Why I want a compulsory TV licence to go

The TV licence fee is just another tax from which the revenues go direct to the BBC to avoid the government having to make a direct grant and taking away the BBC’s independence as a broadcaster. It has very little to do with the quality or appeal of BBC programmes because you have to have a TV licence if you never watch or listen to BBC programmes. The question really is whether we need the BBC, or could we get all our broadcast entertainment from other channels and alternative media?

I consider the BBC’s TV output that I watch selectively to be very high quality and good value for money. There is an enormous amount that I do not watch so I have no idea of its quality but the entertainment and drama programmes appear to be extremely popular so they must be getting something right.

I don’t watch programmes about food and cooking but I suspect that Nigella is a highly-paid presenter for more than her culinary skills.

What would you prefer in the intervals, Beryl? A return to the Interludes showing exceedingly boring perpetual motion pictures? Or a Test Card with nondescript music? I find the trailers and previews — which all channels have — quite useful for reminding us about upcoming programmes so we can set to record them.

Programme junctions are sometimes a technical challenge for broadcasters, especially the BBC which often has alternative programmes in different regions and sometimes has live TV preceding or following recorded material, because all the transmitters have to be synchronised to carry the network broadcast and then joined or split as necessary.

Many here have advocated public service broadcasts as infill material but that would be contractual whereas the trailers are optional and can be dropped or extended according to the time available.

The BBC sells to the viewers the programme content it makes and gives its airtime away, whereas commercial channels sell their airtime to advertisers [for recharge to consumers] but give away to the viewers the content it makes.

I don’t see why they should not inform us of what is coming up in their schedule. And, crucially, this does not happen at intervals within a program.

I prefer to select from the plethora of TV channels available to me by simply pressing a button on the remote control and choosing which programme to watch John.

I have a choice of news channels where I am able to compare each country’s journalistic interpretations of world events at global level. There are so many educational, musical and entertaining choices also to be found on You Tube where I can view repeats of particular interest to me and not those repeated repeats that are selected by BBC entrepreneurs and impresarios.

I see very little difference between advertising for ones own gains and advertising for another’s, but do question why one is free and funded by the advertiser and the other is lawfully required to be paid for by the consumer, the latter possessing the power to deprive the other if one refuses to pay up when you would rather be watching something else on a different channel free of charge.

That is tantamount to control by administrative impropriety and imposition.

So it’s really about money – I thought you just disliked the programme promos!

We can all roam around the channels if we have the paid-for facilities that enable it but I like to know what the BBC and the other home channels are planning to show because those are the ones we usually watch. We might miss good things without the previews.

From the BBC’s point of view, it is is important as the recipient of universal funding through a licence fee that it promotes its programmes to the optimum audience in order to justify its ‘administrative imposition’.

In practical terms, we don’t actually pay to watch BBC TV — we pay to have a television or other receiving device upon which we can exercise the choices you have described.

I had always assumed that repeats, and repeated repeats, were delivered in response to public demand, not as a result of selection by “BBC entrepreneurs and impresarios” [whatever they might be]. If they had to depend on advertising or other commercial revenue many good programmes would never get a second showing.

I question whether most of the other channels available would be worth watching if a generally high standard wasn’t set by the BBC and the original material it generates.

I don’t like the commercial advertisements but even less do I like the repetitive sponsorship plugs before and after every segment of a popular show on the other channels; some programmes have ten such spots in an hour. Those types of programmes also waste our time by having sixty seconds of “Coming up . . . ” and another sixty seconds of “What you’ve just watched . . . ” around every advert break.

I was on a Zoom call the other week, and the presenter had a hugee technical hitch requiring him to reboot his whole system (PC, mixer desk.. the works). I knew this would take a while so I searched fast – and found – and put the Youtube link in the chat window…. to The Potters Wheel interlude. The giggles came in series so the overall appreciation of this piece of light hearted skylarking was high and it truly lightened the load!

BBC programmes might not contain adverts, but they still make programmes to accommodate them.

