BBC Licence Fee

Opinion on the BBC licence fee ?

 

Scrap it, cut out all those long winded adverts for forthcoming programmes and fund it by putting on adverts that make money.

 

Make it subscription-based and it will hopefully die off in a few years. Impartial my foot!

Nick

 

Gotta say I dont think the BBC should be a pay for view, its the official broadcaster of the country, so should be free to everyone in the UK.

 

I got rid of my television 14 years ago having got fed up with viewing rubbish and paying for it.

 

It does seem very unfair to pay for a service you don't want or need. I wouldn't like to see BBC disappear but I disagree how its funded. I watch a few programs gardeners world - David Attenborough programs but Netflix have started to do them now - Top gear a bit of the news ( I prefer sky news ) and Wimbledon which will probably go to another broadcaster soon , I wouldn't pay £159+ though to watch them total rip off.

 

The problem is that it has ceased to serve the function that the "official broadcaster of the country" should in recent years, Pete. It pains me to say that I want it gone, but it is now politically and culturally biased to too great an extent, and the British public deserve better. Until a few years ago, they were a paragon of what such a service should be: covering science, history and the arts in a way that the man on the street could easily understand, exposing us to people of other races, religions and cultures in their documentaries and helping us to understand their circumstances and lives. That's what a state broadcaster should be primarily for IMO. Look at Michael Palin's phenomenal travel programmes, Pole to Pole, 80 Days, Full Circle, I see nothing that even comes close to matching their brilliance from the BBC nowadays.

Nick

 

The BBC is an odious organisation that tries to intimidate and frighten people into paying for a service they may not wish to use anymore.

Threatening letters and goons being sent to your door to intimidate/threaten you.

An organisation that likes to take the moral high ground when questioning MP's, foreign leaders etc etc whilst bullying the British people old and young.

An organisation that puts out poor quality programming that mainly consists of repeats, poor quality quizs, biased news, "talent" shows, and cooking programmes.

And when the going gets tough they drag poor old Sir David Attenborough out to voice over another nature programme.
A great man indeed but he is being used by the Bbc to cover up their dismal output.

So make it a subscription service. If you like it thats great and you should pay for it.
If you dont want to view any of its content dont watch it and feel fine about not paying for it.

 

Firstly I don't have a television and will not be using Skye, Disney, Netflix etc. On the other hand I am a radio addict; Radio 4 from waking to sleeping with occasional excursions to Radios 3, 5 and 5X. World Service in the dark.
Personally I would be quite happy to see the BBC reduced to these stations and the internet and would pay for their continuation.
The questions that need answering are:
1) Do we want this country to have a Public Broadcasting Service?
2) What "services" do we want be provided by this service?
3) How is this "service funded?
There are a number of possible funding options:
1) License as at the moment.
2) Household Levy
3) General Taxation
4) Subscription; either to the overall PBS provider or to the particular services you want.
5) Pay per view or listen.
6) Levy on other broadcasters.
7) Some combination of two or more of the above; perhaps Government pays for World Service and subscription for the rest or.
To address the content "issue"; remember good programmes tend to cost more than bad to produce and repeats are cheap; write the Charter carefully, give teeth to the regulator.
I am always amused that the left complain the BBC is biased, the right state it is biased, the rich complain about it as do the poor.
Government of all colours always complain about the BBC, particularly when called to account.

 

I guess that is what is here. We have an extra Euro on our monthly electricity bills for Audio/Visual and there are four channels.

Edit: T'other Half looked it up, it is 3 Euros not the one he told me earlier!

 

All I can say is if you make it a subscription service you would really need to change the name, because I think the name tells you what it is ,or should be.
Basically you would be scrapping the BBC and forming a new company.

Perhaps we should just keep the radio services, paid for from general taxation, and the TV side should then go its own way and fund itself however it feels fit.

 

I think if a country has a public broadcasting service and its public pay for a TV licence, all programmes that contain educational content should be archived somewhere and available to everyone in the UK to watch. I was looking for a series called Art Deco Icons recently and ended up paying Amazon £6 to buy it!

Nick