iPlayer to require TV licence

[peterb]

Erm, yeah, that was kind of my point

Santa thinks the BBC is worth £145 a year. A lot of people don't. But the choice at the minute is pay the £145, or pay nothing and don't watch TV ... at all. If you have an expensive Sky package and watch lots of sport and films but no "TV", you still pay the Beeb £145, potentially for nothing. If, like me, you read the BBC website, listen to some BBC radio (mostly sport extra and county cricket, natch ), and occasionally watch QI on iplayer catch up, it's probably not worth £145, but it's definitely worth more than I have to pay for it - which is nothing.

To say that the BBC's worth £145 misses two points: that "worth" is dependent on usage and for a lot people who have to pay the beeb isn't worth £145, and that you can extract a huge amount of value from BBC content without paying a penny. The beeb is worth more to me than I currently pay, but probably not £145 a year. However my scenario isn't currently addressed. That's an issue, IMNSHO.

But that is true of many services. You can go to a private hospital, private GP, but you still pay for the `NHS through general taxation. You can send your children to a private school, but you still pay for the state system. You still pay even if you don't have children. But the facility is there, if you need it. The same is true of vehicle excise duty - you pay a fixed rate no mater how little or how many miles you drive in a year. And if you use toll roads, you pay extra for the convenience. (And a cyclist pays nothing, but has use of the roads - analogous to the radio listener who doesn't have a TV)

Of course, you could make Iplayer a pay-per-view or a subscription service, but the licence payers (And approximately 97% of households in the UK have a TV licence http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/f...-figures-AB18/ ) potentially be paying twice for the same content.

The licence is also per household. Two or more people watching one or more televisions in the same household - one licence. One person living on their own with one, two or more TVs - one licence.

But if we're going to limit it to Britain where the Beeb gets a nice big bag of taxpayer moolah to play with.....

Well it isn't Tax payer's money. The BBC licence is not collected by HMRC or distributed by the treasury. The revenue collected by TV licensing goes directly to the BBC.

[wasabi]

Well it isn't Tax payer's money. The BBC licence is not collected by HMRC or distributed by the treasury. The revenue collected by TV licensing goes directly to the BBC.

AFAIK since 2006 it is a tax for precisely the reason the ONS states.

http://www.publications.parliament.u.../128/12805.htm

See section 22.

[Dooms]

Currently don't pay a TV license and if I did I would basically be paying £145 a year for 6 episodes of Top Gear.

[peterb]

AFAIK since 2006 it is a tax for precisely the reason the ONS states.

http://www.publications.parliament.u.../128/12805.htm

See section 22.

You are absolutely right, Sir. That one passed me by - another Gordon Brown sneaky. (Although it isn't collected by HMRC)

So perhaps that is the way ahead - put a penny on Income tax and abolish the licence - making it non-discretionary.

[badsyntax]

Hopefully they'll sort out some sort of monthly pass or access per title or series deal. They've got the content and it'd be interesting to see if such a plan would compliment, rather than eat into, their DVD sales.

I'd be surprise if they're not viewing that market especially since DVD sales are generally falling dramatically year on year while streaming and digital sales are on the up.

[Agent]

TV license to one side, what I find more annoying about the BBC is their inability to publish some original series they have made. Take Monkey Dust for example - can only buy series 1, 2 & 3 never got released apart from a few select episodes on iTunes. Crazy.

[scaryjim]

So perhaps that is the way ahead - put a penny on Income tax and abolish the licence - making it non-discretionary.

I'd certainly be happy with that - a lesser amount collected through the general taxation system to fund the actual public service parts of the BBC (as alluded to by Saracen earlier), perhaps with opt-in licensing/subscriptions to cover other services. Or even a small ring-fenced consumption tax levied on the initial purchase of TVs, radios, computers, tablets, smartphones etc. so the charge still targets those most likely to use BBC services, but isn't limited to those who just consume BBC content via TV broadcasts.

However having the BBC funded as a central government department (from a quick browse it looks like it now has a similar status to NICE) definitely raises issues about its neutrality and independence.

EDIT to catch crosspost:

TV license to one side, what I find more annoying about the BBC is their inability to publish some original series they have made. Take Monkey Dust for example - can only buy series 1, 2 & 3 never got released apart from a few select episodes on iTunes. Crazy.

I think the worst one is QI, tbh. Try finding QI on DVD, for instance. A and C are fairly easy to get hold of. B exists but in very small numbers. And that's it, beyond a short collection from G. Utterly ludicrous, given they could happily have around £200 of my money if the other series were readily available at £20 a pop...!

[Saracen]

....

I think the worst one is QI, tbh. Try finding QI on DVD, for instance. A and C are fairly easy to get hold of. B exists but in very small numbers. And that's it, beyond a short collection from G. Utterly ludicrous, given they could happily have around £200 of my money if the other series were readily available at £20 a pop...!

That's because of IP rights issues, which can get very convoluted.

[wasabi]

I think the worst one is QI, tbh. Try finding QI on DVD, for instance. A and C are fairly easy to get hold of. B exists but in very small numbers. And that's it, beyond a short collection from G. Utterly ludicrous, given they could happily have around £200 of my money if the other series were readily available at £20 a pop...!

QI is one of the examples of why the Beeb is not politically independent, that I don't watch much Beeb stuff, and want the telly tax done away with. Fry's smug diddumsy-widdumsy-fluffykins routine is annoying, he isn't half as smart as portrayed to be, and the whole show reeks of soft-left propaganda.

[Baratheon]

I'm confused, I thought you already need a liocense to watch iplayer? That's what I was told. We haven't had a tv for 3 years but still have a license because we occasionally watch stuff live in iplayer.
I thought they were decriminalising the tv license anyway? It needs to change somehow so that people like me don't feel like they're being conned.

[kalniel]

I'm confused, I thought you already need a liocense to watch iplayer?

If you watch live yes. If you watch old programs no.

I thought they were decriminalising the tv license anyway?

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

[Baratheon]

Gosh, you're right. What was I thinking bringing up the fact that not paying your license could end up not being a criminal offence in a discussion about the tv license.
I'll go and think about what I've done...

[scaryjim]

Gosh, you're right. What was I thinking bringing up the fact that not paying your license could end up not being a criminal offence in a discussion about the tv license. ...

It will still be illegal, and will potentially make it *easier* for the BBC to enforce as they won't have to go through a full criminal justice process to chase non-payers. Also, that whole topic was covered earlier in this thread While it's an interesting aside, it's not directly relevant to an expansion of the requirements for owning a TV license, and it doesn't change the legality of watching live TV without a license.