TV licensing harassment!

[Gordon - Commercial Finance]

No, of course not! But it's their rampant profligacy that galls me!

Channel 4 also commissions programmes and movies and puts out 10 TV channels and is moving to Leeds and cutting staff from 3,000 to 2,000. It too is a public service broadcaster but costs the taxpayer nothing.

Yeah my kids wouldn’t let profligacy get in the way of a good bit of TV.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Channel 4 also commissions programmes and movies and puts out 10 TV channels and is moving to Leeds and cutting staff from 3,000 to 2,000. It too is a public service broadcaster but costs the taxpayer nothing.

It does cost nothing in money, but you do have to endure the pain of watching a hell of a lot of ads.

Personally I pay the (modest) subscription to Amazon and Netflix and enjoy ad-free TV.

 

[paulears]

BBC are publicly funded and don't rely on advertising for their main funding - pretty well that is the difference to the competitors. As it's public money they cannot bid properly and advertising funded TV wins every time. A large proportion of BBV full time staff are working for their selling arm - their back catalogue is huge and still generates considerable income. Dad's Army is still making decent money for them since the 70s.

The sad thing is that the BBC just don't have the funding to be pioneers any longer, and their R+D and training is a shadow of it's former self. Worse still is that TV centre is now home to their once competition. Broadcaster is now an outdated term really, they're just a production company, sourcing their output from any source that is cost effective. Their Children's TV is very popular, but the vast majority is from independent producers, who don't all base their operations here, but in Ireland and other cost effective locations world wide. We're capping their attractiveness for the talent who work for them by slashing what they can pay, and without the expensive people in front of and behind the camera, they find it very hard to compete. Maybe we should change the funding method and let them be truly commercial and then maybe the crazy things they do might morph into the systems the others use. My TV work is a smaller part of my overall business now, but NONE of it is now for the BBC, which is a shame. Selling off their complete outside broadcast department and then hiring outside companies using the ex-BBC OB vehicles seems a very strange thing to do. BBC East, where I live, and BBC NI both dawdled in their returning of OB vehicles, and missed the sell-off, and the NI truck goes all over as it's very cost effective, and BBC east now service others with radios vehicles. The World Service has gone downhill, and the BBC seem to be giving up.

 

[BustersDogs]

I am also being harassed since I cancelled my tv licence (private home) about a year ago. I filled in their stupid form which for some reason I can order online but not fill in or send online. I had constant letters after that complaining I'd cancelled my direct debit. Finally they stopped, only to have more letters start on the anniversary of the licence renewal. I told them once, they emailed nicely to apologise, then any mail after that I report for spam and nuisance and harassment. I shouldn't need to have to put up with all the shit they send to me. They are accusing me of lying basically.

I don't watch ANY TELLY. It's all shite. I have netflix which my son pays for as I wouldn't even pay for that myself. My relaxation time that used to be spent watching telly is now spent on the playstation or arguing the toss with total strangers on social media. I shouldn't have to keep reassuring them I do not watch tv. No other service provider that I've left constantly contacts me to shout at me that I should be paying for the services they no longer provide.

Driving me mental.

 

[paulears]

Keep the chain of evidence and have an amusing day in court? Have you ever tried to get off data bases or lists? It's simply impossible. I get over 100 spam/unwanted emails every single day, and while I used to get cross, now it's just pointless. You have no ability to communicate or get yourself off lists like this. The noreply signifies automation, so even if you phone them up, the real people have no ability to even know which database is probably sending the reminders out - too many copies being used by too many departments and they probably don't even record who gets the mails anyway. I use specific email addresses and a catch all for when I need to sign up, and the fact that I get mail addressed to uswitch@ from flower arranging companies in France suggests mailing lists are uncontrollable. TV licensing I suspect doesn't even come directly from the BBC, but from somebody working on their behalf, who is anonymous.

Don't let it wind you up, and if they stupidly do try to take you to court, then nominate a court near you which means they're unlikely to turn up, and even if they do, you'll win with your evidence.