24 Responses to An example

  1. pete says:
    February 28, 2009 at 12:25 pm

    The BBC’s nasty, sinister revenue collection department tells me it has a database of addresses without a licence and sophisticated equipment that can tell which channel a TV is tuned to. So why not fine unlicensed people caught using a TV to watch the BBC rather than vindictively fining anyone using a TV at all?

    The BBC seems to have no confidence that people will pay for its services voluntarily. Considereing the huge amounts of utter trash they manufacture that’s probably a very sensible opinion.

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  2. weirdvis says:
    February 28, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    The licence fee is nothing more than a tax on televisions even if a TV isn’t ever tuned in to any BBC station. A tax that is converted into socialist progaganda cheerfully broadcast by the BBC.

    Poor people who cannot afford the fee for the right to tune into the propaganda get a disproportionate fine. Naturally, if they cannot afford the licence they cannot afford to pay the fine. A jail sentence is the answer.

    Sounds like money well spent to me…

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  3. Telly Tax Rebel says:
    February 28, 2009 at 1:14 pm

    The logical answer is subscription. Get a viewers card and pay your monthly subs. if you want to watch the hopelessly biased left wing PC dribble then you pay – it’s called choice. I hope the next tory government have the guts to cut the BBC down to size but I aint holding my breath.

    I used to think the BBC was a great British institution, something to be proud of, now I just consider it as the propaganda arm of the government.

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  4. martin says:
    February 28, 2009 at 2:16 pm

    The argument in the past was how to implement a subscription based service for the BBC.

    With the total switch to digital the Tories have the perfect solution AND it prevents people dodging paying for the BBC if they still want to watch it.

    If you have a service like Sky or Virgin you simply pay and extra £14 a month for BBC services or they are blocked out on your digital box.

    Problem solved. If you watch you pay (like Sky) if you don’t watch, you don’t pay.

    Why isn’t that a fair system?

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  5. Millie Tant says:
    February 28, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    Quite why we should have to pay for this farrago of sleazy and self-regarding B’oid inconsequentiality delivered with the patronising tone and attitude of its programmes for children and youth, I am not clear.

    Nor is it obvious why the publicly funded broadcaster feels it is acceptable to promote the following on their website as worthy of some kind of accolade – even if it is only their own tawdry award of Quote of the Day:

    “It’s all about hookers. Black is great to show off cut and definition, but beneath all that I have always had a fascination with hookers”

    This from the homosexual Jasper Conran who designs women’s clothes.
    How telling that the state broadcaster is so eager to identify itself with this perverse (not merely pervy) attitudinising, coming as it does from a male who has no sexual interest in women.

    I did try, but failed, to find out who edits this pathetic Magazine. I wonder if it is an official secret.
    You’d think the world’s greatest broadcaster would know to provide that fairly routine kind of key information on its website. Wouldn’t you?

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  6. Telly Tax Rebel says:
    February 28, 2009 at 3:45 pm

    Indeed Martin, exactly what I was thinking. I’m a big sports fan so I happily pay Sky and Setanta for their services, which is my choice. I refuse to pay a further tax to fund a politicaly biased state broadcaster who’s services I rarely use.

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  7. martin says:
    February 28, 2009 at 3:49 pm

    Telly Tax Rebel: Exactly. And those leftie losers that ‘claim’ the BBC offers great value for money will be able to put their own money where their mouth is.

    If they really do think the BBC is good value for money we’ll all sign up for it won’t we?

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  8. disillusioned_german says:
    February 28, 2009 at 5:30 pm

    martin | 28.02.09 – 2:54 pm |

    The only problem being “Lefties don’t spend their own money, they spend other people’s money”… that’s why they’re for the TV tax and against subscription.

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  9. pete says:
    February 28, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    The BBC says is has equipment which can tell which channel a TV is tuned to.

    So why not restrict fines to those unlicensed people caught watching the BBC? Why should the BBC care if anyone is using a TV to watch other channels?

    There is no need for a new subscription system to replace the licence fee. Using today’s sophisticated BBC snooping technology the licence fee could simply be renamed the BBC subscription, and the BBC could take action against people it discovered using its TV service without paying for it.

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  10. disillusioned_german says:
    February 28, 2009 at 5:42 pm

    pete | 28.02.09 – 4:42 pm |

    Simply because it’s not a fair solution, Pete. What happens if you switch over to an Al Beeb channel and they catch you doing it? I’m for a PPV solution. Let’s say you want to watch Match of the Day you pay, say, 50p for it. It’s not difficult to implement and the fairest solution by far.

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  11. Jason says:
    February 28, 2009 at 6:35 pm

    The trouble with hoping for Tories to cut the BBC down to size is that too many of them defend the BBC as a “great old fashioned British institution” and would start prattling on about the Last Night of the Proms and other such nonsense, as did Boris Johnson last year.

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  12. Telly Tax Rebel says:
    February 28, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Peter – the whole point of a subscription is you are not forced to pay it, it’s a matter of personal choice. Your solution is just a rebrand of the licence fee (tax) under a new name.
    Why should I pay for a service I dont use? that’s hardly fair is it? Paxo’s quote about washing machines and persil has never been more appropriate in these days of digital subscription services.

