Scrap the BBC License Fee

I think you mean regressive tax - calling it a progressive tax rather implies that you are all in favour of it.

The first case sits somewhere on the impossible side of unlikely.

Any household where one of the occupants is over seventy years of age is exempt from paying for a licence.

I know, I've only got a few more to pay for.

Also the majority of that 33p goes on BBC1 so you're not doing that bad out ot if.

Ah, the annual moan about the TV licence! And my speech this year...

Mr. Smith at number 32 (OK that was made up but the following applies to a lot of people) works long hours for very little, so every penny counts. He has no interest in television, he reads newspapers and doesn't have a PC. He is allowed a little fun however, he loves his PlayStation and likes to play computer games as much as he can. He wants to have the freedom to play his games and watch DVDs without having to pay the BBC for channels and services he is not using, and has no intentions of using. He lives a pain-free life without the BBC, but quite an uncomfortable one with the licence fee.

I would imagine a lot of people to be like our Mr. Smith, they all want to be able to use their television sets for games, videos, DVDs or Sky (minus the BBC channels) without paying the BBC for something they're not using. The more channels and services the BBC launch, the higher the licence goes. They care very little about how cheap it is if you look at what you get because they're simply not interested, yet they respect the fact that the BBC needs the licence fee to survive.

Even Mr Smith's analogue neighbour is paying for digital TV channels, digital radio stations, and a website he knows nothing about!

So what options do they have? Pay the licence fee, or get a new hobby. They can't even pay a reduced fee, there are no other options. IMO that is wrong and it needs to change.

Me? Well the licence is split (as with most things) between the people that live here. I pay it because I watch BBC One once or twice a week, I still find it unfair that if I was living alone I'd have to pay the full fee, which is used to pay for ALL the BBC channels and services, just to watch that one channel for about 2 hours a week.

I'm certainly not saying the fee should be scrapped altogether, but something should be done to give people more choice. Perhaps a reduced fee for those that don't have the internet, Freeview or digital TVs, I'm crap at maths but wouldn't that make non-digital people about £16 a year better off? Mr. Smith could get a new computer game for that!

You may all wake up now.

how about ... mr prod, he likes kellogs cornflakes, cadbury dairy milk, shops at asda, pays his gas and electricity bills, likes to read his daily mail (i could go on) however, he doesnt watch anything on itv.

or mrs gaybody, she doesnt even own a tv, and yet she likes her pot noodles

and yet BOTH of them are forced to pay for itv, simply because they enjoy the products/services produced by some companies who purchase advertising

i think that is EVEN MORE unfair than the licence fee.

The problem with commercial TV deserves it's own thread, and probably it's own forum. But this is more about the licence fee. I'm not as against the fee as I use to be, but I'm sure a lot of people would welcome more options, that's pretty much all my long-winded post was saying

Mrs Gaybody sounds fab by the way.

but it seems pointless to say "i dont like the licence fee because of x,y and z", unless you can suggest an alternative.

and yes, i see alot of myself in mrs gaybody.

I didn't say I didn't like it or at least I didn't mean to give that impression, I just tried to explain why it seems unfair to a lot of people. It is unlikely that anyone here is going to offer an alternative to the fee, we're just all expressing our views on the subject. I think it would be difficult for anyone to come up with a fair alternative that can be implemented causing as little fuss, disagreement and confusion as possible.

But what I did suggest was maybe a new option for those without digital TV and the internet. Of course that's a little late for some parts of the country where the analogue switch-off has already begun, but the switch-off will take some time yet for other parts of the country where people - especially poorer people - who don't have digital TVs or the internet, could benefit from a reduced fee.

Which is precisely why my favoured route is the one I mentioned earlier. But the naivety of wanting BBC1 to carry ads amazes me.

I think the BBC should keep the licence fee, otherwise BBC One will end up like BBC Prime, strange though when you watch BBC Prime, you'd never know you are watching a commercial channel, there's more trailers on BBC One!

Not really, Mrs Gaybody is still exercising an element of choice. It's up to her, she chooses whether or not to buy the Pot Noodle and fund commercial broadcasters or not. Nobody is holding a gun to Mrs Gaybody's head and telling her she must buy 183 pot noodles (I've done the maths) before watching ITV.

Either way, she still gets to watch commercial television (that is of course if she's payed her licence fee first).

Pass on my regards to Mrs Gaybody anyway, I take it she has the pot noodle horn ?

it would be very difficult live in this country without inadvertently funding commercial television. everyone pays tax, and the government spend a huge amount of money telling us they are catching benefit cheats, telling pensioners about direct payment, telling us to eat healthily, foreign office travel advice etc etc.

its also worth remembering that in an age where multinational companies are wielding ever more power in society, that the unique way the bbc is funded shields the corporation from commercial pressure. in theory it should also be immune from political pressure; but recent events might cast doubt on that assertion.