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TV Licence Super Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ken
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Diddums said:
It's GB News. Without clicking on that link I can already tell you it'll be "according to sources" or "an insider can reveal" or some other unsubstantiated tosh which will be revealed to be Dave Smith, Unemployed, at Wetherspoons".
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I have seen the story from actual news outlets,it is basically legit. It is a suggestion in a report that the government has from a think-tank that was looking into solutions. So it is one of the possible suggestions but far from something that is actually going to happen.
 
do_ron_ron said:
The best thing about the BBC is there are no adverts every 12 mins as there is on other channels.
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I have never ever watched a live broadcast on TV (except football and 6pm News) for decades.
Everything me and Mrs Fox watch is recorded and I have a FF button set to 4 mins which 99% of the time is advert time.
Most Thursdays is when I will see adverts when we go to our In Laws for a Takeaway, they will sit there all day watching adverts.
Because we can a lot of stuff gets recorded that we or Mrs Fox may not watch.

And just to prove I'm not lying (yes we do watch a lot of Crime)

1_0_19_22ED_80D_2_11A0000_0_0_0_20260924103408.webp
 
RetiredGreyFox said:
I have never ever watched a live broadcast on TV (except football and 6pm News) for decades.
Everything me and Mrs Fox watch is recorded and I have a FF button set to 4 mins which 99% of the time is advert time.
Most Thursdays is when I will see adverts when we go to our In Laws for a Takeaway, they will sit there all day watching adverts.
Because we can a lot of stuff gets recorded that we or Mrs Fox may not watch.
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I am the same, haven't watched live TV in over 25 years since I first got TiVo, these days everything gets recorded to my Plex server. However, it seems like Freeview will not be with us much longer, so ad-skipping is likely to become a thing of the past as none of the replacements seem to offer recording, just streaming, which usually seems even worse for ads than broadcast TV. So the BBC being ad-free becomes even more valuable at that point (there's also the issue of BBC ads taking significant revenue away from other channels).

In regards to ads at the in-laws, on Plex at least I can stream my recordings to my parents\GFs after installing the app there, maybe you could do something similar!
 
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darkgen said:
Perhaps not. There are likely more households with broadband than pay the current license fee. Presumably that calculation has been done.
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I wonder how it would even work though - there are plenty of people just using 4G for internet without a broadband connection, and people who have multiple lines for various reasons, etc. it seems either completely unworkable as an idea and/or just circles back to basically having to reimplement the current implementation anyhow.
 
There was a consultation that they did from December 2025 to March 2026. Advertising was one of the options that was asked. I wonder what the results are.
 
Tavis75 said:
it seems like Freeview will not be with us much longer
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I use Freesat and hopefully I've got another 5 years.
By that time someone will have a Freely Box that can record up to 8 channels at a time like our VU+ does :)

Tavis75 said:
In regards to ads at the in-laws, on Plex at least I can stream my recordings to my parents\GFs after installing the app there, maybe you could do something similar!
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No chance, they have the most mundane viewing ever.
We normally sit through repeats of Place In The Sun or some Home Improvement episodes that even I've seen 4 times.
Our saving grace is that Dragons Den will be on at 8pm and soon The Traitors will be on so if we're there for 4 hours we'll get one hour of something new :)
 
Rroff said:
I wonder how it would even work though - there are plenty of people just using 4G for internet without a broadband connection, and people who have multiple lines for various reasons, etc. it seems either completely unworkable as an idea and/or just circles back to basically having to reimplement the current implementation anyhow.
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Quite. I agree it is a bonkers idea but was just offering an explanation why costs per household might be cheaper than the current license fee annual cost.
 
RetiredGreyFox said:
However you already pay for the maintenance of that road through your Council Tax and other taxes.

Anyway, I think it's a ragebait post and it won't happen but I do have an idea which I can't believe nobody has ever done before.

How about the BBC have 4x 4min adverts every hour where companies etc advertise their products, the companies pay money to do this and we as the consumer don't pay a penny.
I'm taking this idea to Dragons Den.
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You think it won't happen?

Do you guys really think (genuine question) the government would let the BBC die?

I just don't think any political party will.

And if that's the case, the BBC will fail if it isn't moved to general tax.


I'm surprised so many people don't think this will happen.
 
Armageus said:
subsidise everyone's favourite porn sites?
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If its in your manifesto you'll probably win.

RetiredGreyFox said:
However you already pay for the maintenance of that road through your Council Tax and other taxes.
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Isn't that the point? Taxes cover many things people dont directly use or benefit from. Whatever the pros/cons of the broadband ideas, this notion that taxes should only fund thing the individual uses is nonsense.
 
200sols said:
If its in your manifesto you'll probably win.


Isn't that the point? Taxes cover many things people dont directly use or benefit from. Whatever the pros/cons of the broadband ideas, this notion that taxes should only fund thing the individual uses is nonsense.
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There are needed things and not needed things. The BBC isn't needed any more than any other broadcaster or streaming service is.

Maybe they should put it out to tender and other companies can bid for the role the BBC fills, whatever that still is. Without being tax payer funded anymore.
 
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Tavis75 said:
I can't imagine any company bidding for that, as it is unlikely to be profitable.
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Then it's clearly obsolete technology. It doesn't help that the BBC doesn't actually make anything worth watching. Even BBC radio is terrible now.

If everyone ends up being forced to pay them. They will then start being measured heavily on viewing figures and value for money. Which is going to look awful and this won't improve that.
 
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Nasher said:
There are needed things and not needed things. The BBC isn't needed any more than any other broadcaster or streaming service is.
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In your opinion. Having a national broadcaster has many positives and provides content for a wider audience, not just those that a profitable.
 
200sols said:
In your opinion. Having a national broadcaster has many positives and provides content for a wider audience, not just those that a profitable.
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Its all bland as hell and badly written. They haven't made anything good for at least 20 years.

They were famed for comedy for a long time, but that's all gone. Can't risk offending anyone.
 
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