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  13. Alex Reynolds says:
    February 28, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    The problem with subscribing to the BBC is this; there are a lot of decent programs that I (and millions others watch) and it would be unfair to charge for those. I am not talking about news/current affairs programs here, I’m talking about shows which have nothing to do with bias at all – Match of the Day, for example, of dramas like Spooks, Life on Mars etc. Wouldn’t the simplist solution be to cancel the licence fee and instead make the BBC put adverts every 20 mins like all the other channels?

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  14. Alex Reynolds says:
    February 28, 2009 at 11:00 pm

    Plus, and I cannot quote figures on this, surely the BBC make a lot of money off DVD sales? I always see ‘In the night garden’, ‘Blackadder’ etc DVDs on sale – the BBC must make some money off these items, could that not be used to go back into programs to help replace the licence fee?

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  15. Telly Tax Rebel says:
    February 28, 2009 at 11:14 pm

    Alex – we ARE all being charged for those programmes – it’s called the licence fee and it IS unfair to people like me who do NOT watch those programmes and/or have no interest in BBC services. Adverts in between programmes, I haven’t got a problem with that and lets face it the beeb do slip their own crafty adverts in for their own products but alas the beeb and the government will never agree to adverts while they can tax everyone for ownership of a TV under threat of fines and imprisonment – how the hell is that fair? you tell me.

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  16. Alex Reynolds says:
    March 1, 2009 at 12:48 am

    er…I know we’re all being charged for the BBC, why would you think I wasn’t aware of that…? I was referring to the idea someone said earlier on this site about charging a subscription fee instead of the licence fee.

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  17. Jphn Kimble says:
    March 1, 2009 at 1:54 am

    You are in fact being slightly unfair here. raising the issue of women who use prostitutes would have been INCREDIBLY useful a few months back when the likes of Harriet Harman were condemning it and Labour politicians coming out with completely invented statistics about the number who were controlled by pimps.

    Raising the issue of male prostitutes is very damaging to feminist arguments on the issue as it shows some people are in the industry voluntarily.

    If so many men do it of their own free will, then it raises the awkward question that undoubtedly plenty of women are doing the same. Also will we also need to lock up all these women exploiting these male prostitutes?

    This completely destroys arguments about exploitation etc and turns the issue on it’s head. Thus leading to sensible debate on the issue rather than insane feminazi attempts to try to ban it and lock up any men daring to use prostitutes.

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  18. Jphn Kimble says:
    March 1, 2009 at 2:31 am

    (I mean when Harman was condemning men who use female prostitutes.)

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  19. David Preiser (USA) says:
    March 1, 2009 at 3:04 am

    Alex Reynolds | 28.02.09 – 10:05 pm |

    the BBC must make some money off these items, could that not be used to go back into programs to help replace the licence fee?

    It does. The BBC makes huge piles of cash off its commercial products. Technically, that’s BBC Worldwide, but money earned by BBC domestic shows that get syndicated through it abroad, sold on video, etc., goes back into the BBC coffers. Top Gear and magazine, BBC Music Magazine, Dr. Who videos, sitcoms, and any BBC show that gets copied in international versions, earn money to supplement the license fee. That’s part of the arrangement. The way the money moves around is a bit byzantine (or at least it was back when I had a small connection to it), but the end result is still money in the BBC bank.

    The BBC could exist as a commercial/subscription entity, but their business culture would have to change dramatically. They wouldn’t have had an iPlayer that took too long to develop and ended up £30 million over budget, for example.

    But it would have to lose its position as official national broadcaster, which would go a long way toward reducing its influence.

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  20. martin says:
    March 1, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Jphn Kimble: No the ‘wimmin’ in Liebour don’t see it that way.

    For example when discussing female stripper and lap dancers the men haters in the BBC and Liebour state that ‘wimmin’ are exploited.

    So when asked if men are exploited on the endless hen nights using male strippers the same men haters state that the sisters are still the ones being exploited.

    You can’t win with their logic.

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  21. Colin W says:
    March 1, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    To receive the BBC in mainland europe requires the payment of a subscription fee, this fee entitles the subscriber to BBC1, 2, 3 and 4. The yearly costs of paying this fee equal to the license fee.

    So if they use subscription via local cable suppliers in europe, why on earth don’t they do the same in the UK?.

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  22. JohnA says:
    March 1, 2009 at 7:08 pm

    Colin

    They don’t – because the Government did not impose subscription, either immediately or on a set timescale, during the last review of the BBC.

    It was all spelt out eg by David Elstein – but the Government dodged it.

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  23. Gus Haynes says:
    March 3, 2009 at 2:01 am

    ”For example when discussing female stripper and lap dancers the men haters in the BBC and Liebour state that ‘wimmin’ are exploited.”

    More useless opinion from martin, sharing his warped world view with us all. why are they men haters? evidence..? and yes of course theyre exploited, men pay for sex and lap dancers. we the male gender fund this shify enterprise. theyre also exploited by fellow women, and they explit themselves also. but its us, men, who exploit them the most.

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  24. JohnA says:
    March 3, 2009 at 2:39 am

    Speak for yourself, sunshine

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