TV license - should we have to pay it?

I noticed another news article today about the TV license in the UK and how the government are working to block any way for you to avoid it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom


I see it is going up to £174.50 from April and looking at the services on offer I'm pretty sure this is rubbish value for money as it is the same (give or take about a pound) as a netflix subscription but with a fraction of the selection, never mind that the majority of the BBCs content is getting very old.

It seems it is nearly impossible to avoid the license fee too and the loopholes are being closed all the time.

For example, if you just want to watch Netflix then you still need to pay a license fee for the rights to watch streaming media. Absurd! It means you are spending £350 just to watch netflix.

I used one of the loopholes back in the 1990s (having 2 homes at the time as I lived many hours from where I worked) and I was hounded by the TV licensing people in spite of writing to them pointing out their own rules about why I didn't need one for my flat.

They sent letters implying they would break in with bailiffs (they have no right to do this) and all sorts of other bordeline illegal threats and it was only when I met one "enforcer" face to face on a day off that I had a huge arguement and gave him a printout of their own rules and threatened him with legal action for harassment that they left me alone.

From what I have heard from others this sort of intimidation technique is not uncommon and it is all being paid for by your license fees oddly enough.

Less Aunty Beeb and more Mom from Futurama.

Do you think the BBC is value for money? Should it still be forced on us (to pay for) in this supposed age of freedom of choice?

I think my opinion is clear but what is yours?

Parents
  • I don't mind paying it as I watch a lot of BBC, I wish they'd spend less on sport though, it seems that a lot of money is being spent on it to the detriment of other programes. I wish they'd all get together and have a terrestial sports channel so that more airtime could be freed up for other programes and then other programes wouldn't get messed about with because of sport or even worse because it's over run.

    I don't have any streaming channels, yes I know I'm weird. I think I probably could get them, although with our humax box I'm not sure how it would work as it has to be plugged into the hub.

    I hate adverts, I always pre-record programes on commercial channels so as I can FFW through the ads. It's also nice to have a whole hour of programe instead of 45-50 mins of one.

Reply
  • I don't mind paying it as I watch a lot of BBC, I wish they'd spend less on sport though, it seems that a lot of money is being spent on it to the detriment of other programes. I wish they'd all get together and have a terrestial sports channel so that more airtime could be freed up for other programes and then other programes wouldn't get messed about with because of sport or even worse because it's over run.

    I don't have any streaming channels, yes I know I'm weird. I think I probably could get them, although with our humax box I'm not sure how it would work as it has to be plugged into the hub.

    I hate adverts, I always pre-record programes on commercial channels so as I can FFW through the ads. It's also nice to have a whole hour of programe instead of 45-50 mins of one.

Children
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