Well, lemon, you could pay rather more than £100 per year for Sky.
Which shows Malcolm in the Middle, some repeats, and an unrelenting tsunami of cultural sewerage pouring from the screen in nauseating torrents of utterly inane ignorance. With 8 minute ad breaks.
And still beats ITV.
sinical brit, who pays for the set-top box?
(Perhaps a license fee arrangement would fund them? 
)
It’s a fine for not paying. You only run a risk of prison for not paying the fine - and that’s true of any fine.
You’d still have to pay the licence fee even if you never watch BBC.
It’s like having to pay the ABC Car Company for having a car even if you only ever use their rivals’services and goods…
Plus the full network of local radio stations…plus five symphony orchestras, a concert orchestra, a big band, a choir,…
Well, actually it’s like living in a social democracy in which the electorate decides to fund a broadcasting network on a mandatory rather than voluntary basis since it could not otherwise compete and we would be left wth airwaves full of crap, but I get your point.
Perhaps you could start your own party?
When the changeover to digital is completed this will be very possible. The supplier can turn off whatever channel they like from ehat I can see. I have digital and I can get channels (movies, sports etc. ) turned on and off instantly by just a phone call.
Ate you saying that you don’t use any of the BBC services? Why are you bitching about repeats if you don’t
And the goodwill and trust of most of the Anglophone world receiving the IMO utterly unique World Service.
Which is priceless.
Actually the exception- it’s separately funded by the Foreign Office.
jJimmm - if a (relativly) complicated freeview box can cost as little at £60 - i would have thought it is not beyond the realms of possibity that a small “BBC Filter” could be made cheaply enough.
Gorillaman - if you are on the bread line, £120 a year is a lot of money. If you cant pay it then, what makes you think that the sum and the fine will be possible to pay ( it normally doubles the total - £120 for the licence and fine of £150 ). Also - and i have no data to prove this - but after you have been to prison you still have to pay the fine. Does this happen with other fines? I thought if you went to prison for non payment of a speeding fine - the fine was written off when you came out. Perhaps someone from the legal profession can help here?
Aside:
Gov advice booklet on terror - “stay in and tune in ( after you have payed your £120 of course ! )”
sin
£2.50 a week isn’t really much. I’m on benefits at the moment, and I manage. And in any case, nobody’s being forced to own a television - if you can’t afford the licence, you can’t afford to own a TV. It’s no more an excuse than if I claimed I should be able to drive without insurance because I can’t afford it.
As for the exact system of non-payment, I’ve no idea…
Ummmm…tune in the radio, perhaps?
Really? I didn’t know that.
I love those soap operas they do in local languages all over the world tackling relevant local issues. “Brought to you by the UK Foreign Office”, heh heh.
And who makes sure you’re using it, rather than it sitting in the back of your cupboard?
All UK TV viewers benefit from the BBC, whether they watch it or not. Their very presence raises the acceptable standards of broadcasting across the board. Without it the commercial channels could suck as much as they like, packing in as much adverts as possible, because the viewer would have no alternative,
Quite - I don’t have any kids or drive yet my taxes help subsidise others driving and education, without me throwing an infantile libertarian strop at the injustice of it all. I don’t believe for one split second that any household with a TV, radio or internet access in the UK does not at some point make use of a BBC product or service.
The license fee is a bargain for what we get for it. It’s worth it just not to have advertising cutting everything into tiny chunks or having programmes forced to chase ad revenue rather than quality.
There’s a lot of crap about, sure, but who else would make great stuff like the Blue Planet etc etc?