TV Licence Super Thread

[Pottsey]

People are already choosing to pay or not even if they use it. The licence fee is unenforceable without some assistance from payment dodgers.

They broadcast to anyone who can pick up the signals and expect payment through honesty!

If it became a subscription service it would be a funny subscription service if all the content was still freely available and it wouldn't be much of a national broadcaster if its content got paywalled either.

That's the point its outdated and doesn't need to be a free national broadcaster. Its out of touch with how many people live today. Keep the radio free but funded by advertisements and usual methods. Then make iPlayer and BBC channels not freely available only if you have a subscription. Or make BBC freely available but funded like ITV is or both. Subscribe to have no adverts, free with adverts.

 

[Jono8]

That's the point its outdated and doesn't need to be a free national broadcaster. Its out of touch with how many people live today. Keep the radio free but funded by advertisements and usual methods. Then make iPlayer and BBC channels not freely available only if you have a subscription. Or make BBC freely available but funded like ITV is or both. Subscribe to have no adverts, free with adverts.

This. The BBC needs to get with the times (and should have done long ago). Broadcast TV over the air/to aerials WILL go the way of the dodo. The internet/on demand streaming will completely replace it.

If i was them, id be putting in a subscription based model for the BBC channels....about 5-10 years go.

Unless you watch live sports or really want the BBC channels...why would you pay £175 a year

 

[Hotwired]

That's the point its outdated and doesn't need to be a free national broadcaster. Its out of touch with how many people live today. Keep the radio free but funded by advertisements and usual methods. Then make iPlayer and BBC channels not freely available only if you have a subscription. Or make BBC freely available but funded like ITV is or both. Subscribe to have no adverts, free with adverts.

I didn't say anything about a free national broadcaster I said stuff the bill for running it into a proper tax, the part which is outdated is to have an honesty system for raising the operating money.

There's enough advert ridden and sponsor pandering media outlets in the world.

 

[Jono8]

I didn't say anything about a free national broadcaster I said stuff the bill for running it into a proper tax, the part which is outdated is to have an honesty system for raising the operating money.

There's enough advert ridden and sponsor pandering media outlets in the world.

I don't see why anyone should be compelled to contribute to or pay for something they don't want when it comes to media/news/entertainment

I'm all for tax/money towards essential public services, but making it mandatory to contribute towards Gary Linekar's and Zoe Ball's (etc)~£1 million a year salaries is NOT essential and not something i want to be forced into contributing towards. Ever. There is just nothing on BBC TV or Radio that i want to watch or listen to. The fact that they are able to use the free to air broadcasting excuse to make people pay £175 if they dare to watch something live from another provider is ridiculous.

The BBC needed to get with the times a long time ago. The exodus of license payers will only increase as everyone moves to solely on demand streaming from other providers.

 

[413x]

It doesn't belong as a regular tax as its not a critical service. Adding it to tax is worse then the bad system we have right now. They should just turn it into a proper subscription and let people choose if they want it or not.

It would be council tax I imagine.
And it would be horrendous.

Right now if you don't like you can cancel so they can't just raise it to 200 as streaming becomes more tempting.

Once it goes into a tax you can bet it will go up regularly, and there won't be a thing can do.

Imagine youre in a high band and you don't have a TV licence.

You can bet the cost would be 200-300 a year as you'll have to pay for the lower banded as it'll probably be means tested or something.



Personally I just don't see how any government can let the BBC fail.
Best bet for me is continuing of the TV licence, let it go extinct naturally.. Or it has to cope with the rest of the competition.

I don't know if any government would have the balls to let it go to a Netflix model as it would collapse fairly quickly.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Ultimately going to subscription-only can't happen quickly because turning off broadcast TV would cause absolute uproar. The new IP TV features that launched this year have had tons of people complaining that they "have to buy a new TV" to access it. And that's for people who have a working TV but want to go without an aerial. There are, literally, millions of homes dependent on broadcast TV who would go black overnight. It will take a decade to switch to IP which is how subscription-only would be delivered.

The license fee is very expensive for what it is though. If it's just a basic license you need to watch normal telly, it ought to be cheaper, and if it's BBC only (which is not the case) then it again ought to be much cheaper. Charging the same as a full fat Netflix subscription definitely casts it in the light of "an entertainment service you can opt in to and choose to spend that cash elsewhere based on perceived value to your uses". It doesn't pitch it as "an essential service that should be available in every home".

I pay my license because I use lots of BBC and live TV services but at the price point, it honestly does get compared to other pricy subscriptions when looking at the monthly bank balance. It shouldn't.

 

[Hotwired]

I don't see why anyone should be compelled to contribute to or pay for something they don't want when it comes to media/news/entertainment

I'm all for tax/money towards essential public services, but making it mandatory to contribute towards Gary Linekar's and Zoe Ball's (etc)~£1 million a year salaries is NOT essential and not something i want to be forced into contributing towards. Ever. There is just nothing on BBC TV or Radio that i want to watch or listen to. The fact that they are able to use the free to air broadcasting excuse to make people pay £175 if they dare to watch something live from another provider is ridiculous.

