Don't pay for the BBC? Then no Doctor Who for you, I'm afraid Parliament's Culture Committee has revived the idea of "conditional access" for BBC TV services – which means that if you don't pay, you won't receive the full package. MPs argue that with UK Magistrates Courts rammed with thousands of non-payers a year, conditional access would be cheaper and fairer than the current system, …
I personally don't pay the licence fee as it only applies to live broadcast television if you are like me and only watch Netflix / YouTube and DVD's you don't have to pay to hold up aunties bloated corpse.
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/how-to-tell-us-you-dont-watch-tv-top12
"So if you don't pay it, why are you complaining about it? Many people think the license fee is pretty good value for what you get compared to the other ways of getting content..."
Sure, and Asda is pretty good value as well, but I'm sure you would object if you had to pay Asda in order to buy stuff from Tesco ...
I assume you're not watching any of the many, many BBC programs on Netflix then, given your apparent dislike for the BBC? It's fine that you're not paying, but calling them a bloated corpse and then watching Dr Who and Red Dwarf, or David Attenborough would seem a little off. I think they are worth every penny even if I can now choose to get the content for free. I'd much rather see them continue than go the way of American TV!
(except for the "here is what we show today" thing between shows)
which are getting long enough to rival commercial network ad breaks.
Still, at least it's not TV licenses AND 22 mins/hour of adverts - which is what the state broadcaster in one country I lived in was getting away with.
"which are getting long enough to rival commercial network ad breaks."
That's because large amounts of BBC production has been farmed out so the BBC only buy it in rather than produce it themselves. The original producers want to sell that content elsewhere in the world too so they create it based on future ad breaks being inserted. That's why even so-called BBC programmes have a obvious break points. In the case of non-drama type programmes there will be one, two or even three "here's what we just told you and here's what we're about to tell you" re-caps.
I assume these people send a cheque off to the middle-east every time they fill their car with petrol from a supermarket- after all, just because TESCO is selling something, it would be freeloading not to also pay the people who originally produced it... Either that, or the people who produce a product are within their rights to agree to sell to a third party and for that third party to then sell it on to its customers.
"If he does watch BBC stuff on Netflix then he's paying Netflix you idiot"
If you're calling me an idiot then I suggest you learn to read. I specifically said not paying the licence is fine by me and perfectly legal even if he doesn't pay Netflix. My issue is that he's insulting the BBC and implying they are no good at what they do. My point was the hypocrisy of watching the programs while insulting their maker. I then went on to make the completely separate point that I'm proud to pay the tiny fee for some of the best content in the world to be created.
Netflix PAYS the BBC to have those shows in their platform.
This is the BBC's biggest scam, we pay for it once for it to be made in the first place and then they charge us a second time to see it on streaming or DVD.
The TV licence is there for education/news programs, not a forced subscription for crap like the voice or eastenders. It is about time they sorted this out.
Next to deal with, 'why am I paying BT £3 a month extra on my phonebill for football that I don't watch?'
Um, no.
You pay to have it made, via the licence fee, and delivered to you in the UK by either DTT Freeview or Freesat. You choose to use a different delivery method which is not funded by the BBC but for which you pay a subscription. The BBC receives some negotiated fee to provide their content to the secondary provider - who, guess what, is providing BBC because people won't buy his service *without* the BBC - and that in turn slightly reduces the licence fee for everyone who receives it direct - and for you.
But you're paying more for a service you could have for less, you're doing it by choice, and you're complaining?
The charter of the BBC requires it to 'educate, inform, and entertain'. Regardless of what you or I might think or The Voice or Eastenders, an awful lot of people seem to consider them entertainment.
Which is why a strict subscription model for the BBC is very unlikely to work: a low-viewer program might be seen by only half a million people, and that's not enough to fund it. So instead of providing a service where the Eastenders viewer might flick through the listing and decide that, hey, that documentary looks interesting, the documentary would never be made. If the policy remains to make those documentaries about the possibility of life on Europa or why black holes are hairy or the discovery of a new dinosaur or whatever, then they need to be funded by the income from those who mainly watch Eastenders.
A thought experiment. Walk into a bookshop, and look at all the books on the shelves. And then ask yourself, how many of those would have been published were they not subsidised by Harry Potter and Shades of Gray and the other blockbusters? And then look online at the self-publishing sites and see how bad things are when you remove the professional editors... You need the popular to support the best of the rest.
That's very public spirited of you. Are you absolutely sure you don't benefit in anyway from those who do pay the tellytax? Never listen to BBC radio, watch BBC productions, appreciate the breadth of classical music available in this country, keeping bloated politicians to account (and Cliff Richard), and provide a valuable companion to many poor pensioners, disabled and so much more for £145 per household?
