Looking forward to the BBC giving this as much publicity as the OTHER petitions that so excite it!
MPs are set to debate whether to abolish the TV licence fee, used to subsidise the BBC, after a petition calling for it to be axed passed the 100,000 signatures mark. The petition calls for the mandatory fee of £145.50 per household per year to be ditched, arguing that it is too expensive. By law, every household capable of viewing live content must pay the TV licence, used to subsidise the state broadcaster, whether they access BBC content or not. Failure to pay is a criminal offence.
But even if the idea gains support among MPs during the debate, scheduled to take place on 8 May, fee payers are unlikely to be let off the hook for at least another decade as the state broadcaster’s charter, which sets the terms for the fee for a ten-yearly basis, has only just been renewed.
The BBC’s “unique funding” is a 21st century anachronism. Let is go on a subscription basis and let this wicked License Tax end.
I’m very much in two minds about this. I totally agree with scrapping the licence fee as those who don’t want to be subjected to vile, alt-left lies and distortions still have to pay the TV Poll Tax.
However, it would be totally wrong to subsidise the buggers, by even a penny, from general taxation as those who don’t even have a TV set would be paying as well. The only acceptable model is that the BBC charge subscription, for those who want to be brainwashed to pay it all.
If they can’t do anything that people want to watch then let them go to the wall. I would celebrate that day even though I used to be a fan when they were a decent, creditable organisation.
Dad’s Army, Morecambe and Wise and some very good un-propagandised documentaries used to make the BBC a worthy organisation. But then the evil ones took it over and now it gets worse, year by year, month by month. It is now a shameful disgrace.
The licence fee should remain, but be made voluntary and a ‘suggested amount’.
If you believe, as the BBC does, that it is a world-class broadcaster, then by all means donate whatever you can afford, up to the suggested amount. The BBC would become a sort of Oxfam of the airwaves.
If, somehow, this causes BBC revenue to drop, they could start by cutting the salaries of some of those nimrods who are paid a quarter of a million pounds for a job that would be overpriced at 30 shillings a week.
Fair enough Rick, cut middle-management salaries by all means, but what about all the brass on double what you quote?
The funding model simply must change.
My favoured option is the subscription model, whereby people opt to pay for what they want to watch with some aspects free for all.
If the BBC are as good as they seem to think they are then they shouldn’t have a problem with this, but as we all know, the one size fits all concept never works.
Ultimately, the subscription model would probably end up with an improved quality of output although lets be fair, it couldn’t be worse.
“Some aspects free for all” doesn’t inspire confidence if the free stuff is the very biased and fake news we are all so up in arms about.
I still wait to find out just how much Attenborugh’s annual salary is, plus: 5 star hotels/flights for him and his massive crew. Not to mention how much his bank account benefits from his BBC CDs/BBC Books?
I suspect that if Attenborough left the BBC to go over to SKY etc the rest of the BBC viewing would collapse and “shake the dust off their feet”
Agreed. if I were a student of politics from overseas I would be wondering on which TV channels the Middle of the road and Conservative British broadcasters were broadcasting. The BBC is now providing opinionated biased news service that will surely become even more obvious as it is seen to undermine the will of the British people to leave the EU. As for programming I would be happier paying for this on subscription or Pay per view. So break it down into ‘News and Current affairs’ and Entertainment etc and put these on notice of subscription. That like any other company providing a service to its customers, should quickly sort them out.
David,
The BBC will trumpet it when the motion is defeated. You can be sure of that !
MPs from both sides will praise the BBC who will be carefully monitoring them in case they betray Big Brother.
It would be fun if just one MP suggested to the others that as they believe the BBC is so good, and as they are so sure that their constituents agree, then the switch from compulsory licence to subscription would greatly benefit the BBC.
Just one MP it would take to cut through the BS.
GWF,
Dream on !
Lord Hall would love to see the TV licence scrapped, he has other ideas for funding the indoctrination. Same model as used in Germany et al.
From 2014
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10746109/BBC-wants-you-to-pay-TV-licence-fee-even-if-you-dont-own-a-set-as-shows-go-on-iPlayer-for-longer.html
This is the bullshit I received a fortnight ago after signing this petition. Interesting comment regarding “conditional access”!
