I loathe the BBC with every fibre of my being.
TV licence fees could increase with the value of your home, as proposed by the BBC. Chairman Samir Shah suggested the £174.50 fee should be scrapped in favour of a progressive payment structure that depends on assets.
Speaking in an interview earlier this year, he said the fee would be linked to property bands and collected at the same time as council tax, which would mark his first major shake-up since taking over from Richard Sharp. He also dismissed the idea that the TV license would be scrapped for a Netflix subscription-style service, saying that it would “not meet the BBC’s key role to offer something for everyone in the country.”
How fucking dare they? This is outright theft. While places like France link it to council taxes, you can opt out. You have to declare whether you watch television, and if you say ‘yes’, the licence fee is added. The idea that you cannot opt out, even if you never watch broadcast television (I don’t even have a TV), is an outrage. That they can pick our pockets for more if we are deemed to be wealthier is beyond outrageous.
As for the ‘everyone in the country’ bollocks, the mass refusals to pay suggests that they do not offer something for everyone. There are increasing numbers of us who do not want anything to do with them and their services. I am one of them.
Those who opt out of paying a TV license would no longer be able to do so.
He believed it would reduce the need to prosecute people for not paying, having told The Sunday Times: “It gets rid of the enforcement issue, which is a problem. The idea that not paying the licence fee is a criminal offence seems too harsh.”
George Orwell wrote a book about this behaviour. Not paying the licence fee because we do not want to watch their risible output should absolutely be an opt out. Kill the beast. Let it starve to death.
I used to be interested in reforms to BBC funding, but that was 20 years ago. It’s way past the point of reform today. In the 2020s, the entire rationale behind a nationalised broadcasting company, as much as there ever was one, makes no sense. It’s a 1920s solution to a problem, largely imaginary, of a century ago. Shut it down. End it. Problem solved.
(By the way… “license”? Really, Express?)
So those who do not have a TV, who are on low incomes or pensions, will be paying for the unemployed who, often have large tvs with all the channels license fee. Because only those who are unemployed get their council tax paid for them. I can’t see that going down at all well.
“not meet the BBC’s key role to offer something for everyone in the country.”
Google Translate:-“No one would subscribe”.
And he knows it. Hence the idea to force us.
That was my thought too. If they really were offering something for everyone there would be no shortage of subscribers and there wouldn’t be a problem. Turning the BBC into a subscription service is the perfect solution that would be fair to everyone. He knows damn well that a huge majority just wouldn’t subscribe and that, if the BBC wanted subscribers they would have to get their shit together and start making content that people actually want to watch. Just robbing people is just so much easier.
The question BBC fans can never answer: If it’s so beloved, why do you have to force people to pay for it?
Is there a campaign or concerted effort in place to counter this attempted theft? If not, there needs to be one.
Scrapping it entirely would be a popular policy for Reform.
There was a time (long time ago!) when I was happy to pay because the BBC used to be what it claimed to be, an impartial reporter and producer of genuine quality output respected and admired round the world.
But I’ve changed my mind because of the degenerate, arrogant, infantilised, filthy, lying sewer it has become.
A subscription service! I wonder what sort of rates they would need to charge?
I don’t watch TV. I have a computer, broadband and a working knowledge of how to get around the Net. I can access many different film genres and a fair sprinkling of documentaries.
I will adamantly refuse to pay for something that I have no use for.