The BBC tax

[KM-Tiger]

My understanding is that if you choose to never watch broadcast television, instead using iPlayer and other internet services, then you do not need a licence.

Given that the BBC has given up on political impartiality, I very tempted to not renew the licence when it comes up in July. What I do watch on television is often via iPlayer anyway.

I gather that one must expect extreme harassment from the people employed to enforce the licence, and there is the risk of a criminal record if things turn really nasty.

Has anyone done this?

 

[MASSEY]

You can revoke implied rights of access so that the capita salesman cannot come round to your property and harass you.

I've never blocked them myself because i don't mind telling them to jog on

If they do harass you you can complain and even seek compensation.

To my understanding from what i've read and heard, where it gets nasty is when people open the door to the capita people, let them in, get caught with a TV or other digital equipment and they then proceed to give them their name and even sign a bit of paper. They get read their rights etc. In reality, you don't have to let them in and if you do you can tell them to leave and they must.

I find it all very odd considering when you use the iplayer you can click a tab and view live tv instantly. I think they basically scare people into paying because if they say you can use the iplayer and don't need a license then having a tv is no different to having a laptop with the internet where you can visit the bbc website and watch recorded shows and live shows.

If you don't communicate with them there is nothing that they can do to you which just shows one of the many ways in which it is farcical.

I'm not paying kiddy fiddlers wages.

 

[cjd]

You don't need a licence if you don't watch live, broadcast TV.

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ103

You don't get harassed too much either these days - it was the case once that the only way to watch TV was with an aerial and everyone was assumed to watch TV so they just badgered people without one. Too many without TVs now, with too many good reasons. You will get letters and possibly a visit.

It's also a myth that you get prison sentences for not having a TV licence. You get warned lots of times, then you get fined in court. If you fail to pay the fine, THEN you MIGHT get jail.

Also, they're changing the law to make not having a licence a civil, rather than criminal offence; which it always should have been.

 

[Nuno]

200,000 people a year prosecuted is not too much? That's about 10% of all magistrates court cases on one type of offence. And 50 people did get jail, not for having no licence but for non payment of fines imposed for not having a licence.
And all those cases were whipped through the courts so they didn't take nearly 10% of the court's time, only 0.3% of court time. Such are the niceties of the BBC's defenders when trying to justify a burden largely put on the poorer sections of society.
Figures for year 2012-2013, source: The Guardian.

There is an argument to be had on funding, to include whether the remit includes stiffing local news, the size of the beast and why some stations like radios 1 and 2 are PSB. There are some wonderful parts, I'm addicted to R4, but change is called for and not just changing to being a civil offence, (which has a lower burden of proof anyway; can't beat Auntie).

 

[Cobby]

Given that the BBC has given up on political impartiality,

That's not really a given at all, and of all the problems with the BBCehemoth it's always funny that ukippers open with this.

 

[ADNattan]

Given that the BBC has given up on political impartiality

Given that supporters of every single party claim that the BBC is out to smear/undermine/ridicule them, isn't that actually a sign of impartiality?

 

[Nuno]

http://biasedbbc.org/quotes-of-shame/

 

[MASSEY]

That's not really a given at all, and of all the problems with the BBCehemoth it's always funny that ukippers open with this.

Don't be racist.

 

[paulears]

I love these posts - I always have to laugh how on this forum people get solid advice on lots of subjects and legal advice from the experts and very often the best advice is just that despite the unfairness, Income Tax, VAT, business rates, corporation tax, stamp duty ect etc have to be paid even though we don't like them, yet something like TV license fees and using photos from the internet always seem to be examples where people make a stand and complain endlessly about how unfair they are and how they are not going to pay. Nobody campaigns to drive at 30mph past a school at 10am, because the kids are in school, so the 20mph limit is crazy. Why is it so OK to break the law on some things and not others, because you don't agree with the law?

 

[KM-Tiger]

Why is it so OK to break the law on some things and not others, because you don't agree with the law?

Who has suggested breaking the law?

 

[paulears]

Well, I suspect that using the law to prevent people coming inside your house to discover that you do indeed have a TV counts in my book. The wording of the bit of legislation still includes 'having in your possession' and 'equipment capable of' - it's never been necessary to catch you using it, although over the years, this has been the most simple to process in court.

