BBC to go ahead with over-75s licence fee changes

[marshbrewer]

Where does it go?

A good chunk of it goes to millionaires like Gary Linekar so he can snear at the people who have paid his wages all of his life, and tell us how we should live our lives. Praise be!

 

[Satellitemark]

If they went to a subscription service they would have to scramble to ensure subscription payment, that would render every TV useless without a additional decoder, every Freeview youview and Freesat viewing device and recorder totally useless and redundant.

Going subscription without scrambling would be suicide, as no one would pay if they didn't have to, why would they ?

We have to look for a realistic solutions and that ain't one of them.

The current setup spreads the burden as thinly as possible.
I can't see any other viable way to fund, it's for the benefit of all and is paid for by all, after all you may not use your local library but you can't refuse to pay your council tax, you may not think the police service give good value but again you can't refuse to pay your council tax.


Mark

 

[Chippy_Tea]

To be honest i would say 90% of the TV we watch is the BBC.
Its funny how most of us moan about the TV licence not being good value for money yet i imagine most of us choose to run cars that cost far more in road fund licence per year and the car sits outside our houses most of the night and spends most of the day in the works car park!

 

[DavidHatton]

It's easy to mismanaged, when you have a protected and constant revenue, alot of folk are opting out of the licence and taking their chances with the licencing goons "as they call them generally online" there are ways that you can negate the licence fee, as so many seem to be posting online.
I still have a DD for the fee, I think it's natural to push back sometimes when an organisation is flexing it's muscle in such a arrogant and impersonal fashion.

 

[marshbrewer]

they went to a subscription service they would have to scramble to ensure subscription payment, that would render every TV useless without a additional decoder, every Freeview youview and Freesat viewing device and recorder totally useless and redundant.

Untrue. The cast majority of digital TVs have a slot for a CI card; Smart TVs and devices can have an encrypted app, so the switch would be a tiny, tiny, endeavour compared to the completely successful switch from analogue to digital. So, no, it isn't an unrealistic and there have been numerous studies about how to do it.

Your council tax argument is a straw man argument; taxes are levied by the state who are under democratic control. If you are arguing that the BBC is a state propaganda chanel then you are correct, it shouldn't be a subscription service, it should be immediately shut down, but I suspect you aren't arguing that.

it's for the benefit of all

As I have said, it doesn't benefit me, or many others as we regard it as offensive garbage. Sorry!

 

[trueblue]

Our local BBC radio station is crap I don't know the sort of listener figures they get but any station with poor figures should be shut along with 6 music. Do we need BBC2 and BBC4, merge into one station. Do we need radio 4 and 5 live, merge into one station. Do we need a rolling news channel running through the night? Give the free licence only to the old folk that can't afford it. I personally don't like the idea of a means test as it could cost more to administer than is saved but there must be some way under the current system where those in need can be identified.

 

[BeerCat]

I thought i had heard they had scrapped plans to do this?

 

[Satellitemark]

Untrue. The cast majority of digital TVs have a slot for a CI card; Smart TVs and devices can have an encrypted app, so the switch would be a tiny, tiny, endeavour compared to the completely successful switch from analogue to digital. So, no, it isn't an unrealistic and there have been numerous studies about how to do it.

Your council tax argument is a straw man argument; taxes are levied by the state who are under democratic control. If you are arguing that the BBC is a state propaganda chanel then you are correct, it shouldn't be a subscription service, it should be immediately shut down, but I suspect you aren't arguing that.



As I have said, it doesn't benefit me, or many others as we regard it as offensive garbage. Sorry!

Sorry it's not untrue, less than 10% of TV's have conditional interfaces and those are pan European models as they have no use in the UK , take a look at my user name and guess what I do for a living !
If I was only in it for me like some are I would support your point of view as it would give me years of work, but I'm not I'm thinking of the good of all not just myself when I say we need the BBC , I'm not into sport, but I have no problem with sport on the bbc as there are many who enjoy it.
This is a service for everyone and everyone has a right to be served .

I get you don't like the bbc and don't want to pay, the license fee is like a tax and not many like paying taxes , but taxes pay for services that benefit society not just the individual.

Mark

 

[marshbrewer]

less than 10% of TV's have conditional interfaces

......plus smart TV's, anyone with a HDMI device like an Amazon stick, etc etc. Piece of cake. The BBC already have the technology via the iPlayer. Your 'years of work' would probably involve selling a few £10 to the trade Digi boxes with card slots to a few old folk for six months.

I get you don't like the bbc and don't want to pay, the license fee is like a tax

I know, but unlike taxes that provide natural monopoly services ( or universal healthcare, roads, national defense), the BBC is just a player in an open market that would still exist. So in effect, it's a TV service that *some* people (i.e. you) like that *everyone* has to pay for, or else.

 

[Satellitemark]

Don't think we will agree on this, so I'm going to leave it there.
I think the BBC is worth the cost , you don't, no point in going any further, like political discussion if two people have entrenched views theres little chance of one convincing the other and I'd rather not waste my or the forum memberships time.

