You’d have to be a completely heartless bastard to laugh.
The BBC has spent the last 5 years chastising the Coalition for its welfare reforms and in the run up to the election loudly demanded to know the details of the proposed £12 billion in savings from the welfare budget…and now we know, at least one bit….the BBC is going to pay a huge chunk of it itself!
Chancellor Osborne to hit BBC to fund welfare cuts – Sunday Times
Chancellor George Osborne plans to launch a 650 million pound raid on the BBC to help cover the country’s benefits bill, forcing the corporation to meet the cost of free television licences for the over-75s, the Sunday Times said.
It quoted senior government sources as saying a deal is close that will force the BBC to take on the cost of the 4.5 million licences — worth 145.50 pounds each — from the Department for Work and Pensions.
The move, it said, is part of a package of 12 billion pounds of welfare cuts, widely expected to be unveiled in a budget bill on Wednesday.
In return, the paper said, the BBC will be allowed to make up some of the lost revenue by charging for use of its iPlayer and other online catch-up services to try to stem the loss of licence fee revenue caused by people turning to the Internet and abandoning their televisions.
That will return at least 150 million pounds to BBC coffers, the paper added, but the 650 million pounds benefits bill represents the loss of around a fifth of the corporation’s annual 3.7 billion pounds licence fee income.
The details, including the timing of the change, are still under negotiation but it is likely to be phased in after 2017, when the number of over-75s claiming a free licence will have risen further, the paper said.
This was also proposed back in 2010 and presumably shelved under pressure from the LibDems or because, despite the amusement I greet it with, it is a bizarre concept….the BBC is after all supposed to be raising money from the licence fee not handing it out….it is the government that has decided that pensioners should get a free licence and not the BBC…I’m sure the BBC would be more than happy to lock up non-paying pensioners as well as the poverty stricken single mothers that it normally targets.
Does seem a bit daft….but apparently the BBC empire is getting too big…
Mr Osborne also said that the BBC’s website may be scaled back because it has become too “imperial”.
He said that the scale of the BBC’s online offering means that it is coming “the national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster”.
He said: “You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers. And if you look at the BBC website, it’s a good product but it is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.
It is completely unacceptable to charge for ‘catch-up’. This will give enormous additional power the BBC at a time when the demand is for its power to be curtailed. This must not be allowed to go ahead.
It smacks of weakness, ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’.
I don’t agree . If they charge they may find people look for other providers and so the BBC will be forced to at least partly enter the commercial world of subscription media providers. A first step down the right road as outright closure just won’t happen no matter how much we may wish it would. As the years pass fewer and fewer people will watch live TV and so the BBC Tax will slowly disappear. Once the BBC is a fully commercial operation they can be as biased as they wish and people will choose whether or not to pay to take their service. This site will then have served its purpose.
I agree. I don’t watch TV but I do n a catch-up trawl once a week. Lst night I trawled all 4 BBC channel output over the past week. There was NOT ONE programme I wanted to watch !
So if the BBC wants to charge for catch-up, it should be on a per-item basis, Giving us plebs the chance to say sod the BBC, I’ll just catch up on ITV and Channel 4 for free.. And watch any big sports events (not that the BBC has many) down at the pub.
That’s what I find when I open iplayer. I normally click on ‘most popular’ and there usually isn’t a single thing I want to watch. The only thing I ever use iPlayer for is This Week.
This is probably a dumb question. So, I’ll ask it:
Why is there a cost associated with the FREE TV licence for the over-75s? It is simply money not coming in. It’s not like a cut to the massive £3.5 billion that IS coming in. In fact, since the ONS calls the licence fee, a tax, isn’t it simply tax-relief for the over 75s?
I was wondering that myself. Presumably instead of just the Beeb doing without the money the DWP has been handing over an equivalent sum to offset the lost income?
The government pays the BBC out of general taxation the money for ‘free’ over 75 licence fees.
(Edit Dave666 got in first)
My understanding is the same. Over 75’s are paid by the govt to the BBC. The BBC has remained quite quite about how the deal is done. I’m sure they would like us to think that is them kindly dropping the fee rather than the tax payer taking it on their shoulders.
Now Osborne has dropped a pile of pooh on the beeboids ‘ lap to sort out. Make savings and spare the over 75’s the fee. Or charge them and defend your gratuitous self spending and pay offs (and in turn look like the Conservatives they point the finger at as being mean to pensioners).
I’m no Tory but I gotta say in this instance they’ve pulled a blinder here.
Schadenfreude indeed.
