THREATOGRAMS

The folks who run the TV-LICENSING blog dropped me a line that I would like to share with you.

“I thought I woulddraw your attention to an ongoing Freedom of Information Act request we arepursuing with the BBC. As you will no doubt be aware the BBC has attractedwidespread criticism for the menacing tone of their TV Licensing routine letters,which have been dubbed “threatograms”. Using the Freedom ofInformation Act 2000 we asked the BBC how many complaints had been receivedabout these mailings since 2008.

The BBC initially replied with misleading data, which we knew was incorrect sowe challenged them on it. They promised to issue a revised response, but havemissed their own deadline to do so on three separate occasions. A month has nowpassed and the BBC still can’t tell us how many complaints have actually beenreceived. They blame their contractors, but the simple fact is that the BBCshould be monitoring these complaints closely and they obviously aren’t.

Licence fee payers should be seriously concerned that the BBC has such adismissive attitude to legitimate concerns about the wording of these letters.The BBC Trust has even criticised the tone of them. The full text of our ongoing FOIA request can be found here:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/complaints_against_tv_licensing
 We have also been keeping readers informed at our blog:
http://tv-licensing.blogspot.com“