Should the BBC Licence Fee be Scrapped?

[Howie]

I've cancelled mine.

F*** 'em.

Sick to death of it, I was.
£164 a year to be force fed the Establishment's fearmongering and propaganda on a daily basis, while at the same time subsidising the massive salaries and over inflated egos of dickheads like Gary Lineker, Greg James, Naga Munchetty and Laura Kuenssberg.
Nah man. Had enough of it. Not playing that game anymore.

In case you're not from the UK and didn’t know this, here in Britain you have to have a licence to watch TV. Can you believe that? I know, right? Ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is that people are routinely bullied, coerced and threatened with fines and/or imprisonment if they don't pay it.
Back in the day (whenever that was) it wasn't so bad. When there was only 3 channels and the BBC was our national broadcaster that produced quality, ad-free content and was globally respected, then sure, make everyone with a TV pay a fee. But things have most definitely moved on. There's so much on-demand choice nowadays that there really is no argument for charging people a compulsory fee - a tax, essentially - to pay for something they don't necessarily want or need. Especially when the recipient of that fee has proven itself time and time again to be corrupt, self serving, incompetent and sometimes downright mendacious in its dealings.

So... we've cancelled the licence fee in our house. It was easy, just go on the TV licencing website, tick a few boxes to say that you no longer need it and then cancel the direct debit.
Boom.
I mean yes, it does mean that we can no longer watch anything on BBC iPlayer or any live TV (Doesn't that just go to show how ridiculous it is? If the licence goes to the BBC and the BBC alone, why does the law prohibit you from watching live TV from another channel like ITV or Channel 4? It's bonkers, absolutely bonkers).
But you know what? We haven't missed it. Pretty much the only live TV we watched anyway was a bit of news in the morning.
Netflix, Prime, Disney+, ITVx, All4, My5 - that's all still fair game, plus many more which, let's be honest, is plenty.

Apparently, now that we've cancelled our licence fee we can expect to be visited at our property by an 'Enforcement Officer' at some point in the near future (for 'enforcement officer' read 'salesperson with no actual powers of enforcement whatsoever') to ensure that we're not watching anything we shouldn't be.
Again, if you're not from the UK, can you actually believe that? Outrageous.
I'm looking forward to that day, I tell ya! Bring it on, little man, I dare you.

As you can probably tell, I've got a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this, but I tell you one thing - cancelling that direct debit felt realllly good, kinda empowering, and if you feel anything like I do about our 'beloved' national broadcaster then I encourage you to do the same.
More and more people are doing so and I'm fairly certain the whole thing will get scrapped anyway when the BBC's charter is up for renewal.

I guess it's pretty obvious what I think, but seeing as I've disguised this rather one-sided rant as a supposedly unbiased poll (much like the BBC's M.O, coincidentally.. )...
...what do you think?

 

[Graeme]

Whilst I agree with your analysis of the BBC, I'm not 100% on board with scrapping the fee, as it goes towards funding the whole Freeview infrastructure, which to me is still the best way to watch all the other channels. Do I want to give money to the BBC? Absolutely not. Do I want a broadcasting system that's paid for in a way other than Netflix-type subscriptions? Yes.

I truly do share your contempt for the BBC - the fearmongering, State-sponsored, censorious liars that they are, but that describes all mainstream media - ITV, Sky and all the "newspapers" as well. There's obviously a bigger problem. I know the issue is that the BBC is the only one we have to pay directly, but I just thought I'd introduce the nuance of the Freeview structure.

 

[Niles]

Yes!!! you are free Howie from those bastards, i allways paid it without thinking if i really needed it, gf who's spanish questioned why we have to pay when we moved in together and i assumed you just had to pay.

Looking into it i could never get a straight answer from their site or when i called to cancel what you can watch and they were horrible and pushy when i called. "we will send officers to investigate" "you will get a fine or imprisonment if one of our vans scans your house and catches you".

My family were straight up nervous when i said we would cancel, when i was 100% sure the licence covered nothing we watched we did it. I have heard nothing since from them or seen the secret van.

Its just a scam at this point, theres nothing on there worth the high cost, screw the licence and i hope many more give it up, thankfully my friends have either stopped or never paid. Older generations still do but i hope as time passes it stops.

 

[Smithy]

Absolutely categorically not. Despite the top-down cronyism and Tory stooges being placed in positions of power, it's still the most reliable and trustworthy source of news in the UK.

Couple that with the sports coverage which for things like womens football is vital to the growth of the game.

Let alone the radio offerings of which in many places are the only non-commercial local source of news for people now newspapers are selling out to the highest bidder.

People are free to choose not to pay it and if they don't think they're missing out without it then more power to them. But it absolutely has it's place and this country's media landscape would be a sorry place without it.