For example, programmes such as Countryfile that have several ‘storylines’. The programme starts with what the episode contains, it starts the 1st story, tells you what is still to come (advert time), starts the 2nd story, tells you what is still to come (advert time), starts the 4th story, reminds you what you saw in the 1st story, (advert time) reminds you what you saw earlier, finish 1st story, etc.

I agree with John and dislike programmes that do this, don’t they think what we can remember what we saw 20 minutes ago? It greatly reduces actual content and should the BBC be making programmes for adverts when it is a non-commercial channel? Thank goodness for being able to record programmes and fast-forward the bits you don’t want.

I have no objection to all TV channels promoting future programmes as many a time we would have missed a new series. Sometimes Sky automatically starts recording it, but many times it doesn’t.

I also dislike the repetitive sponsorship plugs particularly the Dove one of the girl with bright pink hair who had no respect for the business she worked for and smugly quit her job when told she did not look professional. These are harder to fast-forward without missing the start of the programme.

I do think more public information should be shown on the BBC especially scam warnings. I have seen Which? sponsorship plugs and these could be put to better use.

The assumption that the average TV audience members has an attention span best measured in tens of milliseconds is, I agree, intensely irritating. The trend started in the US, which has, for many years, made one third of its total show time as adverts and where it is openly assumed by US media execs that audiences are generally lacking in intellect and concentration.

In terms of allowing for advertising, however, the BBC charter requires it compete with ITV and other channels so I accept it has to make shows that will play well in the other markets. The BBC itself owns and runs 14 channels, including the acclaimed CBeebies and CBBC, and BBC studios owns a further 8, each of which takes advertising to fund its own model. They also jointly own channels with ITV.

I assumed Countryfile was made for the daytime audience and got shoved onto Sunday evenings before the Antiques Roadshow to ease my generation into a gentle slumber ready for the rigours of the week ahead. I note that the weather forecaster is required to wear a ‘country’ style shirt for that spot.

While on the subject of TV personality remuneration, I guess Countryfile‘s resident farmer must be doing alright. He was showing off his massively expensive new crop machinery the other night in a piece about his spread’s carbon footprint. From what he was saying I reckoned he was the overlord of around 1000 acres of prime Cotswold land and some pretty valuable livestock. Does he grow potatoes?

BBC TV programmes have to be padded out so that they can be edited down to fit the format when sold to commercial stations overseas.

No different in principle to a bit of one’s council tax being diverted to library upkeep. FWIW I support both.

This is a form of control by administrative impropriety and imposition.

Not really,as Roger points out. Taxation comes in many guises and, for the most part, we simply have to accept it.

I have no objection to 86% of the TV Licence revenue being spent on BBC TV programmes. That is what the licensing system is there for. Without it, the BBC’s content would be dependent on the whims and fortunes of the advertising industry or subject to the influence of politicians. I agree with Phil: it would mark the end of public service broadcasting in the UK. Let’s not forget that the BBC is a very big export earner because its content is in high demand around the world and also turns up on some of the other UK channels because of its enduring popularity.

Beryl wrote: “86% of your TV Licence is spent on BBC TV Channels, BBC Sounds and online services, my point being, unless you pay for this exclusive service you are prevented, by law, from watching all the other free channels available.”

In fact you can legally watch most TV programmes without a TV licence, as long as they are not ‘live’ or you are watching via BBC iPlayer.

That is an unfair and unrealistic comparison. You are not barred from Waterstones if you prefer to go there for a book that you can’t find in your local library

To the best of my knowledge, Waterstones don’t offer a subscription model to allow you to read (either in store or at home) as many books as you like each month for a reasonable fee – although I truly may be out of date here, and an on-line book rental service may well be available on one’s Kindle or similar.

To continue your analogy, if you don’t have a BBC license, you’re entitled to watch TV – any channel – at a pub or a friend’s house provided the friend is appropriately licensed, and to watch any film at a cinema. You could also do as the hapless contestant did back in the 60s and watch The Golden Shot from a phone box opposite Rumbelows!

