NEWS: BBC licence fee to be scrapped?

About time to !
Well over due and there evil tactics of hounding people to pay up or else !
Dreadful and the waist of never ending paper reminders for years of you owe them money .

If People love the BBC let them fund it !
If you can do without it and the circa £157.50 payment every year that now will go up again Dont pay it .

We should have a choice in this day and age .
 
Surprise surprise, mention the licence fee and out come all the usual whingers. And shock of shocks, the Times with an anti BBC article. In other news water is wet.
 
I love the BBC (mostly) but is is bloated and needs some sort of reform. I don't mind paying for the licence fee and have been doing so for over 40yrs. The thing that worries me is the parts of the BBC I do like, drama/documentaries/natural world/radio 4/5 for instance and also their news coverage (when not overly biased left wing) is how much I will have to pay if they do away with the licence fee.

I certainly would not miss some of the dross like soaps/day time telly fillers, Strictly and numerous quiz/ chat :( and talent shows. The amount that is paid to so called stars, news readers and presenters is getting beyond a joke. I mean Gary Lineker for instance nearly 2 mill a year and some news staff on £600k and more.:eek:

It should be stripped back to 2 tv channels of good quality stuff, maybe 3-4 radio stations and charge £75-100 a year.If people want any more than that pay for Sky/Netflix/Prime etc.
 
Labour will be in in 2027 and they'll scrap the change.
But seriously, it'll mean ads, less content and radio stations and then people will complain. Oh and a subscription fee that will equal or be greater. For the amount of daily programming on offer, it's actually a reasonable fee.
The blurb about exorbitant star's pay and them reaping money outside of the BBC and being forced to give it all to the station is crazy. That sounds like some old music producer slave contract or pimp set up! People take second positions/contracts and/or jobs in all manner of occupations but the BBC or Government can take all the revenue? Yeah, who's going to work extra hours for free? The outside earned monies have been a source for it's employees/stars that has allowed the BBC to actually pay less but you don't hear about that from the axe groups.
The fact of the matter, is the stars have to be paid something near commensurate to the industry and wanging on about wasting licence fee money etc. is clearly intended to raise payer's anger. Yes, cut the pay and see what local 'talent' you end up with.
If people want another version of Sky with 5+ minutes of ads carving up everything, even more dross and a larger fee, well...
If you don't want to pay the licence fee, you can opt out at anytime. Do it and jog on. Really!
 
That’s the thing, you can’t really opt out at any time though, can you?

Yes, you can opt out of paying the license fee, but then you also opt out, legally of watching any live tv. Which is my whole issue.
 
About time too, It's bloated, wasteful, and thoroughly dishonest not only with it's bias when reporting the news but also within it's governance.

Laying staff off to satisfy calls for cuts, paying huge redundancy payments and then taking them back on days later as "freelancers", paying out around £30 Million to gag it's own staff, etc etc etc.

It is possible to be legally licence free, but despite the bbc insisting they will not bother you for two years if you inform them, the threatening letters still arrive with monotonous regularity.

They keep insisting how loved they are, you have to ask why they're so terrified of putting those claims to the test.
 
Difficult. There’s some things that the BBC does do well. On a good day BBC4HD can be truly excellent, but it’s not consistent. I’d consider subscribing to a Netflix-like service providing that quality levels were improved, and I could watch a series in one go, should I so choose, rather than being stuck with the current linear TV model. But if subscription is the way forward, what will the likes of ITV, C4 and C5 do? The removal of the licence fee and a move away from what we have now will signal the end of UK TV as we know it now, I think. We have to wait until 2027 gets a lot closer before we find out though.

As for Labour being in power by 2027 and reversing the decision? Not a prayer on either count.:rotfl:

Clem
 
I realise that there's an element of this government getting its revenge in early for the BBC's being insufficiently cheerleading during the whole Brexit debacle, but I worry that we'll end up with US style coverage with everyone getting their news solely from outlets that mirror and reenforce their existing ideological views. We already have that with the papers as it is.
 