My understanding was that Mr Taxpayer paid the BBc for the “free” 75+ licence
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149911/Osborne-takes-aim-Beeb-Chancellor-force-imperial-BBC-pick-650m-cost-free-TV-licenses-elderly.html
So DWP pays it so in fact we pay it so in effect even if you are not paying for a license you are paying for someone else to have one. Up until the BBc have to pay then I suppose we will have to lose some of their high quality output. Still they have until 2020
More imperial – is that a polite way of saying it’s too big for its boots? I just hope Mr Osborne keeps his nerve and doesn’t put any of the costs for funding the sodding bbc via general taxation. It must be a general principle that individuals can opt out of funding it.
“…It must be a general principle that individuals can opt out of funding it.”
I agree, but the BBC has thus far been a state-enforced cost to the British public. It’s simply another tax we all have to pay under threat of imprisonment if we wish to watch live TV – even if the TV we watch doesn’t include the BBC! So the BBC is not an option we can currently opt out of having to pay for at present, although I’m sure there are many of us (given the huge range of alternatives via satellite and online) who would gladly dispense with the BBC completely if it meant we didn’t have to hand over our £145pa to a broadcaster which simply doesn’t represent us or our world views (or politics).
This is the test the BBC never want to take, mainly because – given the new internet demographics – they know they’d completely fail. Young people don’t watch TV (and certainly not the sainted BBC) in the same way older generations did (and mostly still do). These days, kids, teens and young adults can find their entertainment online, via satellite, mobile or even through their game consoles.
Technology, time and changing social habits in the under 30s demographic is not so much biting at the BBC’s heels as it is threatening to strangle it.
Quite ironic how progress now promises to overwhelm and extinguish the BBC progressives!
The word to sum it up for many on here for this, if it happens, is schedenfreude.
I do not expect anyone on Today will be asking a government minister “Why are we doing this”.
Could the BBC not add advertising into everything other than live broadcasts?
The BBC already carries paid advertising on its World Service TV output, as seen in countries outside the UK. Yes, even programmes like Click or Top Gear have commercial breaks built in.
So for all its bleating about the sanctity of its commercial-free output, the BBC already takes the commercial shilling. And I don’t suppose that newsreaders choose to have the Apple symbol prominently displayed on their laptops, when a bit of masking tape would easily hide it, purely in the public interest…
“And I don’t suppose that newsreaders choose to have the Apple symbol prominently displayed on their laptops, when a bit of masking tape would easily hide it, purely in the public interest… ”
Good point. Back in the good old days of Noakes-era Blue Peter they had to do that all the time with branded items.
At the end of “NOT GOING OUT” this weekend the BBC plugged the box-set (1-7). I asked my wife is that right? She, who works in TV production for twenty plus years as an independent (sometimes at the beeb- the stories I’ve heard would make you cry with the waste/munificence to themselves and over-staffing) said “No absolutely not” and she maintains that they should not be wearing branded puffa jackets (Berghaus I believe) that BBC reporters wear in winter. It s a definate NO NO. But they simply dont care what people think she maintains or the independent production companies (including ITV) who see the beeb as over staffed, generaly lazy and squandering.
Nope, your wife is simply wrong. Not that I’d expect you’d want to tell her.
I guess it would depend on whether the product is being ‘placed’ for material gain. Very hard to prove. I worked in an office where it was an ‘open secret’ that one of the managers had a Spurs season ticket paid for by a supplier. Easy to deny – ‘I paid cash’ (if you’re smart and make a big withdrawal at the same time the ticket is bought).
Who’s going to know if a company’s marketing reps chuck a few puffer jackets and plane tickets at a journalist?
…Moreover Fuleco as my partner has directed AND produced for the BBC (as an independent) in which part do you believe she is wrong exactly?
No. I am afraid you are.
What`s the BBCs problem with their being asked to “contribute” to the upkeep and cultural enrichment of the old and senile?
After all-did they not pioneer this “Help The Aged” scheme towards vulnerable and confused elders of our community with their long-running project that provided employment and a suitable profile?
I mean-if they`d not already shown their commitment to this most noble cause-they`d have not ran that bloody awful pension pot on wheels they called “The Last of the Summer Whine”.
For over twenty years was it not?
If anybody can name a bigger waste of money, unfunny and an endorsement of the embalmers art…do tell!
The First Open Air Museum in Britain turns out to have been that decrepit job share for those without the grace to push shopping trolleys for Morrisons in Bradford.
Unique Way It Is Funded .
