BBC licence fee ‘unenforceable’, says culture secretary
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crrz18882ygo?xtor=AL-71-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_format=link&at_link_type=web_link&at_campaign_type=owned&at_link_id=B162826A-220E-11F0-A4C5-E1BB2CF56EB2&at_link_origin=BBCNews&at_ptr_name=twitter&at_bbc_team=editorial&at_medium=social&at_campaign=Social_Flow
Posted by Bridgeboy95
33 Comments
I’ve been getting letters to ‘the occupier’ for over 6 years now. Nobody with that name lives here.
>A BBC spokeswoman said the broadcaster looks forward to engaging with the government and securing the long-term future of the BBC.
>But the minister has ruled out using general taxation to fund the BBC. She did, however, keep open the possibility of a subscription model.
BBC be fucked because if its opt-in rather than opt-out I can gaurantee the majority of people would rather keep the money to spend elsewhere. Auntie has gone senile and she ain’t what she used to be.
The time is definitely coming, for a subscription service. I opted out years ago, as I do not utilise BBC services, as the calibre of programmes has disintegrated over the years. Perhaps some competition would make them improve.
Nuh uh. I have it on good authority that a roaming fleet of top secret hi-tech TV detector vans are stamping out unlicensed tv-watching as we speak!
I listen to BBC radio as radio ads are the most obnoxious form of advertising outside of pop-up audio website ads. So I would be sad to see that go, however I probably could transition to a subscription based Web radio if given the push.
What needs to be preserved, and paid by the UK tax payer, is BBC news. Its not perfect but it helps keep our other news outlets in check. It also has a worldwide brand which should not be dismissed out of hand.
The soft power argument of its entertainment shows is limited. I don’t see the benefit of these operating out of the TV licence and should turn a profit in its own right. The UK government can still fund individual productions, or otherwise invest in UK based production companies etc. It doesn’t need to support a whole organisation for this in my opinion. Hollywood isn’t a publicly funded organisation of the US government for example.
“The review in 2017 detailed a gender skew towards women-only households, a greater likelihood of women answering the door to TV Licensing Enquiry Officers and a higher chance of them engaging positively with an officer.”
So no women are not being targeted, people who engages get screwed. You know what to do.
Anyone still paying this needs their head examined.
Huh, you mean the letters addressed to the occupier from Scott Robson telling everyone an investigation has been opened and enforcement officer might be round next Thursday, or any other day didn’t work? Shocking.
While technically correct, I’d argue it’s one of the most enforced things in the UK outside of police warrants and high-court writs.
TV licencing guys are brutally determined, and it is a criminal offence not to pay up.
Sadly it is with private prosecutions. But I would be all for ending the archaic practice if the culture secretary is as well
I used to live in the romford ymca about a decade ago, watching them try and gain entry and then flee from the many projectiles coming from the many levels of open windows was better comedy than i could ever get from tv lol
An elderly lady got those letters and pays the fee as she’s scared of them, and she doesn’t even have a TV
Stopped watching live TV years ago. Informed the BBC years ago that we had. Still get harassed by Capita for it.
F*ck them both.
Let the BBC stand on its own two feet in the market and see how it fairs. If it goes under and collapses then tough luck. Maybe after that happens they can remove that statue made by that questionable fellow and give us all back our money they took for an antiquated outdated idea of having to pay a tax to watch their shit.
Labour just killed the BBC.
It’s a massive blunder every time she opens her mouth.
That’s a shame.
Public funded, independent, media is needed more than ever in these trying times.
Been getting letters about being investigated for years. I remember reading someone took them to court because every time they sent a letter, he charged them a processing/admin fee and they refused to pay and he won the case. Part of me wonders if that can be pulled off today, because I think I might start charging them £50 for every letter I open, read and throw away.
They need to break it up to keep it going. Separate the News, radio, world service, Kids entertainment, education and broadcasting infrastructure, website, etc into a smaller entity .. paid for by tax.
Then BBC entertainment, which is already making money as a company, it sells DVDs and British content around the world.. gets all the other content and runs as a subscription.
Maybe sport into its own arm/app with its own broadcasting subscription.
The tax paid ‘important’ stuff is probably a fraction of the cost of the entertainment stuff. They’ll have no celebrity news readers and sports pundits paid hundreds of thousands a year…
Here in Finland they took the tv licence away & replaced it with a media tax. Now we all have to pay, tv or not 🙁
Apparently, there’s a global audience of 450,000,000 per week who watch the BBC. Charge them 50p a week, or £2 a month, and that’s £11.7bn a year. Job done.
The only people watching the BBC are those who get it for free anyway. Everyone under 75 can access streaming services while being made to pay the BBC tax, the whole thing is backwards.
Anyone sitting around all day watching homes under the hammer or fucking bargain hunt should be paying
I actually had them come over twice. Once back in November and again a week ago. My mother opened the door back in November and told the man we do not watch live tv and he still had the cheek to ask her if he could come in she obviously said NO. And again about 3 weeks ago they came again and I opened the door this time and told them I was extremely busy and closed the door. They popped a letter through my post box threatening prosecution.
My take is every subscription for streaming in the uk – YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, sky etc should have a £1 a month surcharge to fund the bbc
Would the culture secretary saying that publicly carry any weight in a case of someone being prosecuted for non-payment?
Make it subscription. BBC rarely put anything good out. It’s full of repeats and awful shows. I shouldn’t be made to pay for something I rarely watch.
I always paid the TV license fee, , when I was renting in one place I then I found out the landlord had a TV licence for the building so I didn’t need to be paying for an additional one and they even passed on their details of their license to try and get me a refund.
After contacting TV licensing for a refund of the license (my license details provided) because I’m covered under another license (landlords license details provided) I would like a refund.
They came back with so many hurdles, then more hurdles they even wanted to see my personal contract between me and the landlord for the tenancy of the flat which j just refused as that’s nothing to do with them nor had anything to do with the licensing and just running around in circles. They just wanted to keep and bank the two lots of money they received for the one property.
I then moved out anyway into my own home but didn’t buy a TV licence for the year after as my refund…nor the year after that as compensation for them just being utterly useless twats.
Now I don’t really watch live TV anyway so im no need of one but fuck tv licensing.
People will miss the BBC when it’s gone. Half the shit that ends up on Netflix or elsewhere started life on the BBC.
I love watching TV and listening to Radio ad-free. I think the quality is high.
I think it’s great value for money. There’s also a lot of shit on there but people seem to still love Eastenders. I personally love the documentary’s, history, and nature side of the BBC.
Sadly it’s become cool to shit on the BBC and to be seen flexing about how you avoid your license.
To be fair;
It’s absolutely enforceable like any other subscription with collaboration from smart TV manufacturers.
People think this is about EastEnders. What we’d actually be losing is BiteSize, the world service and BBC Monitoring.
The TV side of the BBC isn’t what needs the public funding.
It’s a celebrity obsessed parody of its former self. It needs to be put down, or scaled back to only produce documentaries and news output.
I haven’t paid for a decade.
Not had a licence for ~15 years. For someone into tech, gaming, science, arts, sport, what’s there to watch on terrestrial TV?? Nowt, pretty much. Youtube is my TV.
I think the tipping point for me was when they lost the F1 deal — not a big deal for many I’m sure, but for an F1 fan it kinda justified the licence.
Thatcher should of privatised the BBC rather than our utilities
This frustrates me. The BBC isn’t perfect but it is probably the most impartial broadcaster on the planet, yet it still gets hate. I suppose we could get rid of it and just depend on billionaire driven news instead?