Thank God For The BBC and The Licence Fee.

[Drago]

The NHS is different.

It exists for the collective good. Even if you are healthy today you may be hit by a meteorite tomorrow and need it in a hurry. Even if that never happens you benefit by your family, the shopkeepers that serve you, the dustmen that empty your bins, being fit and healthy.

The BBC is entertainment. One can reasonably expect to go through life without needing it, and before its inception every single person quite happily did so. Even if one requires similar entertainment there are alternatives available at eigher moderate or no cost, increasingly often superior quality- that is not true of the NHS.

Schools, roads, the military, refuse collection, NHS, streetlamps, the Feds, these are all things we will all use directly, or benefit from indirectly. For regular people of normal means there is no alternative to these - that is not the case of the Beeb, where it is neither essential, universally used, or devoid of reasonably accessible alternatives.

I'd rather pay a licence fee than boost the profits of Murdoch and his ilk.

20th Century Fox have owned Sky for 3 years. You have zero change of him or his kind benefiting from your custom.

Even when he did own it Murdoch did not waste the subs on mandatory lessons about White Privilege for its staff (that as far as I go on that one, mentioned only to demonstrate the Beebs profligacy with the manadatory licence fee rather than start a political discussion). Being wasteful is fine when your customers have a choice whether to pay for your services or not, but not when they are forced to do so.

 

[matticus]

- I'd rather pay a licence fee than boost the profits of Murdoch and his ilk.

20th Century Fox have owned Sky for 3 years. You have zero change of him or his kind benefiting from your custom.

It still feels dirty.

 

[a.twiddler]

Fox! That says it all really.

 

[captain nemo1701]

The NHS is different.

It exists for the collective good. Even if you are healthy today you may be hit by a meteorite tomorrow and need it in a hurry. Even if that never happens you benefit by your family, the shopkeepers that serve you, the dustmen that empty your bins, being fit and healthy.

The BBC is entertainment. One can reasonably expect to go through life without needing it, and before its inception every single person quite happily did so. Even if one requires similar entertainment there are alternatives available at eigher moderate or no cost, increasingly often superior quality- that is not true of the NHS.

Schools, roads, the military, refuse collection, NHS, streetlamps, the Feds, these are all things we will all use directly, or benefit from indirectly. For regular people of normal means there is no alternative to these - that is not the case of the Beeb, where it is neither essential, universally used, or devoid of reasonably accessible alternatives.


20th Century Fox have owned Sky for 3 years. You have zero change of him or his kind benefiting from your custom.

Even when he did own it Murdoch did not waste the subs on mandatory lessons about White Privilege for its staff (that as far as I go on that one, mentioned only to demonstrate the Beebs profligacy with the manadatory licence fee rather than start a political discussion). Being wasteful is fine when your customers have a choice whether to pay for your services or not, but not when they are forced to do so.

He owns Fox news and wants to start the UK version 'talkTV (aka Talk right wing shite) now that 'impartial' GB News is Farage TV. It's not just about SKY.

 

[matticus]

The BBC is entertainment. One can reasonably expect to go through life without needing it, and before its inception every single person quite happily did so. Even if one requires similar entertainment there are alternatives available at eigher moderate or no cost, increasingly often superior quality- that is not true of the NHS.

Yup - it's just entertainment. And you can choose not to pay for it - as you have shown by your own choice! So I can't see a problem there.


The more general point I was alluding to is that these things are always too complicated to easily separate out. There is always some kind of bodged compromise solution. Healthcare? Well I'm still paying for me teef, and I don't get a rebate when I pay for physio treatment. And don't start me on the smokers!!!

In the case of TV/radio, the compromise we have is The licence fee; even the moaners can listen to the radio, and sites like this link to their news/sport website on a daily basis - so everyone wins to some extent.

You can pick holes in it [I only listen to SmoooothFM and watch Chuck Norris movies on Men and Motors*!], but it works pretty well as a compromise. The perfect free market model would be a lot worse, taken as a whole.

*Is that still going? Anyone else remember it??

 

[Badger_Boom]

Whenever I see this phrase wielded in an attempt to persuade people, I think of the vehicles on our roads. Very very many of them still look a lot like this:
View attachment 610350

p.s. why do I have to pay tax to fund the NHS, yet 99% of my medical care is at physios I have to pay for myself? Hmmm? Answer me that!

I'm sure that the balance will change over time.

 

[matticus]

I'm sure that the balance will change over time.

