TV Licensing

Think of it this way. You pay income tax. Everybody pays it, and it gets shared out between loads of different projects. So lets say for example the road leading up to your house has some pot holes in it so dangerous they would break any car that drove over them. Your local council will use tax payers money to fix that road. Now it's more than likely that whatever income tax you pay, the cost of fixing that single small road is substantially more. So somebody else has paid for that road to be fixed. Someone who will probably never set foot on the road in their lives. Now if you had the choice not to pay income tax, would you? Would you then pay for that road to be fixed yourself when the situation arose?

It's a case of the masses paying for something which will benefit everyone and not always themselves. It's a brilliant system and i think the license fee is another brilliant example of that way of thinking.

Lets just say that in a whole year, you watch one episode of Top Gear. Or you watch one BBC News bulletin, or you make use of one page on the BBC website for some research you are doing for a project. Now that specific Top Gear episode probably cost over a million pounds to make. That BBC News bulletin not only had to pay the presenters, it had to pay the transmission controllers, director, reporters, camerapersons, sound engineers, archive researchers, drivers, runners and god knows who else!. The maintenance of that one BBC website page you read has an entire team and god knows how many millions of pounds dedicated to maintaining it. Your license fee for that entire year probably cost a ridiculously small fraction of only one of those persons wages for any of those examples. It's the same philosophy as income tax, and I think it's brilliant. I'm more than glad to pay for it, because not only will it provide hundreds of services that I personally may never use, i know other people will. I also know they're there if i need them. Which i do, a lot!

Now ask yourself if the license fee is worth it? You can't sit down and tell me, especially being on a forum like this, that you don't watch at least one TV programme put out by the BBC a year. If you do, you have no right to complain about paying the license fee.

TEST CARD CHRIS (that style of username is dangerous), you are clearly not very good at debating.

You make a statement, which is wrong, and cannot provide any evidence to support it. We provide evidence (two pieces, in fact!) proving you to be wrong, then you ignore us when we ask you about the issue.

You label us all BBC supporters, when we are simply disagreeing with the various points of your arguments. Frankly, they're illogical. We counter your arguments (a common technique when discussing an issue) and you call us 'old bean' and say you won't go on "debating".

I don't believe that the BBC, with such a wide variety of programming, with all altitudes of brow (low to high), cannot make a single programme which you watch. Perhaps it is not us who are pro-BBC, but you who are anti-BBC, no matter what?

For those reasons, I simply cannot be bothered to "debate" with you any longer.

Back to the original post, thanks for all your help.



Spot on. Regardless of whether or not I want to pay the licence fee, I can't dispute the fact that you get great value for money.

To summarise:

Yes you need a licence.

No, no-one at Uni ever bothers to get one (except me, because I was an idiot).

Although given that my telly had a knackered tuner and I was only using it to drive my Amiga, I would probably have got away with it anyway (the VCR that was providing the telly pictures could have been safely hidden away in the cupboard!).

Free to air means that the broadcast is not encrypted and can be viewed by any reciever.
All of the BBC channels in the UK are free to air. According to your logic, therefore, all of the BBC channels are not covered by the licence fee. Of course, your logic is terrible.

So, Mr. Bean, I think you have been outsmarted by most of this forum, don't you think?

What if you were to have a Television and simply avoid watching BBC One and BBC Two, and watch the rest. Would you be exempted from Licensing then?

I will tell you what i think OLD BEANS

I think that you are a sad littlebunch of no marks that would not dare to set foot outside your own doors and speak to another human being.
I think that you are very very sad ,small people.
Look back over this thread, my comments were just my pov until the cats got clawing.
I WILL NOT LOWER MYSELF TO ARGUE WITH SAD LITTLE PEOPLE
WHO ARE ONLY HAPPY TYPING INSULTS ON A COMPUTER LIKE THE LITTLE CATS THEY ARE.
TRY GOING OUTSIDE ONCE IN A WHILE! ITS NICE OUTSIDE BUT YOU MUST WATCH OUT AS BIG NASTY PEOPLE ARE EVERYWHERE!
REAL LIVE HUMANS!
THE BBC IS NOT WORTH THE CRAZY FEE IT CHARGES, NOT NOW NOT EVER.
THE REASON THEY WILL NEVER GO PPV IS BECAUSE THEY WOULD CLOSE DOWN AS THEY ARE RUBBISH.
AS LONG AS SAD PEOPLE LIKE YOU CLASS IT AS PART OF THE COUNTRY'S MAKE UP THEN THEY WILL CONTINUE TO HAVE A LICENSE TO PUMP OUT THE CHEAP MINDLESS RUBBISH THAT THEY DO TODAY.
I STRUGGLE TO COMPREHEND HOW ANYONE CAN BE AS PRO BBC NOW, ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS LOOK AT THE PROG LISTS.......CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP TV ALL THE WAY
IT IS BECAUSE OF SAD EMPTY PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELVES THAT THE BEEB HAVE LASTED THIS LONG.
I DO NOT KNOW ANYONE WHO (OTHER THAN YOU LOT) THINKS THAT THE BBC PUT OUT STUFF WORTH WATCHING.
I THOROUGHLY BEGRUDGE EVERY PENNY THAT I SPEND ON MY LICENSE, I WANT TO SEE THEM GONE! IN FACT BETTER IF THEY REPLACED IT WITH BBC PROGRAMMES OF DAYS GONE BY OR EVEN TESTCARDS.
I AM SURE YOU WILL ALL WRITE BACK IN YOUR DROVES, BUT I COULD NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT ANY OF YOUR CRAP WORTHLESS OPINIONS AS I KNOW NOT ONE OF YOU WOULD DARE TO SAY IT TO MY FACE.....YES THATS RIGHT NOT ONE OF YOU!

