Free TV licence for over 75’s.....Petition.

Petition: Continue to fund free TV licences for the over 75 in the future.

 

I have mixed views on this.

On the license fee at all. I don't see the value that BBC brings for the license fee. Commercial TV has a greater hunger as they need to appeal in order to survive. I'll step down from that soap box.

On free license for over 75's. Means testing should be considered. There are a lot of people over 75 who are more than comfortably off and paying the license fee would cause them no hardship.
Even as I type this I am conflicted as I fell foul of having savings when made redundant in 2008, meaning minimal financial assistance from a system that I'd paid into for almost 30 years.

 

Hi,

Bron mentioned this having seen it on TV; if it is adopted isn't the money taken from the OAP's many whom have grafted for a lifetime paying their dues to be handed out to druggies and alcoholics many of these a blight on society never having done an honest day's work in their lives?

It's not just that we're ripped off having to pay a TV licence in the first place but the whole system is now outdated and needs bringing up to match modern society? I can think of lots better ways for the government to save money than picking on OAP's.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Ooh I love the bbc! I happily pay the tv licence as I love the programmes and absolutely hate adverts with a passion. I thought the tv licence was still going to be free to OAPs who are in receipt of pension credit (so I guess that is a bit like means testing in the sense that it is free for those without significant funds?).

Not sure I agree with the money being handed out to druggies and alcoholics...I think it's more a case of the greedy tax evading/avoiding "elite" not contributing to the system that all of us joe bloggs types in society pay for. Get the big corporations to pay their tax...and the only way to do that is to get rid of the Tories.

Anyway....I'll get off my soapbox (I do try hard not to get on it very often...honest).

 

That makes sense. Then hopefully use the money saved where it is really needed​

 

I always said instead of buying a new licence, I'd send the BBC a "repeat" of my last year's TV licence, they give us so many.

The BBC management is abysmal. It's always the same with any organisation that doesn't have to "earn" the cash, "just find more ways of spending and wasting some of it.

An early example of which I'm aware, was Desert Island Discs. Hosted by Roy Plumley, (he with the Thames-side big office).

To be selected for that programme was an honour, a lot of people in the entertainment business would jump at the chance to be on it, as it had good ratings and could boost a career, or revive a flagging one.

In an interview Frankie Howerd, he related that Roy Plomley invited him to be on it. Did he invite him to his plush office for a discussion over tea and biscuits?

No, Plumley took him to dinner at the Ivy.

"We paid!"

Anyway, the over 75s should get free TV licences, they've had to put up with so many crap programmes and repeats, the longest!

 

Well I know BBC Gardeners World dont have a fancy budget...when they were here they only had about £7 a head for their lunch!

 

I am disappointed as I am just coming up to that age and I have a standing joke with my brother in law that”you will soon be eligible for free TV licence”.
So although I can afford it ,I do take it a bit personal...........

 

Hi,

£7 a head for lunch Snorky85; I remember when I worked for £3 per week at The Red Lion Garage in Ossett as an improver? Still I'm a dinosaur that the government keep attacking saying I'm living too long.

I hope this thread doesn't turn too political.

Typical of our government wasn't it to let people like Marconi invent radio then step in and create a nice little earner for themselves?

Kind regards, Colin.

 

How much, or should I say how smaller amount of money must you have in order to claim Pension credit?
I know most of these kind of things dont allow you to actually have enough to get incinerated, in order to claim.

The BBC is bloated with overpaid "celebrities" that need a good sort out.

And they spent millions building the new studios in Salford, I thought that would mean the old ones in London would be shut down, but as far as I know they still have that one as well.

The Biased Broadcasting Company needs a real good shake up and made to work for their money, maybe then they would be a bit more careful how they spend it.

The licence should be abolished for everyone.

 

That must have been decades ago, so I don't think what happened then is necessarily relevant to today. Anyway probably got a discount from the Ivy in return for the onair mention.
The over 75 TV licence issue has risen because the Government wanted to cut costs (Austerity) and didn't want to take the blame for the change. So they transferred the problem of the free licences to the BBC with as little funding as they could get away with, the BBC are then faced with cutting the over 75 free licences or significant cuts to services and even more repeats; either way they will get a kicking.
It was a similar exercise with the World Service which was transferred to the BBC from the Foreign Office with minimal funding, followed by complaints when services were cut and lost. Sorry nothing to do with the FO blame Auntie.
These days they should scrap the licence altogether and go with a pay per view system.

 

Your tv will work perfectly well without a licence

 

That's what we have, we all pay but quite a lot of us don't view

They couldn't compete, they have it made, and my personal thoughts are they have too many channels of rubbish all happening at the same time anyway.
And let's not even mention radio.

 

The facts are that Frankie Howerd was interviewed about his career (on another channel) a decade after Plomley took him to the Ivy, he just happened to mention it and I picked up on it. "Probably got a discount?" More likely charged more, it's the BBC, "they've plenty of money."

I think it entirely relevant. It's typical of an organation which hasn't an idea how to make or save money, just in "diverse" ways of spending it.

The BBC have layers of management with job descriptions unknown in the channels that have to make a profit.

Every year they talk about cutting staff but the numbers continue to grow.

They've still got three channels. Take away the repeats and they'd have a hard job filling two.

You've channel controllers competing with each other for viewers. What's the sense of all three putting on what they consider to be their most "watchable" programme, at 9.00pm? Why not stagger them?

They should be competing with the opposition not each other.

What about the £1,000,000 they spent building a studio on top of a hotel in South Africa for the World Cup, because "it gave viewers a good view of Table Mountain behind the presenters." They said it would be re-used. It never has been.
All the people they send to big sports events in foreign countries? Always more than any other UK broadcaster.

It needs professional management, with a good track record, it has never had that, not just employing people from the "right" universities, "jobs for the boys," plus a sprinkling of those with distinctive regional accents to be able to claim "diversity."

It's decades ago, but one DG appointed, confessed to not owning a TV set when he was given the job. I don't think many that followed had either, we get so many rubbish programmes.