Have you seen the way I descend? I plan to go at 75mph; even posting me home will be cheap.

 

[Chislenko]

You can pick holes in it [I only listen to SmoooothFM and watch Chuck Norris movies on Men and Motors*!], but it works pretty well as a compromise. The perfect free market model would be a lot worse, taken as a whole.

*Is that still going? Anyone else remember it??

I'm quite surprised Chuck wasn't brought in to sort out Covid, he sorted everything else out almost single handily!

 

[Salty seadog]

You know Saline Canine, even when we disagree you talk sense and reason, and I like that. Not enough folk like thee around.

I have to say though, you may well like it, and all power to you. But ive gone right off it, and plenty of others don't like it, and theres a growing resentment at being made to pay for a non-essential service we dont like or use. There are all sorts of other reasons too but they go off into the realms of the political so won't go there.

If you want to pay for it then all power to your wallet. However, i don't and no not intend to continue doing so.

Sadly for the corporation, there are many like me and licence sales continue to fall. How, long can they survive with decreasing income? How long before Capita are instructed to get really nasty about it?

I love you too you lump.

The independence of auntie is its treasure. Trouble is as with all public bodies at present Boris is trying to skew that with sympathetic appointments. Tim Davie at the helm now. Paul Dacre is Boris' preferred candidate for head of Ofcom. Dacre was unsuccessful in his interviews for the job due to his lack of impartiality. So boris wants to rerun the process and hopes to get a less independent interview panel.

Gone on a bit of a tangent with that but the Beeb is there for us all and we should be glad. I'm not in favour of politicaly provided news.

I don't use the BBC for entertainment, I use it more for information and it does that well and in spades.
Saturday on radio 4 is about as varied and informative as it gets.

 

[Milkfloat]

I don't mind paying for the BBC output, I would do it given free will. It does however grate that I am being forced to have a BBC licence to watch output by any other company offering live TV. I see this like being forced to pay for a Tesco subscription to be able to shop in Sainsbury, Lidl and Morrisons. Over the next 10 years or so the BBC will have to start charging n for iPlayer content, drop a lot of terrestrial programming and perhaps drop the licence fee completely and make up the shortfall via general taxation. I am sure these changes will not be popular but technology moving on and a need for a national broadcaster means something has to change.

 

[PaulB]

I cannot remember now but I think the Adventure Show is on very infrequently and is only one aspect of life here. They did do a cyclocross here once a few years ago and Dougie Vipond did get on a bike and did the course so he really is a bit mad.

Some great events been shown on that one but it seems to have dried up this last eighteen months. For some reason????

Very generous. That means 5 of us can duck out and the corporation won't suffer.

No, I know your address!!!

 

[Rusty Nails]

I suspect that the days of the TV licence are numbered as the world has changed since the days of Reith.

Now people must have unlimited choice, even though that unlimited choice is just more of the same packaged differently, and there is a whole lot of dross in that unlimited choice before you find the good stuff. It is definitely a case of quantity over quality.

I find myself watching less and less TV, predominantly BBC because of the poor quality of most of the stuff on commercial TV and the adverts, and never watch daytime TV other than occasional live sport. If I do want to watch something on commercial TV I record it and watch it fast forwarding the adverts. Catch up TV on these channels is just as bad because you cannot FF the adverts and there's only so many cups of tea I can make in a night.

I have free Netflix as a guest on my son's account but I probably watch less than an hour of it a week as most of it is same-old, same-old US series and I have long got bored with action, romantic and sci-fi/post-apocalypse/fantasy films or anything that relies on CGI. Won't pay for Sky for the same reasons. There are some good films but tbh I usually prefer reading the book.

The way of the world is that everyone can find political bias if they are determined to, no matter what their political leanings, and I believe that if the BBC has to change too much in the search for income as a commercial channel then its standards and the standards of its commercial competitors will be dragged down towards the lowest common denominator.

 

[matticus]

57 Channels and Nothin On

Written in 1992, when 57 channels seemed a lot - but the sentiment is very current.

 

[Badger_Boom]

57 Channels and Nothin On

Written in 1992, when 57 channels seemed a lot - but the sentiment is very current.

That’s inflation for you. Back in 1979 Roger Waters only had “thirteen channels of shoot on the T.V. to choose from”.

 

[Mike_P]

On the sheer extent of repetitive repeats clogging up digital channels I do wonder what there running costs are and just how much £££ are being made by both selling advertising space and making viewers pay to watch when the former is all ITV C4 and C5 survive on.