tee jay Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 Would you be happy to see the BBC scrap the TV licence & let adverts fund the corporation instead? why should I pay for jeremy clarkson and his mates too go around smashing cars into walls for his amusement. I won't get one this year just on principle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 its not ownership, its a license to use a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. the state is more of a custodian rather then an owner, since the usage of the spectrum has to be managed in order to prevent different users using the same region and so interfering with each other. the 50/60 Hz refers to the electronics of the TV not the frequency the signal arrives on, which is in the MegaHz range. Since we are not charged for using the visible spectrum, then surely we should not be charged for using the bandwidth that our state allots the TV companies! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 Living in a capitalist society as we do, you will get charged for using anything and everything that someone finds a way of exploiting demand for. At the end of the day, it costs money to transmit, run the infrastructure behind those transmissions, and organise it so that people aren't transmitting on top of one another. Plus, people can make a lot of money out of those transmissions, meaning a lot of regulation has to happen to ensure it's done fairly. All that costs money, and the TV licence fee is the fairest way it can be collected. I'd much rather pay my 30p a day to the BBC than to pay it to the government who had 10,000 civil servants decide how to split it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyofborg Posted August 22, 2010 Share Posted August 22, 2010 Since we are not charged for using the visible spectrum, then surely we should not be charged for using the bandwidth that our state allots the TV companies! maybe we should be however, its hard to see how the visible spectrum could be exploited in the same way as the radio part of the spectrum has Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sccsux Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 Did you have equipment capable of receiving television signals? Did you have a license? Actually, they also have to prove that the "equipment capable of receiving television signals" was/is being used to watch TV programs as they are broadcast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul2412 Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 Yes, get rid of it. It's like having a £160 additional fee for broadband use because I MIGHT visit a website that is funded by this fee that I have to pay regardless. Its robbery. I very rarely watch the BBC but have to pay over £100 a year for it? The argument about adverts is nonsense. If you don't like adverts, do what I do. Record the program with your planner and start watching it 15 minutes in. Then, simply fast forward the adverts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obelix Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 an amusing rant, but, apart from license fee enforcement, none of it relates to the BBC. the police/cps don't generally get involved with licence fee evasion so while your point about burglaries may be pertinent it is totally irrelevant in this context. as far as the courts go, then license fee evasion is usually quite a simple and efficient matter for them to deal with, as it revolves around two questions: Did you have equipment capable of receiving television signals? Did you have a license? To get to court both those questions will have already been answered and guilt will have been confirmed, so there is very little for the court to do other than to pass sentence. Spplitting hairs, the equipment must also be "installed" for the purpose of recieving broadcast TV as well. I have a TV and DVD, but it's it's not installed for receiving broadcast TV much to the annoyance of TV licencing who try various underhanded, and somewhat stupid tactics to persuade me to buy a licence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dell12 Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 Yes, get rid of it. It's like having a £160 additional fee for broadband use because I MIGHT visit a website that is funded by this fee that I have to pay regardless. Its robbery. I very rarely watch the BBC but have to pay over £100 a year for it? The argument about adverts is nonsense. If you don't like adverts, do what I do. Record the program with your planner and start watching it 15 minutes in. Then, simply fast forward the adverts. It's not just adverts though. 99.9% of what ITV and Channel 5 produce is trash. I'll exclude Channel 4 as they have some decent programmes. BBC produce stuff that is not otherwise commercially viable, thereby in my view justifying the licence fee. At the end of the day i'm willing to pay £145 a year to pay for some quality broadcasting, news and public services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul2412 Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 It's not just adverts though. 99.9% of what ITV and Channel 5 produce is trash. I'll exclude Channel 4 as they have some decent programmes. BBC produce stuff that is not otherwise commercially viable, thereby in my view justifying the licence fee. At the end of the day i'm willing to pay £145 a year to pay for some quality broadcasting, news and public services. OK so in your opinion it is worth the money. The only thing I watch on BBC is Dragons Den. Personally, I don't feel that paying £145 per year to watch one series is particularly good value. Similarly, I don't think that paying £120 per year for ESPN was good value. At least I had a choice to remove ESPN, I can't with the BBC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dell12 Posted August 23, 2010 Share Posted August 23, 2010 OK so in your opinion it is worth the money. The only thing I watch on BBC is Dragons Den. Personally, I don't feel that paying £145 per year to watch one series is particularly good value. Similarly, I don't think that paying £120 per year for ESPN was good value. At least I had a choice to remove ESPN, I can't with the BBC. I'll agree with you here, £145 isn't good value to watch Dragons Den. I'd be surprised that you can't find anything else worth watching, or listening to on the radio because of the range of programming but that's slightly beside the point. The BBC has certain obligations (called it's charter) to fulfil in return for receiving a licence fee. It has to provide a certain % of news programming, it has to give advice in the event of a disaster and it has to provide a certain amount of educational content. There are plenty of other things it has to do that I can't remember off the top of my head. I guess in a way it's a kind of public service, and like any public service you have to pay for it. I don't claim benefits, use public library's or live in a council house but I don't resent paying what's fair so others can do so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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