If you genuinely do not watch anything other than the media you can download, then I have no problem at all - but most people try to wangle!

 

[MikeJ]

Fascinating people like to watch iplayer, but don't want to pay for people to make the shows.

 

[cjd]

"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
‘Til it's gone"

 

[paulears]

totally agree - its also like people who move away from the UK, and arrange to get their sky cards delivered to a UK address, and then posted out to places where Sky do not own the rights to show programmes? My kids watch football on weird websites that redirect legal tv to illegal destinations. Let's be honest, most people who object to the license fee many more times that amount to sky and Virgin. The poor old BBC get hammered. Music, movies, DVDs, software and lots of other stuff simply is not considered 'bad' to get illegally. People seem to have very variable morals nowadays, and go to extraordinary lengths to beat the system. A friend of mine is in a very popular international touring band and on their Facebook fan page, somebody posted links to every track on their new album. He tried to explain that this was his living, and while they liked fans, these fans were threatening their ability to record the next album, as all the loyal fans didn't pay for the last one! Nobody seemed to understand, and he got loads of abuse. The world is mad.

 

[MASSEY]

It's a tax on the poor. People on a low income should not have to pay for the bbc just as they should not have to pay any income tax.

They should hold a referendum on it alongside the EU one

 

[paulears]

What do you consider poor? If you can afford a big flat screen TV, let alone a Sky subscription, then you are not poor. 20 packets of fags a year, 30 pints of beer!

I'm amazed business people, who work for their livings cannot see this - and as for paying income tax? I think those that work should simply have their standard of living paid for by the people who do pay tax - oh, silly me! They already do.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Fascinating people like to watch iplayer, but don't want to pay for people to make the shows.

There is no method ATM to charge or pay for iPlayer viewing. Personally I'd be quite willing to pay a reasonable charge to view certain programmes.

I'm inclined to think that the whole system of financing the BBC is no longer fit for purpose in the 21st Century where viewing is not just by broadcast.

Arguably we should be taxed for the public service part of the BBC's output, but that tax should relate in some way to a person's ability to pay. As said, the licence fee is expensive for poor people and negligible for the rich. Much fairer if it was graduated like income tax.

As for the rest, some sort of subscription model would seem appropriate.

 

[MikeJ]

How does £3 per week sound? Pretty cheap in my opinion.

 

[paulears]

Yep that's my point too. We bang on about the poor, but what people really seem cross about in the principle of something you have to pay for even if you don't watch it, or at least say you don't!

 

[cjd]

Looking at Sky TV prices just for fun - £21.50 pm for the cheapest package, £75.75 for the movies and sports deal. cf £12.13 pm for BBC.

Anyone care to guess what Sky would do if the BBC was no longer a competitor?

 

[Nuno]

Paying for Sky is a choice.
Paying for the BBC is not.

 

[Ian J]

Surely in this high tech age someone could invent a device that blocks the signal to anyone not paying their licence fee

 

[sirearl]

Arguably we should be taxed for the public service part of the BBC's output, but that tax should relate in some way to a person's ability to pay. As said, the licence fee is expensive for poor people and negligible for the rich. Much fairer if it was graduated like income tax.

.

Never going to happen Churchill and co have never been big on fairness.

 

[KM-Tiger]

... Churchill and co ...

Earl, you voted him out in 1945.

Do keep up ...

 

[Cobby]

There is no method ATM to charge or pay for iPlayer viewing. Personally I'd be quite willing to pay a reasonable charge to view certain programmes.

I'm inclined to think that the whole system of financing the BBC is no longer fit for purpose in the 21st Century where viewing is not just by broadcast.

Arguably we should be taxed for the public service part of the BBC's output, but that tax should relate in some way to a person's ability to pay. As said, the licence fee is expensive for poor people and negligible for the rich. Much fairer if it was graduated like income tax.

As for the rest, some sort of subscription model would seem appropriate.

That all sounds mostly reasonable.

The protection around the licence-fee was corrupted when the government started dipping into it to pay for parts of the digital switchover, so the precedent has been set and something needs to change.

 

[sirearl]

Earl, you voted him out in 1945.

