QOTW: Should the TV licence fee be abolished?

[tomasz]

I decided not to renew my license and instead only stick to streaming services and on-line content. Now year after year BBC post me forms to confirm I do not want to pay. This is a waste of of paper and I really do not appreciate the threatening tone of some of them.
BBC should be funded from the general taxation if it is providing a public service, like all the other public services.

[pollaxe]

No, because I suspect it means it'll end up like Sky; stupidly expensive whilst still forcing yet more adverts and sponsored things onto you.

[=assassin=]

I barely watch any TV anymore, and when I did/do it was/is only Top Gear, F1, and anything with Brian Cox in. Seeing as F1 is now on C4, and Top Gear has effectively finished (I won't be watching the Chris Evans version), there really isn't much reason for me to have a TV License anymore. I'd love to use the money saved on something I'd actually like, such as Sci-Fi/F1 channels via a Sky package.

[directhex]

Welcome to a basic implementation of the right-wing Starve The Beast strategy:

• Cut funding to $national_service
• Force $national_service to cut its remit to make the books balance
• "Oh dear, $national_service isn't really useful any more, do we really need it?"
• "Hey, now $national_service is gone, which one of our friends do you want to buy the equivalent from for vast sums of money?"

This is also the current NHS strategy - make the staffing situation so untenable that it's impossible to recover

[maxp779]

Yes do away with it.

[outwar6010]

Yes.

[xslavic]

There will be no "democracy" with the television fee.
..that is also the intent of it -to support Corpo_rations.For which we pay every day not once a a year.

[Ironbuket]

I would vote to stay in the EU if some Brussels #### would impose a law that made the licence fee illegal.

[Ironbuket]

I would vote to stay in the EU if some Brussels #### would impose a law that made the licence fee illegal.

LOL, cant believe they have an auto filter for the word ####

[Saracen]

LOL, cant believe they have an auto filter for the word ....

Really?

You have read our rules, haven't you?

If you deliberately bypass our swear filter again, your account WILL be suspended.

And if you're surprised that word is filtered, I can only assume you are only familiar with the slang usage of the word, not what it actually means. In which case, look it up .... after refreshing yourself on our rules.

And in case anyone else decides to try a guessing game as to what the word was, I'd seriously advise thinking again.

[amdavies]

Go look at the flagship channel for Sky, Sky One, and count the number of repeats on any day of the week you choose. Realize that all television will slowly become that if the BBC is not there to maintain a level of quality.

Fox (Sky) News in the States feels that it's perfectly acceptable to lie. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show even released a vine with 50 lies that Fox News has told:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6758614.html.

Fox even lies about us here in the UK, remember that Birmingham is a no-go area for non-muslims ?:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...or-non-muslims


Fox is also reportedly the most trusted news source in the US, according to a poll:-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ot-that-close/.


That's what UK television will become, 20+ hours a day of repeats with made up news and no channel wanting to annoy advertisers for fear of losing their money.

[flearider]

with streaming service's the web and many other places to get news from .. plus the fact the bbc cater for those over 90 . is there much point to it now ?
it's just a place were the goverment can push it's view ..
and more and more are not paying .. i do not watch live tv,don't have a tv ..ect ect
and the amount they pay them selfs ?for what

[neonplanet40]

It should be opt-in only if you use its services. If you do not, then why should you pay for it? I have no interest in the BBC or it's programs. I am more interested in sport which I pay both BT and Sky for. Yet I can't do that without paying my licence fee. Ridiculous.

[Flibb]

I currently have sky, using stacked deals they have paid me £100 to have it for 12 months, its not even worth that. 90% of what we watch is on the BBC mostly science and documentaries, which are far superior to anything on the standard sky channels including Discovery (which costs extra). BBC need to be bale to charge for Iplayer, maybe pay per view, or restrict to full license payers. I would like to see them dump some channels, introduce a purely science / engineering / documentary channel. Not that bothered about sports coverage, bur do feel that any sports receiving large amounts of public money should have full catchup on the BBC.

[peterb]

It should be opt-in only if you use its services. If you do not, then why should you pay for it? I have no interest in the BBC or it's programs. I am more interested in sport which I pay both BT and Sky for. Yet I can't do that without paying my licence fee. Ridiculous.

Would you apply that principle to schools or the NHS? So if you don't have children, you opt out of the tax element that pays for education, or you have a pay-per-use health service?

As a public broadcasting service, the BBC isn't beholden to advertisers to produce popularise programming, but is free to (and is obliged to, by its Charter) to produce minority appeal programming. And is £3/ a week really a lot to pay? Less that a pint of beer!

[OilSheikh]

I stopped paying my TV license from this year. There's nothing to watch on TV and it was a waste of time.
I , too, have resorted to watching only Youtube videos or Netflix