I love the BBC (mostly) but is is bloated and needs some sort of reform. I don't mind paying for the licence fee and have been doing so for over 40yrs. The thing that worries me is the parts of the BBC I do like, drama/documentaries/natural world/radio 4/5 for instance and also their news coverage (when not overly biased left wing) is how much I will have to pay if they do away with the licence fee.

I certainly would not miss some of the dross like soaps/day time telly fillers, Strictly and numerous quiz/ chat :( and talent shows. The amount that is paid to so called stars, news readers and presenters is getting beyond a joke. I mean Gary Lineker for instance nearly 2 mill a year and some news staff on £600k and more.:eek:

It should be stripped back to 2 tv channels of good quality stuff, maybe 3-4 radio stations and charge £75-100 a year.If people want any more than that pay for Sky/Netflix/Prime etc.

Agree with your conclusions, but not all your reasoning. But I think a compromise is needed.

1. TV License reduced to £6.99 per month, but needs to be reinvented as a household tax. Surely added and itemised to Council Tax as it’s per household. Reduces to OAP £3.99 for ‘retired’ households. No sill opt outs as tying it to a TV in the internet/mobile connected world is silly.
2. This is plenty to maintain BBC1 and BBC2 and BBC News and BBC World Services. There should be a rule of no more than 25% repeats. 4 radio stations dedicated to News, Sport, Talk and Entertainment. Free access to website and a basic iPlayer which gives you curated and catchup content.
3. Voluntary premium subscription to Britbox, via increased £9.99 sub. This also unlocks the entire BBC archives behind website/iPlayer where possible. The premium service is free at the OAP sub level.
 
A Tory government wants a media broadcaster to be commercialised? Shock.
Not a huge fan of everything the beeb does by a long way and plenty of room for improvement but anyone thinking privatisation will solve it all is mad.
 
While they keep receiving their fixed income every year, they have no incentive to change anything.
 
One of our last remaining crown jewels being sold off by the tories. We will simply get 24/7 reality crap and US imports. Where are the quality British shows going to come from??

Surely even the tories can see this would be a massive downgrade for the country on a whole as millions of people depend on the BBC to some extent?? Unless they want to make us the 51st State.
 
To all the people who want to see it scrapped I would say; Do you really want more stations that would need to introduce commercials as a form of funding?
I'm more than happy to pay the licence fee to have a choice of watching commercial free tv.
We are probably the only country left which has this, and judging by the way programmes are becoming shortened to include more dross ridden, unimaginative and totally mind numbingly boring commercials, you seriously want more of that s**t in your lives? No way Jose!
 
Commercials really aren't an issue in this day and age when watching live TV is becoming more infrequent.

It's rare for me to watch live stuff, I record most things and then I can easily just fast-forward through the ad breaks.

The only thing I always watch live is football, which only has ad breaks pre and post game and at half time... which, as we all know, is when you go and put the kettle on.
 
Commercials really aren't an issue in this day and age when watching live TV is becoming more infrequent.

It's rare for me to watch live stuff, I record most things and then I can easily just fast-forward through the ad breaks.
Commercials are huge issue when searching for something to watch of an evening. Try looking for a programme and then I guarantee instead of the programme you'll be watching commercials.
 
Not for me. As I mentioned, I record everything.

I go through the planner, select what I want then watch as described above... I don't channel surf any more.
 
When I’m searching for something to watch, I go to my recordings and pick something from there. As Roohster said, the only thing I watch live is football.

Haven’t watched and advert in 20 years, since TiVo launched in the UK.
 
Personally the bbc doesnt provide me with anywhere near value for money I very rarely watch anything they put out but as I have sky q I have to pay the licence fee. The recent equal pay scandal only served to highlight just how much presenters are paid for very little work.
 
Personally the bbc doesnt provide me with anywhere near value for money I very rarely watch anything they put out but as I have sky q I have to pay the licence fee. The recent equal pay scandal only served to highlight just how much presenters are paid for very little work.
Yes they are paid a lot but then they usually get poached by the comercial stations and paid more.
Too easy to get involved in the politics of envy.
 
While they keep receiving their fixed income every year, they have no incentive to change anything.
Actually they do though I dont agree with it but they they have to chase viewing figures to show they are value for money. If no one watched they would have been privatised years ago.
 

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