“Dear ToobiWan,
The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Abolish the tv licence, it shouldn’t be a legal requirement.”.
Government responded:
A licence is required in order to watch all live or nearly-live television content on any device in the UK or to stream or download any programmes in an on-demand programme service provided by the BBC
The BBC Charter Review, which commenced in 2015, was one of the biggest consultation exercises the government has undertaken. We listened to views of the public and industry (including 192,000 consultation responses), set out detailed policy proposals in the White Paper in May 2016, and worked closely and collaboratively with the BBC and Ofcom to negotiate the new Charter and Framework Agreement.
Throughout the Charter Review, the Government considered the question of funding the BBC’s services, and decided that the licence fee system will be maintained for the coming Charter period.
In maintaining the licence fee model, the government is clear that the licence fee remains a licence to watch or receive television programmes, and is not a fee for BBC services – although licence fee revenue is used to fund the BBC and other public service objectives.
While no system of funding meets all the criteria of an ideal funding system, the current system provides the BBC with a sustainable core income paid by all households who watch or receive television, and it commands wider public support than any alternative model. As stated above, revenue from the TV licence fee is also used to fund other services such as Welsh broadcaster S4C and infrastructure projects such as the delivery of superfast broadband.
In line with the recommendations of the TV Licence Fee Enforcement Review, while the current licence fee collection system is in operation, the current system of criminal deterrence and prosecution should be maintained. Whilst the government agrees with the review’s assessment that decriminalisation is not possible under the current system, we believe that it would be preferable in the long term to make changes which reduce the necessity of the criminal sanction, such as exploring the options for conditional access.
The TV licence fee has been frozen since 2010, and the government has agreed to increase the fee in line with inflation for the next five years However, the government also intends to help those on lower incomes by making the licence fee easier to pay through proposals to provide more flexible payment plans.
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Click this link to view the response online:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/170931?reveal_response=yes
This petition has over 100,000 signatures. The Petitions Committee will consider it for a debate. They can also gather further evidence and press the government for action.
The Committee is made up of 11 MPs, from political parties in government and in opposition. It is entirely independent of the Government. Find out more about the Committee: “
ToobiWan
“…….As stated above, revenue from the TV licence fee is also used to fund other services such as Welsh broadcaster S4C and infrastructure projects such as the delivery of superfast broadband.”
It would be interesting to see the viewing figures of S4c? It would be my bet that very few people watch it and by that, I include Welsh speakers. Broadband is poor in the West.
The TV Licence ? Scrap-it!
I once read that SC4 was inflicted on the good people of the Principality as some kind of punishment, Taffy, not sure what they had done to deserve it though. Any ideas?
ToobiWan
Al Beeb foisted on us when Wales beat England 21-19, in 1981 . 😉
I prefer the games of 2003, 4 and 10 Taff 🙂
I used to go to my sister in laws near Mold (Loggerheads) and upset the natives.
A poor excuse but then what do we expect these days. I find their statement about full consultations highly suspect. The BBC do not obey the Royal Charter they are said to have. They are never impartial, not on the EU, the climate change scam, the US elections and so on. Why is this being completely being ignored, ignorance or stupidity or collusion?
Is it £145.50?
Good grief, it was a lot cheaper when I told the bloke on the phone to f**k off.
David, Alan, are you planning anything to influence the content of the debate; sending each MP a list of reasons to abolish the TV tax, for instance?
Great little story about Facebook reprting the BBC to the police for sending back their own-pasted facebook images of child porn.
Facebook requested that the BBC send the alleged porn to them-then dobbed the BBC in for sending child porn through public sites!
Brilliant. Yet I hear Tory MPs and the Daily Mail disapproving of this. “Unfair” they say.
Bunch of cucks-anything to get rid of the BBC FFS!
Hopeless Tories and daily Mail twerps-you`ve got to want it to win it you morons-we want the BBC gone.
Then vote UKIP
I struggle with the logic of these ‘image’ laws.
First, as a senior police officer tried to say recently, looking at images has got to be far, far better than abusing children. There is a weak agument that viewing provides a market but as with all mass media it is a case of make it once and view it many, assuming that the image is real anyway.
