No TV licence - anyone else?

[Alex321]

And @Accy cyclist has made various postings referring to BBC radio which needs still a licence if not the TV one. Re Netflix etc you needs a subscription to login. The BBC TV services are on free to air transmissions so they have to have some way of enforcing payment. Obvious solution would to make them no longer FTA and require a login.

Radio reception has not needed a license for many years now. Not sure whether only since the 2003 Act, or whether it was before that.

 

[Drago]

You can even listen to BBC sounds without a licence, although I can't think why anyone would want to.

 

[AndyRM]

Since living alone for approaching 7 years I haven't bought a tv license. I only use the BBC now for watching Match Of The Day on i player, on my laptop. I refuse to pay towards such as Hew Edwards 500 grand a year never ending sick pay and Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff's 7 million quid payout for a few cuts and bruises. 🧐

A few cuts and bruises? The guy had his face totally re-arranged and has permanent nerve damage.

In any case, the payout for Flintoff came from BBC Studios, a commercial enterprise which doesn't get any money from the License Fee.

 

[tyred]

I wonder if there anyone who still uses a black and white set.

Snooker was much more fun back then.

 

[fossyant]

Crims the lot of ya.

 

[oldwheels]

I'm always amazed how people can cope without a telly.

I watched constantly from 4pm to 10pm last night. Maybe living on my own it's company I suppose, but I enjoy it.

What did people do before telly was common?
I can remember life before telly but no idea what we did. Read books a lot in my case I think or went out cycling.
Initially it does seem a bit odd without the background noise but I now find it irritating when in other houses. Seems quite normal not having the thing taking up space for no useful purpose.
It could get too political as a lot of so called news was government propaganda but I will not pursue that line here.

 

[Mo1959]

What did people do before telly was common?
I can remember life before telly but no idea what we did. Read books a lot in my case I think or went out cycling.
Initially it does seem a bit odd without the background noise but I now find it irritating when in other houses. Seems quite normal not having the thing taking up space for no useful purpose.
It could get too political as a lot of so called news was government propaganda but I will not pursue that line here.

Probably why it's now been several weeks since I watched the news.

My main pleasures are decent dramas, crime and detective stuff, etc. I can't stand all the celebrity guff so avoid that too. Thankfully, I also enjoy reading.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

referring to BBC radio which needs still a licence

Radio only licence was abolished in 1971.

 

[biketrailerguy]

I'm always amazed how people can cope without a telly.

I watched constantly from 4pm to 10pm last night. Maybe living on my own it's company I suppose, but I enjoy it.

I know nothing about how viewing can be organised / programmed these days, because we've never had such options, but I'd assume that for 6hrs of viewing, there's gotta be some input from yourself with the remote?
In which case, there'd be few problems watching (accessing) even that amount of progs on YT . especially if their algo produces new content with lots of back catalogue material.
Certainly works for me, and especially when I find 'my sort of content', allied with superb production values - said creator has got a subscriber.

 

[AndyRM]

What did people do before telly was common?
I can remember life before telly but no idea what we did. Read books a lot in my case I think or went out cycling.
Initially it does seem a bit odd without the background noise but I now find it irritating when in other houses. Seems quite normal not having the thing taking up space for no useful purpose.
It could get too political as a lot of so called news was government propaganda but I will not pursue that line here.

I only watch TV if it's something I actually want to watch. Does my head in when people just have it on in the background. Doesn't help that my hearing is knackered so ambient background noise makes it hard to focus on conversation.

 

[Beebo]

I don't understand why the BBC feel the need to send threatening scare tactic letters and the Capita pseudo Stasi goons round, it's a subscription service, if you don't want to use it you don't pay, Netflix etc don't threaten you to buy their service, the BBC & the government should call it a day with the licence fee, it's full of ad's for their own stuff any way

It quite easy to understand. terrestrial TV is piped to all houses as an open access service, there is no firewall to stop people, unlike Netflix. So the whole thing is taken on trust.
The only way to tell if you arent watching is to check periodically.
Once you lose free to air public service broadcasting you are at the mercy of private sector media and that is a dangerous road to go down. As standards slip and impartiality is lost.

 

[wafter]

Sadly I think the BBC has become just another sorry symptom of the decay in society. It's an institution I want to respect based on past glory days as the nation's trustworthy, steadfast source of news and quality entertainment, however...

Unfortunately it seems it's destroyed it's own reputation through political bias; and while I won't use the term "woke" (as in this context it's just a construct of the far right; appropriated from its original meaning to denigrate anything they don't like) it does seem to have become sickeningly "politcally correct" and sycophantically virtue-signalling. On top of that the quality of the programming seems in a death-spiral, with increasing amounts of dumbed-down, lowest-common-denomenator, mass-culture-pedalling dross.

While it was once the media backbone of a great, largely cohesive society, it now just seems to be yet another tool pushing establishment proaganda, shallow distractions and division.

As such if I ever get to live on my own I'll not be owning a TV or paying the license fee; and if I get a visit from one of the Capita goons they'll be treated with the contempt thier grimey tactics deserve.

 

[Drago]

As standards slip and impartiality is lost.

So much like the BBC then.

 

[Mike_P]

The weird thing is how all parties blame the BBC of bias.

 

[Electric_Andy]

We don't have an aerial plugged in on either of our TVs. We do watch iPlayer though so we pay the license fee. I'm assuming that if one had a firestick/smart TV, you'd have to uninstall all BBC apps to legitimately not pay the license fee? And would they/could they check your phone to see if you had a BBC app installed on there?

We are culling our other TV subscriptions like Paramount and Disney+. AT £5.99/month each (I think) it is an expensive thing to have sat there in the background when we don't really watch them