The BBC needed to get with the times a long time ago. The exodus of license payers will only increase as everyone moves to solely on demand streaming from other providers.

Who's making you pay right now

The enforcement of getting payment from people using the service is weak and mocked.

 

[Jono8]

Who's making you pay right now

The enforcement of getting payment from people using the service is weak and mocked.

I just think its wrong to make it illegal to watch something live from another provider (that you pay for), just because you aren't paying the BBC £175 a year.

 

[Rimsy]

I kind of just want to write to them and say: "lol, no I don't watch live TV anymore and neither will anyone else, other than sports fans in 10 years time. Maybe change your business model to a sports subscription, before it is too late".

There is literally no point in broadcast TV (other than watching live sports), anymore unless you have no internet (which likely won't be a thing eventually).

Why would you NOT want to just watch things as and when you please

Sport. News. Live stuff ?

There is obviously a point in broadcast TV but it's appeal has shrunk Vs 10 years ago

 

[413x]

BBC is simply too big a beast to switch to subscription. Can you imagine the amount of people who would ditch if it was as easy as Netflix?

The loss in revenue would be instant. How would they pay the pension? How would they drop services quickly enough?
They know it, the government know it.


If that's ruled out.. Just keep it as is. The decline in TV licences is gradual with current model. It allows the BBC to downscale overtime. It's predictable too.

 

[Kelt]

I kind of just want to write to them and say: "lol, no I don't watch live TV anymore and neither will anyone else, other than sports fans in 10 years time. Maybe change your business model to a sports subscription, before it is too late".

There is literally no point in broadcast TV (other than watching live sports), anymore unless you have no internet (which likely won't be a thing eventually).

Why would you NOT want to just watch things as and when you please

Exactly.

Things have changed from when I was a wee lad and used to run home as fast as my little fat legs would carry me from.school, so I didn't miss an episode of Four Feather Falls or Stingray.

And then have to wait an eternity from the initial BaZinng! when turning the rented b/w TV on, for the little white light to fade, and then spend another eternity to tune the picture in with the delicate touch of an expert safecracker, until finally, Fireball XL5 would explode onto the screen!

 

[Jono8]

Sport. News. Live stuff ?

There is obviously a point in broadcast TV but it's appeal has shrunk Vs 10 years ago

I did say except live sports.

However the BBC sold/lost a lot of the rights to all that (F1 for example).

News....I guess. But I've never watched a live news broadcast on TV for years, and years. It's very easy to get the news from the net/just read it.

 

[Nasher]

£175 for what they provide is a joke, you can have prime and Netflix for that. The BBC isn't even in the same league as them. The only content left on BBC really is news and shows which are cheap to produce.

It goes up every other year, but the quality goes down.

 

[413x]

£175 for what they provide is a joke, you can have prime and Netflix for that. The BBC isn't even in the same league as them. The only content left on BBC really is news and shows which are cheap to produce.

It goes up every other year, but the quality goes down.

I'd say news (real reporting) is expensive.

And costs have to go up as BBC is hit by both inflation and declining "customers".

Its a double whammy.

 

[Rimsy]

I did say except live sports.

However the BBC sold/lost a lot of the rights to all that (F1 for example).

News....I guess. But I've never watched a live news broadcast on TV for years, and years. It's very easy to get the news from the net/just read it.

Yeah ok but that's you. Saying there's no point in broadcast TV because you don't see the point in it is a bit ... Um...
I cancelled my TV license too for what it's worth but it's clearly still worthwhile to a huge percentage of the country.

 

[Jono8]

Yeah ok but that's you. Saying there's no point in broadcast TV because you don't see the point in it is a bit ... Um...
I cancelled my TV license too for what it's worth but it's clearly still worthwhile to a huge percentage of the country.

But sports and news can just be streamed via the internet anyway. If you want to watch sports, just pay for it.

This mandatory £175 if you watch anything live, even if it is streamed from another company you are paying separately is silly.

I know there is no easy solution for the BBC right now, but i dont see why that is my problem.

the directors gets over £500k a year, so surely these high flying directors should have had the big brains to figure all this out by now...

 

[Rimsy]

But sports and news can just be streamed via the internet anyway. If you want to watch sports, just pay for it.

This mandatory £175 if you watch anything live, even if it is streamed from another company you are paying separately is silly.

News streamed live from the internet means it's likely being a live terrestrial broadcast too no? Are there online only news outlets that actually have reporters and camera crews which don't charge a subscription? Bloomberg most definitely isn't free!

 

[Jono8]

News streamed live from the internet means it's likely being a live terrestrial broadcast too no? Are there online only news outlets that actually have reporters and camera crews which don't charge a subscription? Bloomberg most definitely isn't free!

I didnt say it had to be free

 

[Rimsy]

I didnt say it had to be free

Fair enough... Misunderstood your angle.

 

[visibleman]

Roll it into national Tax is the easiest. We already pay for services that we don't directly use, so what's an extra few quid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But sports and news can just be streamed via the internet anyway.

Until every home has the internet and adequate bandwidth to support streamed media, traditional broadcast TV will continue.