Keep it public. (TV Licence)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	TV Licence
Date:	07/02/01 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High quality of programming. Wide range of services. Cheap when you consider what you're getting.

Disadvantages: £108 is a lot to some people. You must still pay even if you don't use the BBC.

£108? For a whole years quality programming across two channels, or more if you are lucky enough to have digital, plus a network of high quality national and regional radio services? PLUS an excellent and informative website and many other services provided to the public?

Sounds like the bargain of the century if you ask me...

Consider what you pay for Sky... the huge subscriptions, and then you STILL get adverts plastered over everything.

Or they could go the ITV route. Ads during live sports coverage, I think that's totally unforgivable. (I'm thinking F1 here by the way - it's a clear indication of what happens when commercialism takes over from quality of programming)

ITV, to me, will always represent trashy, low-quality programming and commercial greed. It's not free. It exists to make a profit, and you fund ITV every time you go out to the shops. Advertisers spend HUGE chucks of money, and where do you think they get the money for their advertising budgets? It's not by reducing the price of their goods, that's for sure.

I pay my TV licence by quarterly Direct Debit, and it works out to less than £9 a month - for all the services that the BBC provides, this is just so cheap. I realise that some people find it hard to pay... pensioners over 75 are now entitled to free concessionary licences though, and I think that something does need to be done to ensure that the least well off are able to afford the fee, as I realise that £108 is a lot of money to some people.

There are many schemes whereby the full amount does not have to be paid in one lump sum though...

Some people argue that there should be a choice, whether or not you want to pay the fee to receive BBC services... hmmm, well, I see their point, but consider the following:

The BBC is a public service, and since when did you get a choice over what other public services you pay for? Council Tax, anyone? Income Tax?


You do have a choice. If you don't want to pay, then don't get a TV. If you really want to be cheap, get a black and white set.

Also, how do you propose we enforce the subscription policy? How are you going to "cut people off" from the BBC, ensuring that those who do not pay are not able to receive BBC TV, BBC Radio, or use the BBC's on-line services?

Are you proposing the BBC scrambles the signal? That would mean huge expense in the implementation of the technology, pushing licence fees even higher for those of us that do want to make use of the services that the Beeb offers.

The fee would also skyrocket because there would be fewer of us paying for the same level of service. I'm happy to pay £108, but I wouldn't be happy to see it climb to £300 or so, which is what would happen if people were allowed to "opt-out" of paying the licence fee.

Maybe sometime in the not too distant future, with the advent of digital TV, the Beeb may be able to offer a subscription service, which will allow it to cut or even abolish the licence fee for basic services.

In the meantime though, Auntie must never, ever sell her soul to big business, because that would be the beginning of the end. The standard of programming would just be dragged down into the gutter. The BBC provides programmes that are held in high regard all over the world... what would happen to things like the World Service if the BBC were forced to go commercial?

It is a service, that is how I view it, and I am happy to pay for it. I don't view it as paying £108 for a couple of TV channels and think to myself "Oh the other 3 channels don't cost me anything". If you think that, I'm afraid you're being naive.

Maybe the licence fee is not entirely fair, but until someone can come up with an alternative that will ensure the same high level of service for the same price to those who wa
nt it, it has to stay.

It must stay in the public sector, and not become yet another British privatisation flop.

The BBC must not sell out, and the government must never sell it out.

Summary: