesn't count (unless that's recently changed?!).

 

[Billies Bangers]

It boils down to, "do I want to give them my money for the content I will consume?"

Most will take what they can get for free. If you have to pay for it then you justify it. I quite like some of the iPlayer content but on balance, I think I'll just choose to miss out on principle. I think there are others out there with a similar attitude approaching antipathy towards the BBC at the moment.

So in other words it has nothing to do with anything, but you are like many others, if you can get something for nothing you will, but if you have to pay for it, then no thank you. To try to justify that stance you come up with a total irrelevance.

 

[Billies Bangers]

I get the monthly letters from TVL with all kinds of threats. I am planning to get a solicitor to send them a letter over harassment. I know someone who got a few hundred quid out of them.

TVL don't know who I am. They just write to The Occupier. One month it's "What to expect in court", the next "We have authorised a visit to your post code", and so on. It's offensive and shouldn't be allowed. Especially pretending to be 'olfficers' and reading out a caution. If they walk anywhere near my front door i'll serve them with a notice that their implied right of access is revoked and then shoot them with a nerf weapon.

I don't watch any live TV, at all, no lies. Hell my multiswitch in the cupboard isn't even patched in. I do watch iPlayer, but nothing live, so doesn't count (unless that's recently changed?!).

Good luck with a solicitor - unless he's one off the Internet that claims to be a solicitor. P.S. the fact you watch iPlayer means you will need a TV licence.

 

[pooley]

I get the monthly letters from TVL with all kinds of threats. I am planning to get a solicitor to send them a letter over harassment. I know someone who got a few hundred quid out of them.

TVL don't know who I am. They just write to The Occupier. One month it's "What to expect in court", the next "We have authorised a visit to your post code", and so on. It's offensive and shouldn't be allowed. Especially pretending to be 'olfficers' and reading out a caution. If they walk anywhere near my front door i'll serve them with a notice that their implied right of access is revoked and then shoot them with a nerf weapon.

I don't watch any live TV, at all, no lies. Hell my multiswitch in the cupboard isn't even patched in. I do watch iPlayer, but nothing live, so doesn't count (unless that's recently changed?!).

if the letter is addressed to 'the occupier' just bin them they are not for you!

 

[ov_sjo]

Good luck with a solicitor - unless he's one off the Internet that claims to be a solicitor. P.S. the fact you watch iPlayer means you will need a TV licence.

Can you show me something which confirms your statement about iPlayer?

edit: Just found a reference, doesn't apply until September 1st, so i'll stop watching iPlayer by then. I'm not paying £150/yr for MasterChef, which is about the only thing I watch on it!

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/bbc-iplayer-and-the-tv-licence

 

[Trifid]

if the letter is addressed to 'the occupier' just bin them they are not for you!

Or you can just say I don't need a licence (you don't need to give them your name) and they won't bug you for a couple of years.

 

[Pottsey]

Well I don’t have a TV or a licence but what happens if someone who does have a licence visits my house and watches Iplayer on

A: There own tablet or device
B: My tablet or device?

I blocked BBC and Iplayer on all my PC’s but there doesn’t seem a way to block it for mobiles or tablets.

 

[Pottsey]

Or you can just say I don't need a licence (you don't need to give them your name) and they won't bug you for a couple of years.

Yeah right. Tried that didn't work. Well it did for the first 5 years then for years 6,7 and 8 they didn't want to listen. Sometimes I even get as much as 3 threating letters a month a month and a visit.

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

Surely it will be incumbent upon the BBC and TVL to construct a paywall-type affair.

 

[Narj]

So in other words it has nothing to do with anything, but you are like many others, if you can get something for nothing you will, but if you have to pay for it, then no thank you. To try to justify that stance you come up with a total irrelevance.

Blimey, calm down.

I pay for all my games on Steam and all my music/TV series/films via legitimate outlets or proper streaming services. It's not my fault there's a legal loophole at the moment with iPlayer. By way of the BBC closing it down, I'll no longer be able to access it - completely fair but taking advantage right now doesn't make me some sort of evil person or oblige me to pay the fee.