 

[Sandman]

I haven't paid since 2016.

To be honest, my reason wasn't initially anything political, I simply just didn't/don't watch live TV or enough of BBC, ITV etc content to really need it.

I still use bbc.co.uk for news, but I tend to use as many varying news sources as possible to get a wide perspective on any current issue because everything is angled these days.

 

[Howie]

Whilst I agree with your analysis of the BBC, I'm not 100% on board with scrapping the fee, as it goes towards funding the whole Freeview infrastructure

That's an interesting point which I hadn't considered. The only question I'd have would be: how come literally every other country in the world has a Freeview infrastructure (or similar) without the need for a compulsory licence fee?

it's still the most reliable and trustworthy source of news in the UK.

Come on Smithy, you're having a laugh mate. While none of the media outlets in the UK are particularly great, to say that the BBC is the most trustworthy and reliable of the lot is, frankly, madness. As @Sandman says, you've only got to browse through the other sources to see a whole range of stories that the Beeb, for whatever reason, refuse to even touch upon.

 

[Gazza]

Why cant the BBC be paid for through consolidated revenue instead of a separate fee?

The national broadcaster in Australia, the ABC gets paid for that way, so no need to have a separate licensing and enforcement system (Detector vans LMAO), which in itself costs money.

 

[Christian]

We used to have the same thing in Sweden, with anyone having a TV needing to pay it. Regardless if you ever turned the TV on. Those pathetic enforcement agents used to knock on you door ones in a while. It was just one fee per household. A couple of years ago they replaced the "optional fee" fee with every swede automatically having a "non optional fee" deducted from taxes based on income. Instead of 1 fee, my household now pays 3.

I'm not going to comment on the Swedish state broadcaster's content (although it does have a certain left wing bias). I'm just anti being forced to pay for content without choice. I'm fine with all the news and domestic politics coverage but I'm entirely against them spending massively on entertainment and sports in direct competition with private content providers. Give me my money and let me spend it on whatever entertainment I want.

 

[rob666]

As an old git, I watch/use the BBC pretty much 24/7, so don't mind the three quid a week for a fantastic service.
National and local news, brilliant entertainment series, world service through the night when I'm kept awake with my dodgy knees, traffic reports, six music, five live for sports, I have a radio in every room I use, all different stations, reasonable weather forecasts, sometimes.
Worth every last penny.

 

[TilenB]

Same here in Slovenia, every household has to pay a national broadcaster fee that amounts to 153€ a year. And while back in the day that meant that you could easily avoid it by saying you have no TV or radio (if you only had radio it's a bit cheaper), nowadays any household with a smartphone or other device that can connect to internet (which, let's face it is everyone in 2023) is obliged to pay it as there's nothing stopping you from accessing their website and their equivalent of iPlayer if you are in the country. I'm not sure on how or what means they have on enforcing it if you tell them to eff off. I do also feel that they expect way too much for what they offer, especially when most of it is littered with ads. You want to play a video on the website? Ad. You want to watch a sports broadcast? Ads, so you miss some action in sports like biatlon or cycling that don't have breaks. Eurovision? Ads wherever they're allowed to put them.

So yeah, same **** everywhere you look. At least BBC still has some damn decent production, while I honestly can't remember when was the last time I watched anything of the Slovenian TV's production (that wasn't related to Eurovision).

 

[Sandman]

Apparently, now that we've cancelled our licence fee we can expect to be visited at our property by an 'Enforcement Officer' at some point in the near future (for 'enforcement officer' read 'salesperson with no actual powers of enforcement whatsoever') to ensure that we're not watching anything we shouldn't be.
Again, if you're not from the UK, can you actually believe that? Outrageous.
I'm looking forward to that day, I tell ya! Bring it on, little man, I dare you.

I forgot to add - this day will most likely never come.
We had the inevitable scaremongering letter back in either 2017 or 2018... since then we've had absolutely nothing.
Funnily enough, I now work with somebody who previously worked for tv licensing and she admitted there's basically little they can do short of scaremongering.
The TV license man is basically the Wizard of Oz.

 

[Brownsome]

I forgot to add - this day will most likely never come.
We had the inevitable scaremongering letter back in either 2017 or 2018... since then we've had absolutely nothing.
Funnily enough, I now work with somebody who previously worked for tv licensing and she admitted there's basically little they can do short of scaremongering.
The TV license man is basically the Wizard of Oz.

Yes this day will never come, This guy has dedicated a website to all the threatening letters he has received since 2006 (See link below). Its comical.