Why doesn’t the BBC tell the over 75s not to use its services for free , ie ; not watch the BBC then it will not suffer any losses ?
The BBC doesn’t care if immigrants come into this country and use the NHS and other facilities they haven’t paid for .
Nibor
“The BBC doesn’t care if immigrants come into this country and use the NHS and other facilities they haven’t paid for.”
100% wrong.
Not only does the BBC “care” about this, it “cares” about little else.
The political raison d’etre of the ANC (The Antibritish Narrowcasting Corporation) is to ensure as many unwanted aliens from anywhere land on our shores.
If these aliens are actually, or possibly the enemies of what remains of the native British people so much the better for the BBC.
Significant phrasing for the Chancellor who seems to get it, even if he is using the words to dock a slice of the licence fee while sadly giving the BBC a concession on free computer viewing:
‘He said that the scale of the BBC’s online offering means that it is coming “the national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster”.
He said: “You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers. And if you look at the BBC website, it’s a good product but it is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.’
That comment was about the future when national newspapers are likely to be exclusively online – then the comment makes sense.
“You wouldn’t want the BBC to completely crowd out national newspapers. And if you look at the BBC website, it’s a good product but it is becoming a bit more imperial in its ambitions.’ I would say thats about now. NOT the future. It not complicated.
If I am going to pay the licence fee why will I have to also pay for the iPlayer catch-up. If given the choice I’d go for just the catch-up, and I’d also expect to be able to use it outside the UK.
A TV licence number and postcode, rather than a fee, should suffice. I never watch the BBc. I view this site to check that the BBC’s output is still a pile of sh*te!
If the BBC do put advertising on everything other than live broadcasts it would certainly ease in the idea of adverts on the live broadcasts in time.
But the BBC are constantly advertising – promoting themselves. Having advertisements for other things would be no worse that what they are giving us already.
Mr Osborne also said that the BBC’s website may be scaled back because it has become too “imperial”.
He said that the scale of the BBC’s online offering means that it is coming “the national newspaper as well as the national broadcaster”.
Promising stuff.
How could we possibly laugh? The poor old BBC had only addressed £50m (with 1000 staff to be axed) of the £150m shortfall resulting from fewer folk volunteering to pay the tax and now they are looking to find a further £650m of cuts. Oh dear, oh dear!
If only there was some method of broadcasting, where only their paid subscribers could view their output….
On the one hand we license payers have already paid for the programmes as they are aired, but on the other hand so few programmes are worth paying for that unless they improve the quality, the Beeb may find that charging for iplayer brings in very little extra income.
I wonder just how many people out there, who like me, thought that when the over 75’s were told they didn’t have to pay for a licence, that they did just that, didn’t pay for a licence. No way, was I under the impression that the government paid that licence fee. What a win win situation for the far left BBC. You know, I’m a bit piss*d off about that.
I think George has pulled a blinder on the BBC. He has caught the bastards by the goolies & there is no way out. I would not object to paying for the iPlayer, after all if you go shopping in Sainsbury’s you pay for what you buy, unless you are on the rob. The iPlayer becomes subscription service, which most of us want, the rest of the BBC to become.
Agreed – I think that this move may lay the foundation for the BBC being forced to take a bluddy great ‘haircut’ on its annual income, or having to introduce a subscription service for one aspect of its services……….
…………and if it can do that, what is therefore preventing this £4bn p.a.pariah doing it for every part of the its services….?
I wonder how many extra licences they sold that year? All of a sudden they attained a 100% subscription in the over 75’s.
I wouldn’t under-estimate this.
I suspect that in private the Conservatives are fully aware of how Left Wing biased the BBC is and that it has become an out-of-control monster with its own Liberal Left agenda.
I also suspect they know that too much, too soon could play into the BBC’s hands.
I would look on this development as a small but very significant chink in the BBC’s armour.
The ice is broken……
I wouldn’t object to paying for the I player because I’ve used it about twice in the last 5 years and if I had to pay to use it I wouldn’t.
What’s I-player?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_iPlayer
Another pointless system for watching what is normally repeated all week anyway that you didn’t want to watch in the first place. Most popular at the moment the abysmal Eastenders.
Haven’t seen ‘Eastenders’ for donkey’s years but had the misfortune to catch a bit of it last week – thought I was watching a soap from f*****g Nigeria!!!!!!!!
Don’t forget the cost of the BBC FatCats pension payments. A quote from last year’s DT (14/1/14) shows how big a proportion of the license fee does NOT go into programming. I’m loving it!
