As far as I know it’s sort of a UK name for RadioShack??
I object to the UK license fee because there are people who never watch the BBC but still have to pay it. Eg sports fans who pay masses of extra money to watch satellite sports channels, never bother with the Beeb, yet are still expected to contribute towards everyone else’s viewing.
I would prefer BBC funding to be tax derived, so at least the low-income, unemployed and retired would be completely exempt.
Anyway, I never bothered trying to get anybody’s name for the catalogue. In fact, I tried to avoid selling anything. A good 50% of what we sold came back within a week - it was the biggest load of tat you ever saw. But I digress.
Istara, the top satellite programmes get about 0.5 million viewers. BBC1 programmes regularly attract more than 10 million and the top ones are closer to 20 million. Then there are 5 million or so for the top BBC2 ones too. I seriously doubt there are many people who own a TV who never watch BBC because they’re hooked on satellite.
[anecdotal]
I have gone TV-free twice for a couple of years at a time; the TV licensing authority did indeed write me threatening letters, to which they expected a reply (sent at my own expense) - the letter they sent had a tear-off reply form at the bottom with tick boxes to the effect:
a) I don’t have a TV licence, but I’ll get one right away.
b)I have a TV licence, here are the details.
Without wishing to veer into IMHO - surely these are the very people who are likely to watch the BBC the most?
And Mangetout, I had a similar experience when I was without a TV for a while. No doubt we’re both on some secret Government list of potentially subversive characters…
There’s also thousands of us expats who can watch things like BBC World and BBC Prime, sans licence. It may be that the BBC gets some revenue from satellite content distributors, I don’t know.
I do know that BBC radio and internet are totally free, and people all over the world can access both.
I was also once told at the BBC that network radio costs four thousand pounds (six thousand dollars) an hour. That may have changed. At any rate, it’s far from cheap to produce, yet it’s given away for free.
The frequency and duration of advertisements on the commercial channels is controlled by their licence to broadcast, not by competition with the BBC. However the people who run the commercial stations have frequently expressed concern that if the BBC took advertising it would bankrupt them. Advertising revenues have been falling for years and they couldn’t afford another big player to enter the market overnight.
People have been making that excuse since ITV stared in the '50s, but the number of people who never watch the BBC (or listen to their radio stations) is likely to be proportionately small and is impractical to measure. I would not be willing to take people’s own word for it and it cannot be measured objectively until TV broadcasting is entitely digital and all programmes are financed on a pay-per-view basis. I expect that may happen one day.
I’ve already said that if you buy products that are advertsied on TV, part of the price you pay goes towards financing programmes you may never watch.
A tax on what? If you mean income tax you charge people whether they watch TV or not, let alone whether they watch BBC or not. I believe that some countries do impose a tax on TV sets to contribute to PBS television, but that would not be able to replace the Licence Fee and would be no fairer.
The only way to reduce the cost for low-income households without introducing other forms of unfairness is to allow people to reclaim a rebate upon proof of low income.
Do you think there should be no transmission via the internet or can you suggest some method that the BBC could charge people abroad for viewing and listening via that method?
Perhaps this is a good time to point out that the BBC World Service is financed seperately from the Licence Fee.
Not at all. But I wonder if they should be allowed to host adverts on the World edition of the internet service, to at least recoup some of their costs.
Point taken about the BBC World Service. But BBC Prime, AFAIK, is nearly all UK-produced entertainment/comedy/drama stuff - that UK licence holder pay for. But as it’s a pay channel on satellite, presumably the BBC are getting some overseas income from it.
I feel pretty aggrieved about the Irish license fee, since RTE shows ads as well as claiming the fee.
However, Ireland’s a small country, and to get the sort of revenues required to produce a professional national network, it needs all the money it can get. It also needs all the help it can get, because it’s bloody appalling. But I live in Irish society, so I do submit to its whims.
According to the Beeb’s own website, the Licence Fee here covers
[ul][li]Eight BBC television channels[/li][li]Ten BBC radio networks[/li][li]More than fifty local BBC services[/li][li]High-quality local and national news, debate, documentaries, live music, original drama and entertainment[/li][li]Childrens’ programmes, educational and interactive services, orchestras, concerts, minority language programmes, social action campaigns[/li][li]Training and support for British production skills and talent in music, drama, film, radio and television[/ul][/li]In practice only two of those television channels and five of the national radio networks are available without satellite or digital equipment.
According to this article, only Spain has no licence fee amongst European countries and it’s a common revenue-raising method in Africa and Asia too. That link points to a Wikipedia article. In my experience most European public broadcasters carry advertisements as well as using tax for their funding.
I’ve never had a telly, and the mail from the licence folks is pretty funny. Sometimes it comes as a brightly coloured friendly looking advertisement telling about the wonderful benefits of having a licence, then they switch to the heavy handed "pay up or DIE!. I’m just waiting for the day an inspector comes to look around. He’ll see an antenna wire running into the back of an enclosed entertainment centre. He’ll open the doors with ‘A-ha!’ but be very disapointed because the cabinet is full of books.
When we were TV-free, we planned to get a TV cabinet, lay it on its back and fill it completely with table tennis balls, then close the doors, stand it back up and wait for the inspector, but it never got past the idle fantasy stage.
In my first year at university I lived in halls of residence. I was in a block with 32 students in about 24 rooms. The halls of residence were part of a great big landscaped campus, no public road access. We thought we were safe from the TV detector van…
But no! One day there was a knock at the outside door and someone peered out of the window to see the TV licencing van parked at the access road at the back. Of the 32 of us, about half of us had televisions. Exactly one of us had a licence.
While one person went downstairs to open the door, the rest of us frantically ran up and down the stairs, lugging around TV sets and trying to find somewhere to hide them. Eventually all sixteen television were stacked up in the one licenced room. (“Are all sixteen of these televisions yours, Miss Wilson?” “Oh yes, absolutely”). In the event, Mr TV-Licence man asked to see one person who was out (and didn’t have a telly anyway) was told he was out and quietly left, leaving behind one of his threatening letters.
He never came back (and while the story might have a nice moral ending if we all saw the error of our ways and bought licences, er, we didn’t. Sorry.)
Yeah you can - two different methods. First, if you’re on the east coast you can pick up the signal from Wales with a very tall aerial. If you’re in the north you can get the signal from Northern Ireland.
However for most of Ireland, and in built-up areas like Dublin, you can only get it on cable or satellite, and the fees you pay indirectly contribute towards the upkeep of the Beeb.
I personally think that the TV licence is worth every penny. The pure joy of watching TV without ads makes it worthwhile and the fact that the BBC doesn’t show ads means that the other stations can’t stuff in as many ad breaks as they do in other countries. and Radio 4 is worth the money alone.
I agree with Jjimm though about Ireland but the money goes to ensure that home produced and minority programs are made and to prop up an Irish-language station.
On RTE, ITV C4 etc there is normally one break in the middle of a “half hour” program. I understand that the norm is two breaks in the USA.