Letters from BBC Television Licensing/intro

 

[spicy]

Agree with basically everything you have said in the original post and exact reason I haven't paid it in years. Gary Lineker is such a hypocrite don't get me started, I refuse to subsidise his huge wages.

I look forward to the Wizard of Oz knocking on the door.

 

[rob666]

Two thousand convictions a week for those caught out though...considered a real tax on poverty.
Average fine around £200.

 

[Sandman]

Two thousand convictions a week for those caught out though...considered a real tax on poverty.
Average fine around £200.

Only if you continue to watch live television or BBC iPlayer. No fines for cancelling your license if you don't use it

 

[Munchy Road Hippopotamus]

Things that annoy me about the licence fee:

• That we pay the likes of Gary Linekar fortunes to host shows like Match of the Day, no one is watching MOTD because LInekar hosts
• We spend licence fee money on advertising shows, money should be spent on producing content not advertising
• That the national carrier, that's paid for by the people, chases ratings, their only remit should be putting on entertaining shows
• The “boys club” mentality that still exists
• That all shows ever produced aren’t available on iPlayer, I’ve paid for them already FFS

 

[rob666]

Two million people watch Match of the Day...I watch a recording so I can fast skip all the discussion.

 

[Matt N]

I’m honestly unsure on this one.

Personally, I don’t watch a huge amount of TV, and what I do watch is mostly on streaming services; of the things that I personally am interested in watching, the amount of that that is BBC content is almost zero. I sometimes switch on BBC News if there’s an interesting event happening in UK politics (for instance, the results of a General Election, or the downfall of Boris Johnson’s cabinet last year), as I do quite like their rolling coverage of those events, but other than that, I would hardly ever watch BBC content off my own back. As such, if I lived on my own, I could probably cope without paying the License Fee.

However, there are a great many people who rely heavily on the BBC, and for whom not having the BBC would massively affect their viewing habits.

I still live with my parents, and my parents, particularly my mum, are still quite heavy viewers of BBC content. My mum records Bargain Hunt daily, as well as any new series of Antiques Road Trip that comes on, and normally watches all of the BBC period dramas and such (e.g. Call the Midwife). My parents also normally watch their big hitters (e.g. Line of Duty), as well as some of their reality shows (e.g. Strictly Come Dancing). My parents also watch BBC Sport for any big sporting event covered by the BBC, and BBC Breakfast is also the news channel that my parents stick on in the morning, although my dad has expressed increasing discontent with the “sensationalism” of BBC News and much preferred Good Morning Britain when he recently gave it a try…

Like my mum, my nan also watches a great amount of BBC content. In fact, I dare say that my nan watches more; like my mum, she religiously watches Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road Trip and the like, and while she has 1 or 2 streaming accounts, I’d hazard a guess that BBC content probably makes up a great majority of her viewing habits.

I also have elderly relatives who pretty much rely on the BBC for all of their TV content, and in some cases, I’m not even sure that they have streaming accounts. These people would be aghast if the BBC ever changed. In fact, when teaching one of them how to use the computer, I was asked to write an angry email to our local MP on their behalf concerning how outraged they were about the free license fee for over-75s being scrapped!

So for these people, I don’t think that the License Fee should be scrapped, because I think they rely heavily on it and would have their viewing habits changed quite drastically if the BBC changed.

With that being said, I think there are things I would like to see done differently on the BBC. For instance, I’m not sure I’ve necessarily agreed with the constant, wall-to-wall coverage of royal events on BBC One within the last year. I’m not a die-hard Republican by any means, but I do think that some of the coverage surrounding events like the Queen’s death and King Charles’ coronation was excessive, and there should have been an option to avoid it for those who didn’t want to watch. For instance, I’d maybe support the creation of a separate channel solely dedicated to the royal stuff for those who want wall-to-wall coverage, and only showing the big moments on the main channel.

 

[Sandman]

 

[Howie]

However, there are a great many people who rely heavily on the BBC, and for whom not having the BBC would massively affect their viewing habits.

Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting we get rid of the BBC altogether, just the draconian licence fee that financially props it up. I'm quite certain that, should the licence fee come to an end, many of the core services that these people rely upon would remain largely intact.
Having quickly scanned through this thread, most of the programs that have been mentioned so far that people seem to care about are produced by BBC Studios anyway - the commercial and hugely profitable arm of the BBC who, incidentally, made around £2 billion in profit last year.

I was asked to write an angry email to our local MP on their behalf concerning how outraged they were about the free license fee for over-75s being scrapped!

So for these people, I don’t think that the License Fee should be scrapped,

Not quite sure what your point is here, Matt. On the one hand, you're happy to pen an email expressing outrage that the TV licence is no longer free for over 75's, then in the very next line you say that the licence fee should be kept for those people?
Which is it, bro?