Mark

 

[marshbrewer]

I think the BBC is worth the cost , you don't,

If only there was a way of resolving that conundrum...

 

[Drunkula]

For me where it all started to look dodgy was when all the VHS and DVD sales started - it's like you're selling stuff for a profit that license payers have paid for - should there now be a license fee reduction? Then huge, huge sales overseas. Eventually digital channels with adverts that are all BBC shows... and the fee never goes down.

That's my problem. The business model is so sketchy. And I know loads of BBC employees who love it, but doing the same job at ITV gets you so much more money an so eventually they give up the false romance of it and move on.

If you're not a major figure the BBC pay for production isn't that great. You'd be surprised even what regular front-of camera can get. A show that's on 36 weeks a year 5 days a week the "stars" get around 11 grand.

For standard production the BBC act like it's a privilege for you to work for them and so pay accordingly. There's very much this pseudo internship where some will climb but it's based on so much suck-arse socialising and if you're just not up for being a joy-monkey after 16 hour days then you'll just go home for this thing called sleep and eventually give up.

Making contacts, breaking off and making your own production company, hiring people you know and selling back the the BBC is how it's done. Is that mercenary? Not if the organisation doesn't give back enough in the first place. There really is this idea of work here for a while for nothing, then go off and make something we'll actually pay you for.

It feels dirty. 'Aunty Beeb' doesn't feel right any more. She's missing a few teeth and hiding baggies and charred spoons.

 

[chthon]

How much does the Beeb pay for sports? My take on things (here from a Belgian point of view, where the TV tax has been revoked since ? at least 20 years) is that if the sports organisers want to be on TV, they should set up a sports TV channel themselves. With the amount of money that is being spilled on soccer, they could surely do that for all the sports, and so the public broadcast services could save money from that.

 

[Satellitemark]

F1 have done exactly that, in countries where they are not committed to a existing deal they have a app which has their massive archive and they stream live races etc for around £7 per month, in countries where they are committed to a existing deal (UK sky) the app is cheaper but no live races.

Mark

 

[Clint Eastwood]

If the BBC stopped paying so much money abroad trying to interfere with legitimate governments & create uprising around the world maybe the licence would be cheaper. Check out the so called charity "BBC action trust" for example. They openly brag about being involved in the "Arab Spring" & the Ukraine. The BBC are an arm of the government who have total revenues of about £5 billion. The other competitors have a mere fraction of this money to spend. You may not get a tycoons opinion of the news but you get the government of the the days views with a constant theme of globalism being good for you & the government better not attempt to move from that or else.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Another annoyance is when a news story breaks they send a crew to report From the scene even if they are not allowed anywhere near it (terrorist attack or a stabbing) also when a factory is closing they send a crew to ask workers leaving their views on it I think we all know that answer we don't need a crew to travel many miles to ask them.

 

[The Cat]

Just let them start using advertising breaks - every other channel does it so it would soon be forgotten.

Self funding might also improve the content which is pretty dire at the moment.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I wouldn't mind advertising I record everything we watch (which isn't much) so I can skip through adverts.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

It really annoys me how some people's opinion becomes fact and how people pick up a little information and then fill in the gaps with heresay or supposition.

Do you know just how much you get with a TV licence?

-Seven national TV stations plus one each for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

-Ten national radio stations (plus Radio 4 longwave for all you cricket and Shipping Forcast fans).

-Seven stations for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

-One national radio station for children.

-Forty local radio stations

-A massive internet presence

-World Service radio and television broadcasting across the world, giving a British view on world events.

Now tell me that's not good value.

The licence fee is not a tax. You only have to pay if you wish to use the relevant equipment.

No-one wants to see over-75s pay for a licence, but if you feel that strongly, instead of knocking the BBC, try asking the government why they felt it appropriate to stop funding free licences. While you're at it, you could also ask them what they've done with the part of your taxes which used to pay for free licences.

I saw a comment about the BBC's archive making millions at zero cost. That's a fair point, but some tine ago I worked in the industry and can tell you that's not the case. What about the rent, rates and services for the buildings that house the material? The database required to run the archive? The cost of the people to input the data? To pull the tapes? To despatch them? The cost of transferring everything to a new format of tape once something becomes obsolete? Archives are slowly being digitised, but there's a cost attached to it.

Who do you think is going to pick up religious and other minority programming that the BBC does so well? Sky? ITV? Good luck with that.

Think celebrity presenters on the BBC are overpaid? They're paid market rates. Imagine the howls of displeasure if the BBC had none.

The BBC is far from perfect, but that's no reason to get rid of it. No government likes The BBC.

The BBC is the envy of the world and contributes immeasurably to the cultural wellbeing of the country. Please don't let the government kill it. Once it's gone, it'll be gone forever and you won't see any benefit from it's demise. All you'll be left with is £157.50

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

I think the BBC is better as a concept than in practice. The main problem I have is that the commercial rights to their programmes are seperate to the rest of the BBC. So all the money they get from selling planet earth etc to other countries and Brit box subscriptions are separate. Surely this income could pay for the blind and over 65 nevermind 75. Where does it go?

It's reinvested to keep the licence fee down.