TV Licensing

Why is it with this forum that any posts that mention being against the TV Licence are deleted?

(Fully expecting this one to go as well.)

Really? Try here for starters.

This thread has some discussion too.

Well said, Mr Turtle!

You can accuse lots of people of lots of things, but that first post in this thread REALLY IS inaccurate.

A Proposal on the License Fee:

Hold a referendum to decide whether or not to abolish the license fee or retain it, with the knowledge that if the license fee is abolished then the BBC would be dismantled, its equipment disposed of, and its property sold off, with all proceeds going into the Exchequer to pay for better schools and hospitals.

Would a majority vote in favor?

Somehow I think not.

I'm not sure if you've contradicted your own argument there; to vote in favour would mean to vote for the abolition of the license fee, sale of BBC assets and proceeds going to schools and hospitals. In your little scenario there, surely most people would vote in favour.

If the argument were presented like that, where a 'crunch' decision is required to elect which is more important - entertainment or schools and hospitals - then surely most people would have to side with the latter. But this is quite obviously a misrepresentation of the situation. If the license fee were to be abolished, it wouldn't be redirected to other causes, it would simply be a termination of a charge. As for the sale of BBC assets, the Corporation would first to have to satisfy any debts or liabilities. This would include penalties for premature termination of contracts, as well as any amounts owed on long-term payment, redundancy payments, and the many other costs associated with corporate dissolution. The sale of BBC assets would generate significant, but not astronomical, amounts of money, and once any debts and liabilities had been satisfied, the total amount remaining - to go to the schools and hospitals as promised - would be relatively small.

For the layman, it is easy to think "let's get rid of the BBC and plough all those billions into something worthwhile". But without the income of the license fee, the BBC itself is worth much less, and what would be left after the removal of the license fee, and the subsequent satisfaction of debts and liabilities, would be a paltry amount which would barely make any kind of impact on the schools and hospitals such as your scenario would promise.

That's such a lazy idea; put all the money into schools and hospitals..... yawn yawn yawn. Such a predictable knee-jerk thing to say.

It's an argument that you hear said about all sorts of things - the lottery, art, footballer players, space. But the sad truth is that you could chuck all the money the country has at the NHS and it still wouldn't be enough, it's just a huge money sponge.

A society does not survive just on schools and hospitals!

I wouldn't, and I'm sure many others wouldn't, mind paying the fee if 1)it didn't keep increasing, & 2) They invested in some decent programs!

I've just realised that it is only the news I watch now on the BBC, and when I'm in Kilroy - for this amount of programming, the Licence is just not worth it.

In the paper a couple of months ago, it reported how repeats had doubled in number over the last 10 years.

Ho-hum . We've had this silly argument so often , take away the BBC and you take away the only thing keeping the commercial channels off rock bottom. How much do you @rse holes pay sky every year ?
Have you seen Yank tv in all it's glory ? Don't forget , the bits we see are the cream of their output.
The BBC is recognised worldwide for the quality of it's output - something guaranteed to get up Murdoch's nose. What is sky renowned for ? - milking you dopey sods that's what .

Well i'm afraid i'd have to disagree with you their. What we get is nowhere near as good as the stuff the "Yanks" get. It's 1000x better than the stuff the BEEB put out.

I hope that someday the License get's scraped. That might make the BEEB create better stuff.

I personaly don't watch BBC channels. Too formal. Give me SKY anyday!

I'm anti licence fee myself, but b**locksy nothing statements like this really don't help the case.

We DO get the cream of American TV. American TV might have excellent prime time programming, but outside of that it's all either trash or repeated to death older episodes of primetime programming. And the way it's presented - 4 or 5 commercial breaks in a programme like Driends (including a break immediately after the titles) is awful.

And what's this about BBC channels being 'too formal'? BBC1, formal? That'll be the day.

And why is scrapping the licence fee immediately going to make the BBC create better stuff? If it happens (and the window for doing it has now closed) it must be a very meticulously planned and carefully implemented process.

I'd LOVE a good anti licence fee argument because I don't believe that television should ever have been funded this way, but you haven't thought this through at all.

I'm surprised that people think that the referendum would pass.

I would have thought that most people would have thought that keeping their 5 national + 2 childrens BBC tv networks plus their 8 national radio networks plus their local or national radio station would have been to good to throwaway even if it meant a one time, and one time only, cash influx into schools and hospitals.

After all, do not most members of the proletariat have a favorite show on BBC-1 (eg Eastenders) which they would not want to lose?

You don't need to tell us you watch sky - we can tell by your bloody spelling, you probably read the sun as well - sorry , I mean look at the pictures.