I’m always up for an argument with regard to defending the BBC – possibly the greatest public service of the 20th centrury. I was invited to join an anti-TV Licence group on Facebook by someone who is clearly miguided and thinks everyone should be as hysterical as them. I was recently annoyed with the iPlayer’s content in a recent post, but that’s just tough love for the BBC.
I decided to educate the other group members of their idiocy:
“You people really seem to be very misguided and hysterical. You’ve clearly been reading mornic news publications.
Your premise appears to be that if you don’t use the BBC, why should you pay? That’s ridiculous, considering that there are upwards of 400,000 members of this group – and not one of them uses the BBC? Rubbish!
I bet all of them rely (even enjoy?) the services of the BBC on a daily basis; I know I do and I think the TV License is one of the last remaining bargains ever!
Just think of all the content the BBC deliver, essentially for a very low price! All the radio stations covering all possible topics and music genres, new product development and innovation (iPlayer), their huge information repository that is their web site, the TV stations (with some gems such as David Attenborough, Top Gear, iconic comedy shows, News 24 etc), podcasts and lots more I’ve left out.
You’re all just being hysterical like the rest of the Daily Mail-reading middle England.
Appreciate what the BBC has done for broadcasting and the media reputation of this country and for your life!
The BBC are even shortly going to be pioneering High Def on-demand streaming with the iPlayer – and I bet most of the 400,000 members will be looking at that, while still moaning about the low price charged for it.
Get it into perspective!!”
Needless to say my posting was met with passionate opposition from them with stories of the BBC’s bullish, draconican fee collection methods, but it was worth a shout to show them the voice of reason.
April 16th, 2009 on 7:41 pm
Technology advances have made the TV licence a unfair tax on computers and mobile phones. Any equipment capable of recieving live TV, even via the internet, needs a license.
With so many other media sources – ie good alternatives, the TV Licence is effectively (artificially) kept alive for all the wrong reasons.
April 16th, 2009 on 8:31 pm
you need to get facts right first. The BBC copied channel 4 which released 4OD on november 2006 while the BBC iplayer was released over a year later in december 2007. not exactly an innovation by bbc is it when they copied channel 4.
April 16th, 2009 on 10:07 pm
Martin you are a complete wanker
April 16th, 2009 on 10:50 pm
Why don’t you use your real name?
Thanks for your lucid input – but why don’t you stop despairing at your lack of cognitive articulation and come back when you have formulated a counter argument?
Martin
April 17th, 2009 on 12:36 am
- Thought I’d drop by and leave a litte support.
Personally I find the endless painfull stream of adverts for price comparison websites and personal injury lawyers almost unbearable. Simply by providing channels without adverts justifies the licence fee as far as I am concerned. Add to this the fact that the BBC continues to provide originial and intelligent programming (compared that is to ITV and channels 4 and 5) shows that it is an institution worthy of our support. And yes – Rick – perhaps the iPlayer was copied from 4 OD, but that doesn’t change the fact that the iPlayer is a well run, useful and widely available resourse; the continued running of which is only made possible by the TVlicence fee. (perfectly resonable at about £11-00 per month) – That said – I think some of the adverts telling people to pay were very poorly put together.
April 17th, 2009 on 7:55 am
then why dont bbc get tv licensing to make there advert about the tv licence alot more clearer to, telling people what they do and dont need a tv licence for
ie:
that you dont need a tv licence to own a tv at all.
(or are the bbc afraid of losing alot more money if people knew what they do and dont need a tv licence for)
April 17th, 2009 on 11:47 am
Thanks Rob, I echo your points well made. I have obviously recently had an influx of comments on the same day – how did you find the site (and the post)? It sounds like it’s been referenced somewhere.
May 4th, 2009 on 10:32 pm
Your website was referenced in a Facebook group (“10 Million for NO TV Licence”), which is how I’ve come to find this blog!
While the fee is quite high, I think it is well worth it. I’m so glad I can watch TV without adverts! It pains me to watch other channels and adverts come on every 10 to 15 minutes. It’s nice to have decent radio stations too that explore all kinds of music.
The iPlayer, too, is excellent. Ok, so 4OD came out first, but it has only just become available for Linux/Mac users! The quality on the iPlayer is far better.
Another advantage of the license fee is that shows cannot be manipulated by their sponsors. Imagine if Top Gear was sponsored by a particular manufacture – they couldn’t exactly slag the car off and then clip to the sponsors message before/after the advert!
I’m sure I read somewhere that the license fee was coming down. The increase in the fee has been used for the digital change over (any one else find that the sound pauses for a few seconds with digital?), in which when the change over is complete, the fee will come down.
The BBC is well known world-wide for quality programming. Going commercial would certainly ruin that.
- Tom
May 26th, 2009 on 3:04 pm
IF the BBC is such good value, then any reasonably financially astute person would welcome paying the BBC license fee?. ! Therefore there is NO reason to legislate that everyone should pay. I for one begrudge every last ‘halfpenny’ extracted from my budget when it is criminally misused by the BBC.
