It's not even 24 hours since the announcement was made and the debate about the decision is already doing my head in. I wish the people who're criticizing the decision would explain how much of the BBC
they would cut
in order to fund the reportedly £745 million it would have cost the broadcaster (seeing
they're now funding the free licences
Pension Credit recipients will get, not the government) to keep giving free TV licences to everyone above 75.
It seems like the tabloid newspapers and people criticizing the decision (for some crazy reason) think providing free licences wouldn't cost the BBC anything when if they spent 10 minutes actually reading the documentation about the decision (like I did), they would have realized that:
Quote:
The new scheme will cost the BBC around £250 million a year depending on take-up.
Had the BBC copied the Government’s scheme, the extra costs on top of around £500m would have meant unprecedented closures. In practice, we expect this would mean the closures of BBC Two, BBC Four, the BBC News Channel, the BBC Scotland channel, Radio 5live, and a number of local radio stations, as well as other cuts and reductions.
Sorry for the rant but seeing the uninformed debate has really frustrated me - especially because the BBC were between a 'rock and a hard place' in that they would have been crucified for whatever decision they made