Do keep up ...

Yup unfortunately Britain is still controlled by the same fascist elitist moral morons as ever.

 

[ADNattan]

Oh, I'm sure they'd drop their prices just out of sheer kindness.

 

[cjd]

Paying for Sky is a choice.
Paying for the BBC is not.

And when there is no BBC?

 

[Nuno]

And when there is no BBC?

How do you reach that particular scenario?
Changing the way the licence fee is calculated and gathered will mean death to the BBC?
Personally I think that a touch dramatic.

 

[cjd]

You're right, I haven't factored into the calculation that the changes to the way the BBC was charged for would increase its income. And I'm guessing that SKY hasn't either otherwise it wouldn't have been lobbying for the abolition of the fee for the last 15 years

 

[Nuno]

You're right, I haven't factored into the calculation that the changes to the way the BBC was charged for would increase its income. And I'm guessing that SKY hasn't either otherwise it wouldn't have been lobbying for the abolition of the fee for the last 15 years

Vapourpost.

 

[paulears]

The point is the BBC have a public service remit. If they were funded commercially, then much of their output would be scrapped. World service on the radio straight away. Many wouldn't care, but the government do have a measure of control over the output, and nobody would bother with things like election programmes which are dull but important. Without the BBC the commercial channels would all need to compete even more. Eurovision would no longer have their technical support and we wouldn't get an automatic opt out of being chucked out in the early stages. Was I supposed to be arguing for the BBC?

Sure, we have to pay for something we don't want sometimes, so it does seem unfair, but until the law changes, we have to put up with it.

 

[pbeard18]

Don't you have to pay your TV license regardless though? It's not like a Netflix account where you choose to renew it or not. It's still law at the moment isn't it?

 

[Nuno]

There is a midpoint isn't there? Keeping a Public Service Broadcaster but without as many services as the BBC has now, for a fee paid through general taxation.
I'm not sure now, but I thought that the World Service was funded by the Foreign Office and not by the licence fee.
This means that the BBC stays alive and liberal heads don't explode as Sky/Murdoch fail to take over the world.

 

[sirearl]

As 25 million view sky TV let alone all the other commercial providers.

I suspect unless you are into cooking,reality TV.buying,selling renovating houses or the other 1001 freak show TV provided by the BBC .

I suspect they are well past there sell by date and should be confined to the scrap heap.

Be interested to hear of any programs made by them that people think are of worth.

Lew Grade on aunty.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/m...-says-former-chairman-lord-grade-9122370.html

 

[MikeJ]

Two best programmes I've seen recently are W1A and Peter Kay's Car Share.

Marvelous deserved the Baftas it won. As did The Detectorists.

Maybe you're happier with Ant and Dec or The X Factor, but those of us with more than one brain cell like the BBC.

 

[Cobby]

Two best programmes I've seen recently are W1A and Peter Kay's Car Share.

Marvelous deserved the Baftas it won. As did The Detectorists.

Maybe you're happier with Ant and Dec or The X Factor, but those of us with more than one brain cell like the BBC.

Counterpoint: The Voice (BBC's attempt at x-factor), Top Gear, and pretty much all of BBC Three

 

[MikeJ]

The BBC does what some other broadcasters do.

Nobody does some of the things the BBC does. High quality documentaries, quality comedy. Some of the stuff it does is quite risky and you don't know what will work and what won't. Commercial broadcasters can't take that risk, they always have to go with what will sell advertising.

Not sure why you mentioned Top Gear. It's obvious in hindsight but if you'd pitched the idea of three blokes mucking around in cars to most channels, they'd not have made it. BBC took the risk, and it paid them dividends.

 

[Cobby]

The BBC does what some other broadcasters do.

Nobody does some of the things the BBC does. High quality documentaries, quality comedy. Some of the stuff it does is quite risky and you don't know what will work and what won't. Commercial broadcasters can't take that risk, they always have to go with what will sell advertising.

Not sure why you mentioned Top Gear. It's obvious in hindsight but if you'd pitched the idea of three blokes mucking around in cars to most channels, they'd not have made it. BBC took the risk, and it paid them dividends.

I'm just playing devil's advocate a bit because you were talking about 'dumb' shows.