It doesn't all get blown on ridiculous salaries, pay-offs and Eastenders. But if it makes you happy to brag about not paying it then keep right on. Its almost a free country.
"Do you watch any BBC programming, and if so, have you always been a freeloader, or is this a recent development?"
Do you watch any CBS, Disney, MGM content (etc.), and if so do you send money to those organisations every month, or are you also a freeloader? Or perhaps you watch the free Sky channels without having a Sky subscription? Come to that, how much do you send to "The Register" in return for reading its content?
>>>>Do you watch any CBS, Disney, MGM content (etc.), and if so do you send money to those organisations every month, or are you also a freeloader?
I don't go onto their website and watch it for free. I either pay for their content, or watch it on a commercial operated service that pays for it.... Unlike Cord Cutters who run to iPlayer.
>>>>Come to that, how much do you send to "The Register" in return for reading its content?
The Register is a commercial service with advertisements, and unlike many on here, I dont freeload by using adblock.
Indeed, but that's actually the biggest philosophical change. Previously the licence was for the reception of broadcasts (originally radio, then TV); it was never for owning the equipment. Also, the licence fee does *not* go to the BBC; it goes to central government funds who every three years agree a grant to the BBC which, by coincidence, closely tracks the licence revenue.
Charging to watch catchup - which has been a huge hole in the system - is effectively charging per device (or at least, per household).
"Previously the licence was for the reception of broadcasts (originally radio, then TV); it was never for owning the equipment."
And that is still the case. In fact licence cover is required only by the person who "operates or installs" equipment so as to receive broadcast TV. If a TV licence inspector sees that a TV set in your (unlicensed) house is receiving a live TV broadcast they would still have to prove who caused it to be switched on to a live broadcast channel in order to gain a criminal conviction. Proving that you have a set that is *capable* of receiving broadcast TV is nowhere near proof of an offence, though they like to pretend that it is. There is no specific person in a household who is responsible for ensuring that TV broadcasts are not received unless the household is covered by a licence. Most (all?) convictions come about because a gullible householder confesses.
"Even if nothing else changes, it is an absolute certainty that the license will be amended to include anyone who watches catch up tv services online."
Which, from the POV of the BBC will have the advantage that they could gather evidence that TV content was being watched in a household just by getting a log from the website. Easier than sending a powerless licence inspector to a house in the hope that the gullible householder will either let them in or confess to watching telly without a licence. Not that it *ought* to assist them in gaining a criminal conviction, because they would then have to prove beyond reasonable doubt *who* is the individual who watched the content from said household. Note that the only person who must be covered by a TV licence (and who could be convicted for not having one) is the person who physically operated (or caused to be operated) the viewing apparatus, and that needs to be proven.
Downvoters are obviously too young to know this is a quote from the same comedy sketch Blowhard quoted further up this thread. (NTNOCN)
If switching to a CA system, will this mean I can watch Dr Who on iPlayer when I am in China, and not have to BT it a few days later??
(The "D'oh" is for people not knowing classic comedy when it is quoted at them).
It's a complete bugger even if you've got one telly. Either all tellies are getting an upgrade to have some form of authentication scheme to dictate what channels you can view (whether that's the "hardware dongle card" or a web-login interface) - or you're supplying new decoder boxes to everyone that will effectively perform the same function.
In the former case, there's nothing to do as "upgraded" kit will do the authentication thing inherently. In the latter case, just stick the authentication system on the antenna (although perhaps some method of communicating with it would be nice so you don't have to climb a ladder to change credentials).
Massive upheaval, either way.
Of course, if everything moves to IP TV, rather than old-fashioned radio waves, it becomes a lot easier at the domestic end, but requires BT Reacharound to do a lot more work on the country's infrastructure.
"Of course, if everything moves to IP TV, rather than old-fashioned radio waves"
Why is it that wireless seems to be the must-have for every gadget *except* the TV where people still seem to believe that a 1980s style plug-it-into-the-wall cable feed is the best approach? Can someone explain this doublethink to me?
Many modern TV sets can display video streamed over a WiFi network, and display video files direct from a USB storage device, so it is perfectly feasible to have a wireless TV set.
But in general video is very bandwidth intensive, so the portions of RF spectrum currently allocated for local communications would soon become too congested in (say) a block of flats where there is a need to supply a dozen or more separate HD video feeds within a few tens of meters radius, especially if the video is from something like a bluray player or games console that is not as compressed as broadcast sources.
"Why is it that wireless seems to be the must-have for every gadget *except* the TV"
Because if you annoy the bored spotty teenager next door he'll go and trivially interdict all your home wifi devices to drop your connections every 5 minutes, forever. And you'll never work it out and never fix it.
Wifi infrastructure is *convenient*, not *reliable*.
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