Second, it is a strange crime where the police etc. must commit the same crime as the ‘criminal’ in order to get evidence. Can one register as incorruptible to view this stuff?
Third, I presume, (hope?), that one would need to be in possession of many images to be prosecuted. Browsers are very good at caching content that ‘might’ be linked to. (Not quite the same but years ago I had an emergency mobile dongle to get email if my line connection was down. I gave up using it because my few ‘k’ of email got swamped by the megabytes of images that Vodaphone thought I would view next, thereby burning up the credit on the account).
Logic and the law can be strange bedfellows indeed. But for the images even to exist a very serious crime against a child has already taken place, (if the image is real) viewers are no better than doers and should be charged similarly and as an accessory after the fact.
Now is the time to get in touch with your MP to ask the following:
Will you be taking part in debating the petition: “Abolish the TV licence, it shouldn’t be a legal requirement.”
If you are taking part then do any of the following apply to you.
1. Does the BBC hold any information on you that could be damaging to your reputation if made public.
2. Do you think that the BBC may hold information on you that could be damaging to your reputation if made public.
3. Have the BBC ever approached you and suggested that they possess information that could be damaging to your reputation.
4. If the BBC did hold damaging information on you, would you succumb to their blackmail.
If the answer to the four questions is NO then will you be raising the following points in the debate:
1. TV services across the world are provided through subscription or pay per view giving the consumer the choice of what they wish to view. Why should the BBC not follow the rest of the world instead of relying on a hypothecated television tax euphemistically referred to as the ‘licence fee’
2. Non-payment of other services and utilities are dealt with through the civil courts. As the BBC provide a service why does non-payment of the Television Tax result in a criminal court appearance as opposed to civil court
3. 10% of all criminal cases heard in the lower courts are for non-payment of the Television Tax causing immense strain on the legal process and resulting in the stigmatisation and criminalisation of those who are predominately the elderly, the sick, the unemployed, the poor and the single mothers.
4. The existence of the hypothecated television tax does nothing to promote efficiency and good management in the BBC and instead has fostered a bloated organisation which has grossly distorted the market rate across the entire spectrum of television broadcasting and journalism and encouraged the payment of obscene salaries and expenses.
5. The BBC is perpetually announcing that it is the ‘envy of the world’ and that their polls show that the public think they are value for money. If that is so then they would have no problem in raising the required revenue through subscription or ad hoc pay-per-view.
If you are content to continue with the status quo then you are content to continue with the hounding of the demographic group mentioned above to fund a broadcaster which many people have no wish to watch and who view much of its output as crude, offensive, biased or irrelevant.
If as a public servant you are not taking part in the debate then why not?
Biased-BBC commentators please feel free to comment, add, subtract, suggest or critique the above.
TPO,
Top post ! May I have your permission to plagiarise it and send it to my MP ?
I don’t see any reference to Left-wing bias but, on reflection, maybe better to leave politics out of it. My MP is Left-wing SNP !
Please do. It’s there for all to use it if they want.
TPO,
Thanks !
The SNP are phoney b@stards.
Anti sectarianism is only important to them in their defence of the IRA and radical Islam.
Anti semitism is perfectly acceptable.
Brilliant, I shall be using this to bother my SNP drone. Still waiting for her to answer my previous question; “If the Scottish ‘Government’ brought in anti-sectarian laws to stop football fans singing ‘offensive’ songs, why are they so intent in importing a sectarian religion that will make the Old Firm look like Laurel and Hardy?”
Excellent post TPO.
Here is extract I got from IFA on budget report:
“Off-payroll working in the public
sector
Legislation will reform the off-payroll
rules and improve tax and NIC compliance
in the public sector. Responsibility for
operating the off-payroll working rules and
deducting any tax and NIC due will move
to the public sector body, agency or other
third party paying an individual’s personal
service company. The change will come into
effect from 6 April 2017. It will be optional for
the public body to take account of the worker’s
expenses when calculating the tax due.”
Is this the end of paying Beeboid “talent” Divas huge sums by the use of service companies ?
