Yup. Most EU countries have a TV licence or similar tax. Those that don’t (Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Hungary, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Bulgaria) fund public service broadcasting by government grant, financed out of general taxation. I think Luxembourg and Monaco (not an EU member) are the only countries which do not fund broadcasting either out of a hypothecated tax, like the television licence, or out of general taxation.
You can argue about the efficiency or the intrusive nature of the UK licence fee collection system, but there is wide support for the general idea of a legally-imposed hypothecated charge to finance a vastly superior television service than purely commercial systems, in those countries which have them, seem capable of providing .
I have a TV, but don’t watch live TV (I use iPlayer on my XBox and my Raspberry Pi, plus DVDs), so no need for a licence.
I got a letter when I first moved in to my current place, saying they expected me to pay a licence. I simply went online and told them I have no TV receiving live broadcasts. They haven’t bothered me since.
It varies from country to country, sometimes it is a license, sometimes they add a supplement to local property taxes, the electricity or telephone bill.
Only Denmark, Sweden and Norway have a similar funding model to the BBC.
Whether they engage in the same dubious tactics to cajole and bully householders as they do in the UK? I would hope that they do not.
I am wondering whether the BBC is the wealthiest public broadcast organisation in the world with a total annual income of £5billion which supports a substantial organisation.
In the US it seems public broadcasting merits only a few hundred millon dollars.
However, times they are a-changing. The internet is increasingly important way of delivering TV programs and (at the moment) you don’t need a license for that.
I’m open to correction, but my impression is that if your apparatus is capable of receiving and displaying live broadcasts, you need a licence. Whether you actually use it for that purpose is irrelevant.
It’s a bit vague. The Communications Act does say that you need a licence to “install or use” a TV receiver (to receive TV at the time that it is broadcast). But the BBC only apply the “use” part, so Malden Campbell is OK.
You do need a license if you use the BBC iPlayer to watch or record TV programs as they are broadcast (“Watch Live”). This material is delivered, of course, via the Internet.
You do not need a license if you only use iPlayer in “catch-up” mode, but the program selection is more limited.
No, this is not correct. For example, the vast majority of Internet-connected computers and mobile devices are " capable of receiving and displaying live broadcasts" via iPlayer, but a license is only needed if Live broadcasts are actually accessed. Of course in most cases, the device is covered by the household’s license.
This is another area where enforcement of license compliance can be nearly impossible.
ITV also gets a small proportion of the licence fee for its regional news services - can’t find a link to how much they get, but I imagine it’s not much.
Nah, you can get all but the sports and movie packages for about £22pm, including broadband internet, line rental and (usually) some landline calls. All the main cable and satellite companies offer something like this, and not just for the first year.
The licence fee also covered the digital switchover (the education process that was required when the analogue TV signal was slowly switched off). The government forced the BBC to lead and organise this using the licence fee which the BBC tried desperately to avoid as it represented the government forcing the BBC to do its bidding and crossed the line between broadcasting and enforcing government policy. Plus they increased the licence fee to give the BBC funds for it so it saved the government money and made the BBC seem more expensive.
I’ve worked in the television industry for nearly 20 years, several of them at the BBC. I passionately believe the licence fee is a good thing for British broadcasting. I’ve watched TV in many other countries and Britain’s is light years ahead of almost everyone else’s TV. We create and export original TV programming and formats that are sold for large profits all around the world. Most other European countries will be lucky to sell in a year what British companies sell in a month. And the whole industry filters down from the BBC. Our commercial broadcasters are defined by it. Watch the news, either on the BBC or on a serious commercial network in the UK and then go to any other country and watch their news and compare (French news is good actually although they have absolutely no other original non-factual programming). That should sum it up for you. If the BBC were to disappear or be forced to become commercial than standards would remain quite high for a while but over time I guarantee you they would diminish. Mostly, the talented people who work behind the scenes would be far less talented. And that goes for radio as well as television.
By and large im against the BBC. Rather im against the size(and political persuasion) of the organization. Half of the BBC’s output need not be produced by a public service broadcaster. Im thinking of populist shows such asEastenders, Strictly Come Dancing and Many others. In this day and age I dont see the need for BBC Radio 1 and probably Radio 2.
Just an aside. One of my bugbears about the BBC historically; during the 1960’s and 70’s they lobbied for private radio stations to be banned. For some reason listening to privately owned radio was bad for the British public. We ended up with a BBC monopoly in Radio. And guess what, when you have a monopoly in radio imagine how hard it is for a lowly radio production assistant to take his or her fears about Jimmy Saville to higher management. A higher management which has been accused of threatening those who spoke out about such practices. Even as late as the late 1980’s Liz Kershaw was being threatened with professional blacklisting if she spoke out about a certain sexually abusive DJ. If such people had a healthy competition they could have transferred to then the more likely(though not a certainty) they would speak out.
Hell, I’m not fan of Eastenders but I don’t object to the BBC doing it. However, any attempt to privatize Doctor Who I’m pretty sure would actually trigger a revolution in this country.
The question is, should EastEnders and so forth be paid for by what is effectively tax, so that people who have no interest in it are forced to fund it? It’s a bizarre way to spend public money, when you think about it. Roads and schools? Definitely. Serious arts and culture? You can certainly make a case for it. Soap operas and game shows? Not so much.
I agree that the BBC is too big and its remit too wide. I don’t see why it has to compete head-on with the commercial networks. Most of the budget goes on television, and most of that on BBC1, i.e. mainstream general entertainment.
I’m also puzzled by the claim that “if the BBC were to disappear […] the talented people who work behind the scenes would be far less talented”. Why? The US television industry doesn’t seem to be short of talent. Some of the best shows that you can see on British television are made in America. Personally I think they are well ahead of us when it comes to drama.
Much of that “study” occurred during a two week period around bank bailouts. Of course business leaders would be over represented. You can cite such studies all you wish. Studies in such areas are only as biased as those doing the study - which is to say I dont trust em. I dont find the BBC biased party politically. However, I do find it biased on social issues and to a lesser extent on economic issues. It’ll be a cold day in hell before the BBC regularly grill their Conservative political guests for not being Right wing enough. They will pressurise Labour politicians with arguments and questioning from both a Left and Right wing perspective. The BBC will not ask a Tory why he or she is not cutting child benefit for single mothers. Neither will the BBC regularly ask a politician to cut the minimum wage.
And they will continue not to be advocated by mainstream political parties when we have a BBC who will vocally oppose such actions. Forget the minimum wage or child benefit argument. When do the BBC ever advocate more personal responsibility within society? I suggest very rarely. The BBC’s default position is one of Paternalism. When you have an organization such as the BBC that is dependant upon a fairly strong State it is no coincidence that such an organization opposes(either consciously or subconsciously) the idea of a minimal State.
Btw this does not mean those on the Far Left have no legitimate criticisms of the BBC.
Of course you completely ignored all the right wingers in important positions. Let me quote it for you again:
As always, however, it is subjective, it is always passed through the filter of what your own point of view is. A Tory would see Labour bias, a Labourite would see Tory bias. That’s why my Tory-voting Parents will moan about the Leftwing bias at the BBC whilst watching Andrew Neil and enjoying Nick Robinson’s wonderfully biased reporting in the run up to the 2010 General Election. Still, on the plus side, he isn’t Kay Burley. Now there’s a poisonous sack of shit if ever I saw one.
Me? I haven’t voted since a local election in 1998. None of the major parties speak to me and with no proportional representation anything else is pointless. All immaterial anyway, I lose my right to vote in November.