KEEP TYPING OLD BEANS, I ENJOY LOOKING AT THE SAD LITTLE STRAPS YOU GET INTO
YOUR HISSY FITS AMUSE ME

KEEP IT UP GIRLS

THIS MESSAGE REFERS ONLY TO THE LITTLE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TRIED TO MAKE ME LOOK STUPID FOR HAVING MY OWN POV, AND NOT ONE THEY SHARE . AS ANYONE CAN SEE ALTHOUGH OTHERS MAY NOT AGREE WITH MY POINT I WAS NOT THE ONE TO GET THE CLAWS OUT FIRST! SO I DO NOT COUNT THE MANY DEMOCRATIC, GOOD NORMAL AND SENSIBLE PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM IN THE ABOVE POST.

I HAVE NOT USED VERY MANY OF THESE FORUMS, BUT WAS WARNED ABOUT YOU SORT OF PEOPLE THAT SIT READY TO RIP ANYONE APART IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THEM.

VERY SAD...GET A LIFE....GO OUTSIDE.....SEE THE WORLD......GET A JOB!...........WHAT MORE CAN I SAY YOU SAD SAD NO MARKS.

Can you see the irony in your own post TEST CARD CHRIS? You laugh at the members of this forum for having 'hissy fits' and they have no lives etc etc (tired old clichés). Yet the only person in this thread who seems to have had a 'hissy fit' as you put it is you.... Plus your username is TEST CARD CHRIS, i hardly think any 'normal' person such as yourself which you claim to be would even know what a test card is, so quit being a pot and calling the kettle black please!

The only reason i'm responding to your bile like this is because i and others in this thread HAVE made perfectly valid points, but you refuse to respond to them like an adult and instead make posts like the one above. Personally i can hazard a guess you're too young to even own a TV license.

MR. Stabby in the back,

what the hell makes you think that my username is poor, and why would i not know what one is?

Oh, by the way i remember repairing old tv sets when the test cards were still being transmitted and sad small people like you lot were still in institutions...where some would say you should still be.

The cats got clawing long before i ever did, i was only expecting others putting opinions in a polite and decent way. Am i not entitled to an opinion? look at my posts, they were all decent and respectful of others until smart and cocky comments came back at me!

sadly it is probably you lot who are not old enough, just because someone has a different way of looking at a subject to yours, this does not make them the enemy. I was prepared and fully expected a friendly debate, not an argument.
I will not however allow others to behave in this way toward me for having my own pov, even if you hate my opinion you should respect it.
post replys should start...in my opinion.. or i think...or i have found or would it not be better. Not really what i found on my screen in those early posts was it! So yes two can play at that game! do not dish it out if you can not take it back.
I actually wanted a nice online place to chat with people who did and did not agree with my points, not a bunch of snappy little cats.
why not demonstrate that you can have a conversation with a person who has a different pov to your own, without spitting out the pro verbial dummy and insulting them.....check it out, i was not the first to start this childish crap off, its not what i wanted this to become at all!

I work as a club doorman and have to deal with drunken idiots all night, so take it from me, i do not want to deal with sober idiots in my own time,
Agree with me or not.... i am entitled to think and talk about my opinions.

Nobody on this or any other place will ever stop me having my say!
Now that we have all had our say, can we discuss this in a sensible manner or do we carry on like children....Well i will start it off and its up to you how it goes from here on in...........

My opinion is that the BBC is not worth its fee and i would like to see it go PPV and stand on its own two feet. They used to be so good at making high level tv like yes minister and prime minister, but now it all seems like cheap fly on the wall type crap (how much does it cost to send a film crew out with the police?)
OK if BBC 4 is funded by the Lic, that was not one of my points anyway .

THATS MY START its now up to you how we proceed..................Polit and sensible (adult) or catty and stupid (childish)...............................

Just in case of deletion.




My thoughts? LOL.

that's hardly a "polit response" now is it Juggers, and fear not, I saved them both to my Metropol Draft's folder at 3am.

Suffice to say Chris, despite your outrage, you were given a perfectly polite discussion, and were only questioned on your innaccurate statements about BBC4. You were the one who refused to answer any questions and went off in a hissy fit earlier in the thread.

Clearly, what you expected, is for us all to fall in unison and declare the fee to be evil, and how dare they pay for BBC America from our tax money. However when your opinion - and indeed, your statements of fact - were questioned you then started bemoaning about how rude we all were.

Infact, if you cared to look at this thread ( http://www.metropol247.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5081 ) on this forum's sister site, you'd see that we're perfectly capable of reasoned, polite and intellectual discussion on this subject. It's only when people such as you come and bulldoze nonsense as fact in a thread that disputes begin.

????

Of course BBC Four, like BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC News Channel, BBC Parliament, CBBC, CBeebies, Radio 1,2,3,4, 1Xtra, 6Music, Five Live Sports Extra, BBC 7, BBC Asian Network, BBC Local Radio, BBC Interactive, bbc.co.uk etc. are licence fee funded.

Being FTA or FTV (all BBC services are now FTA on both satellite and terrestrial - though in the early days the TV and Five Live/Sports Extra were encrypted FTV on satellite)

The only services that we can receive domestically officially that are not licence fee funded is the BBC World Service Radio service - which is funded directly by Parliament (via the FCO ISTR)

Not sure what makes you think BBC Four is not funded by the licence fee... It is.