Unless I were to change my reading habits I can barely get six books for the cost of a TV licence.

Who cares how much the BBC pays Gary Lineker? He’s an agreeable fellow with an attractive personality and bags of knowledge about soccer and its tactics. It’s hard to suggest an adequate alternative. Many people in the public service get paid a lot for much less satisfaction. And somebody has to be the face of the potato crisp; I expect the role has its drawbacks.

I pay more than my TV licence costs each year to subscribe to Which? Which one offers the best value for money?

Thanks for supporting Which?, Malcolm.

Following a review of my interests and outgoings I recently quit Which? so appear here as a freeloader.

John Ward says: Today 09:31
Who cares how much the BBC pays Gary Lineker?

Quite a few on the Tory benches, I suspect, who see football as the sole prerogative of the ‘lower classes’.

So where do Tory MP’s stand in the value-for-money stakes?

There was a recent repeat of an episode of Yes, Minister in which the proletarian minister [just posturing as a man of the people] supporting his constituency football team was pitted against the civil servant mandarins who slipped off early to go to the opera.

🙂 I liked that episode. In reply to your question, however, I’d say YM had it just about right. The issue hinges around how we–or they–define value.

It’s the government that determines the licence fee, not the BBC. The BBC has asked for an inflation-linked fee but the government has declined and insists the BBC makes economies.

Beryl says:Today 12:49
For me it’s more about freedom to choose. Unless I subscribe to the BBC’s coffers, I am unable to watch a wide range of the other free programmes available.

That’s not actually true, Beryl. So long as you don’t watch programmes in ‘real time’ (or use iPlayer) you don’t need a licence.

However, nothing is for free; or do you not think you should pay to watch any shows on BBC?

Advertising is being paid to promote a third party’s products or services. The BBC do not do that; they give information about their own products.

As for pay, just as Which? defend their high salaries as necessary to attract “the right people” so does the BBC – along with almost every other institution that goes into the limited marketplace to find top employees. Try football, for example.

I think 43 pence a day to select from 3 tv programmes, 9(?) radio programmes plus regional, and to choose many offerings on iplayer – including Dads Army, Montelbano, Yes Minister and excellent documentaries – all without irritating commercials interrupting the flow it is an absolute bargain. You do not have to be inundated with stuff from elsewhere, just watch selectively. There are other things more worthwhile than being fed electronic “entertainment”. Which reminds me I must tidy the garage as I have furniture to make.

Incidentally, anyone bought cinema tickets lately? How many of those do you get for the price of your tv licence?

If you are content to pay anything at all to watch the same old stuff over and over again, then so be it.

Fortunately, there are still those who, despite advancing years prefer to live in the here and now and pay for what they choose to buy and not what they are forced to buy, irrespective of whether they can afford it or not, or to have to endure interrogation by enforcing government officers and heavily penalised if you can’t afford to buy.

Cinema tickets are not recommended “lately” as covid is still doing what it does best by invading peoples personal space and confining them to their own homes to watch their TV, subject of course to them having paid their TV Licence,

Well, that just isn‘t the case. Not in my view. But, we all have our own take on this. I just hope, after 2027, we are left with a choice of watching adverts interrupted by programmes, or uninterrupted programmes with scheduling information in the intervals between them. 🙂 🙁

Whether or not we watch “the same old stuff over and over again” is a matter of personal choice. There is enough output on the BBC channels, and on all the other channels to which a TV licence enables access, to never watch the same thing twice even if you spent twelve hours a day in front of the box.

I have enjoyed watching Fawlty Towers and Yes Minister recently when the series were repeated because they were outstandingly good programmes the like of which never appears on any other channel.

Over the years various alternatives to the TV licence have been examined and none has been considered acceptable in safeguarding the BBC and being low enough not to be a financial burden. People over 75 in receipt of pension credit will continue to be eligible for a free TV licence. The cost of a TV licence is factored into the cost of living calculations alongside other essential expenditure items. The licence fee can be paid in fortnightly instalments.