One has to wonder which single person on this ENTIRE planet is worth £18 million per year to appear on TV, but this is the fee the BBC has deemed to misappropriate from public funds for such an individual!.
For that kind of money he should be able to walk on water.
Martin,
I should interested to hear your justification for the expenditure of this not so insignificant sum, bearing in mind that this is NOT an isolated incident.
July 2nd, 2009 on 6:08 pm
If the BBC was actually good value for money then no-one would begrudge paying it and they could simply make the fee voluntary.
I pay for Sky because I want to – why not the same rule for the BBC?
Could it be that they are acutly aware of just how poor the value really is?
July 11th, 2009 on 3:39 pm
I entirely agree with this. Those of us who indeed think the BBC is a good value product should be allowed to pay for it and be happy in our own judgement. The BBC however is a forced payment for every tv watcher, whether they use the services or not. I would agree with the BBC making the payment necessary for those USING their services, however they just force the charge onto every single end-user of any single channel. If a website made every single user of the whole internet pay a fee, they would be shut down, jailed, and would never exist to charge another user… Why is it that the BBC can basically do precisely this, and get away with it? hmm…your opinions?
July 11th, 2009 on 3:53 pm
To put it into a little more detail – The BBC one upon a time, were one of the major channels, the only 4 channels out there were half BBC (BBC1 and BBC2). It was understandable that BBC held power, afterall without them we’d have 2 channels, barely any radio that was decent, etc.
Now, we have hit a new era, a time of hundreds, near thousands of channels… we’re about to hit the digital switchover, making digital TV a requirement. This is an era of FreeView boxes, Sky, Virgin TV, so many different providers charging us for viewing channels on their services.
Every single channel that I am aware of, minus the BBC of course, is included in these packages – They decided to allow advertisements in order to make their services free, included in the overall fee charged by your provider, be it Sky, Virgin, or one of the other multitude.
So why on earth is the BBC still charging an extortion racket fee which isn’t avoidable, even if you DON’T watch their services?
Is there any other channel out there, any other TV company who feels so insecure, as to have to charge an unavoidable fee and threaten with jail sentences and fines if it is not paid? For what, owning a TV? Welcome back to the dark ages, apparently – That is the BBC.
Now picture, what if those who actually WANT to watch the BBC pay a fee, and like packages such as sports, movies, etc, which you need to pay a fee to get, otherwise you get a screen in the channel’s place telling you how to subscribe…the same happens with the BBC for those not paying the fee…Wouldn’t that be so a much wiser idea?
Instead of an extortion, it would actually be ‘pay for what you use’. Then, those of you on this blog who are saying the BBC is awesome, could continue to pay the fee and get these innovations, and advert free TV, whereas those of us who decide we are quite happy with the other several hundred channels could enjoy skipping the fee in order to miss out on the BBC innovations.
This would not only help pensioners who rarely watch the TV, but also those who just don’t want to pay extra money out for a service they just don’t use.
August 18th, 2009 on 11:33 am
MY concerns with the TV license is the same as some of the people who have posted replies on here.
I don’t watch TV it doesn’t interest me at all I’m far to busy doing other things but I do understand that even with the dawn of the digital age of the internet and other forms of electronic entertainment on offer the TV still plays a major role in most households. Personally for me BBC, ITV, Channel 4 & Sky one, the strength of the programs on offer on any of these channels or any other channel is not an issue for me since I don’t watch TV. My TV very occasionally get used for playing my Xbox 360 in my bedroom and not for watching TV.
I live in shared accodomation and there is a TV in the lounge which obviously is a shared area of the house. Annoyingly for me I have to pay towards the cost of a TV license for the use of the TV in the loung.
I don’t use that TV since as I’ve stated I don’t watch TV. The concept of paying for something you don’t use is ludicrous to me and I imagine it is to most people. To put it in to perspective imagine if suddenly there was a legal requirement to have a Xbox 360 license to have one installed in you home regardless if you use or not it you must have a license. This would cause an uproar of complaints and most people would most likely not buy an Xbox 360. Also if this was actually a legal requirment you could argue that my housemates should pay towards the cost of the Xbox 360 license since the license is for the house and not for an individual. Alas this concept does apply to owning and using a TV and there is no opt option.
I’m loath to not contribtue towards the cost of the TV license since it would cause tension in my households so I’m left with no other option other than to pay for my housemates to in effect watch TV. That’s my problem Paying for something I don’t use since its not optional.
August 25th, 2009 on 9:08 am
Wake up. It’s a tax on the public and it’s unecessary. Look at the States, half of Asia and the rest of the places that don’t have such a money making scam. BBC chooses not to advertise and that is their choice, so why do we have to suffer paying for something without a choice. It’s forced upon us just because we have a mobile, a dvd-recorder or a pc and of course a tv even though, the license is for BBC 1, BBC 2 and BBC radio. The license is not a “TV” license. It is a “BBC” license and so UK needs to wake up and move away from the 20th century.