Bbc Tv Licence

[richtee]

I have no choice but to pay a fee to the BBC to watch any TV. I can choose if I want to pay to view Sky,Vigin etc, and if I don't choose to pay them, they do not stop me watching all the other channels, so why have the BBC this right? Is it time the BBC were a subscription channel, same as the others above, which I can choose to pay for, and if not, I can still watch all the other free channels?

[Spicerack]

It's better than that, rory.
While Dave might be happy to pay for a UK licence, like everybody else in Southern Ireland, he doesn't.
Ironically, while ranting about people who watch the BBC without a licence, he's probably the only person on the thread that does it.
Good luck to him, I say.

[Mamyalynne]

You won't get free TV if they scrap the Licence fee - I bet the subscription would be a whole lot more than the current fee to watch many channels with good content.

Likely price some of us out.

[sunny-dave]

I have had a TV licence every year since I left my parents house some 40 odd years ago - in actual fact my last licence is still current, because I didn't claim back the 6 months or so they owed me when I finally left England at the end of last year.

I watch the BBC entirely legally via a subscription to Sky Ireland - not via a 'hack' or freesat fiddle. As I understand it they (Sky) offset the amount they receive from their Irish BBC subscribers against the transport costs that the BBC pay for being broadcast on the Sky platform - so I do pay my way for the limited BBC channels I receive (although I agree that the precise amount is impossible to calculate).

[nailit]

//Ah well, not much hope of free TV anytime soon then-//
Old hat now on AB but even when I had a TV (I dont now anyway) I didnt buy a lisence.
Just didnt let them in when they came knocking, told them to do one. Never came back.

[sunny-dave]

I have long said that the BBC should move to a subscription model - the Licence Fee is an outdated concept that has no place in the 21st Century.

It should have been done at the time of the digital switchover - the technology was proven and the opportunity obvious. Unfortunately successive Governments (of both colours) bottled the decision - a great shame.

[Mamyalynne]

If the BBC sail alone into a subscription model, do the other channels follow suit?

How much will all those subs add up to?

[sunny-dave]

Other channels will still have the option of being 'Free to Air' and supported by advertising - as per ITV and countless other channels now.

[Mamyalynne]

I just hope the sub is no more than the current fee.

[sunny-dave]

The BBC gets about £3.8 billion in licence fee payments - if you posit 30 million units deciding to subscribe on an individual or household basis (remember they could offer subs packages from abroad too, and stronger encryption would mean that freloaders on the Costa del Pensione would have to cough up) that's an average of £125 per sub - a tenner a month.

[Mamyalynne]

We'll see, hope so.

[sunny-dave]

Back of my fag packet, mamya - so of no great worth - but I see no reason why it should be more per household than the current licence.

[Mamyalynne]

I won't be holding you to that Dave, I'm not like that :-)