I signed that same BBC petition ‘Abolish the tv licence, it shouldn’t be a legal requirement’. I am quietly hopeful that this is something that parliament MP’s cannot keep ignoring (there have been many before) to end the TV license. As this currently has 109,234 signatures so it has to be debated (as do all petitions over 100,000) and the BBC are this time (perhaps) unprepared as they have been on the attack over BREXIT and some MP’s must be questioning if we need a pro EU public utilty quango that constantly ignores the will of the people. Many MP’s still think the BBC are ‘in the public interest’ when that has long ceased to be the case. Michale Gove was right when he stated that the BBC was ’empire building’ reinforcing a public monopoly guided by the left mindset. Lord Hall, has apologised publically that the techniques used by CIVITAS its tax collector were widely reported (front page on the Daily Mail) last week. The BBC will feel vulnerable as it has exposed itself as a backroom heckler of EU matters, been thrown out of Trump’s whitehouse briefings (as an unreliable news reporter) and has proved to be wrong and contradictory to the facts reported in the (more news reliable) national free Press. In short MP’s need to ask if the BBC would be better off with a lot less money and demand that the revenue that the BBC gets for sponsoring endless EU propaganda should be counted as Treason when we leave the EU. The BBC should expect a fine and a caution.
And then the BBC fines and cautions the most unable to pay using CIVITAS, and avoids all those that won’t pay (the same group that never pays anything are avoided if their names are now famous in Rotherham). So much easier to squeeze the rich polite English. The BBC hate the English and Woman most of all who are not BBC ‘feminists’.
https://endbbclicencefee.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/tv-licence-statistics-2015-the-complete-uk-file/
It will be interesting to see whether the debate takes place as well as how much coverage the Main Stream Media give it. MSM is pretty incestuous so most won’t want Albeeb threatened – add to this the job prospects of labour MPs likely to lose their seats at the next election – the Beeb seems to be a bit of a lefty rest home for ex politicians.
If the debate takes place I’m betting the chamber will be empty and there will be someone from the Beeb with a black book for those trying to save us from the wasted £146 we have to pay. Note in diary for 8 May…. sad it isn’t 23 June…
Philip,
It is Capita not Civitas !
Could we not have an honesty box attached to every telly in the country so you could give what you wanted?
Radiohead seem to be liked by the BBC for this financial model-surely the BBC would be pleased for us to have a “payment by results” type of scheme-I myself don`t think we pay Graham Norton or Justin Webb nearly enough, and this would be a good way of my registering my love and approval for the BBCs vast array of talent on offer.
Alicia,
It has always puzzled me why entertainment has to be paid for in advance. TV, Sport, Concerts, Cinema etc. If it turns out to be crap , you don’t get your money back.
Alicia – I think that’s the first time I have ever seen “BBC” and “honesty” in the same paragraph.
Alicia
When you say, ‘ give what you wanted’ , I assume that you mean money. If so it might be better on this site to specify you meant giving money only. Otherwise the good denizens of Biased BBC may send the BBC all manner of packages containing God knows what. One thing is certain , the BBC employees in the mail room would need copious amounts of hand sanitiser and face masks. I would ask all who do generously donate to the BBC to make it abundantly clear that the lowly paid employees in the mail room are not the target for our thoughtful gifts, it’s the scum bags who run the rotten outfit that we rage against.
“By law, every household capable of viewing live content must pay the TV licence”
This is simply not true
you only need a TV Licence to view or record live TV broadcasts.
http://www.licencefree.co.uk/
The Conservatives cravenly gave in when they decided to renew the BBC charter without tackling political bias , declining quality of much programme output and the inappropriate funding model . The Government response to the petition , quoted above , was spineless and in one place regarding funding, contradictory . Shameful !
I can’t see how the licence fee system can survive for 10 years without increasing adverse reaction from the public.
I object to paying to receive TV and radio broadcasts in the UK, since this includes all broadcasts including those from independent broadcaster who paradoxically do not receive any subsidy from the licence fee as they are funded through advertising.
I have yet to see any in depth criticism of the EU perhaps that is due to the small but significant funding the BBC received from the EU.
The BBC tends to take sides in political debates, it offers no condemnation of the racist comments of prominent Labour politicians who direct their racism against white men of a certain age, blaming them for all the perceived ills that befall the ethnic groups in metropolitan areas of the UK,