“The amount that the BBC pays to its pension fund over the next four years will increase from an already-agreed £375m to £740m.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10570964/BBC-to-pump-740m-of-licence-fee-payers-cash-into-pension-scheme-deficit.html
The irony of the BBC getting unsettled by support for one set of pensioners (the UK public) whilst being comfortable with another set (their own) being protected from the vagaries of the fund markets is notable.
As I’ve just become a senile 75 year old wrinkly, please forgive me because I can’t understand why the BBC demands to know my NINO to prove my age. Does the BBC know someone at the DWP ?
I turned on my television on Saturday to watch Wimbledon but instead of the tennis or a commentary on the tennis my screen was filled with a short “film” that consisted of a still shot of Andy Murray’s legs with a music backing track. I lasted about a minute and probably took some budding filmmaker at the BBC about a day to make. Do the BBC actually believe that anyone would find this interesting or that it would in some way enhance our enjoyment of the tournament? Do they really have so many staff will nothing better to do than waste the license-payers money with such abandon? Do they think the viewers are idiots?
I’ve got this.
That would be yes yes yes and yes.
This is only the beginning. They won’t stop now…
Jolly good! More to come. Next week perhaps, we’ll hear another announcement? And again the week after?
With a bit of luck, by Christmas all that will be left of the BBC will comprise….(Put your wish list here!).
..
The bBC only have themselves to blame, they have pushed the IPlayer so heavily that people have realised and are using it in a way to avoid the licence fee.
Every large TV, DVD, Bluray, PVR one buys all have it built in, the app is free on both Android and Apple and is even on Sky’s Now TV box.
It’s a good App as is the Radio App, a shame the programs are dire.
My ‘internet’ radios no longer deliver the services that they did when new, the flat screen TV stopped delivering iPlayer radio and then TV and the DVD is following suite.
This is all the result of the BBC following its non-paying youth market who delight in keeping Apple in the style it has become accustomed to.
There are ‘some’ who allege that the Internet is unsustainable as more and more trivia swamps ‘quality’ data. Will the time come soon that it will be illegal to stream ‘EastEnders’? Will the BBC be forced back to using TV masts and satellites?
BBC R4 news at 5 just said that the decision to make the BBC fund licences for the elderly will “cost the Corporation £650m”.
That’s terrible. I’m shocked that the BBC’s hard earned money is to be taken away from it. The BBC works hard to earn its money just like you and me, and what it’s earned it’s entitled to keep. It’s not as if the BBC is given the money. It’s not as if the entire population is forced by law to hand over cash to the BBC or be jailed is it?
Oh wait…
From today’s Guardian.
Last week, the BBC announced 1,000 job cuts to deal with the consequences of a £150m funding shortfall next year due to increasing numbers of people failing to pay their licence fees and watching live television.
Like the vile BBC snoopers the Guardian assumes that people without a licence have failed to buy it rather than not needing to buy one.
The bbc should cater for all tastes, and represent all views.
To me they have failed totally to do this, nearly every programme has a left wing bias, the shows are full of left wing leaning people.
They have totally failed to cater for the male population. Eg one of the largest sports in the UK is angling, ITV, channel 5 , Discovery and Sky all cater, but the bbc are not interested. Probably because it is largely a Male following…
Oh dear. Not going well for him in the replies…
Chris Morris @BBCChrisMorris
The #BBC is to lose about 20% of its budget. We have more in common with #Greece than you might think.
Look east tonight, main story is the family of twelve from Luton. The news munchkin tells us that it has raised a lot of questions. Yeah, like , when are the rest of em gonna clear off, are they still in receipt of benefits.
The BBC have long been practicing their monocultural techniques on us all-so the over 75s(and us too, when we get there)…are already primed.
1. An ear trumpet
2. A big screen.
3. Synchronous shouting down the trumpet from that nice Capita CPN who plugs us into the IV line-to go with the pictures we`re made to face.
4 Twenty words
Climate Change, Euthanasia, Religion of Peace, Toricutz, Vote Labour, Love that EU, gays, legalise drugs, Russell Brand is Grand.
And women rule the world of sport.
Might be more than 20-so off to the teenage doctor lounging by the pharmacy counter to check your faculties for programming.
And that-on a loop-for ever.
Fuck the Beeb-don`t pay…dare we go up to 30 words now?
And not to forget that Margaret is to blame for everything.
Let’s not ‘beat about the bush’.
The Al Beeba has become so embarrassingly pro left wing over the last few years that the employees have shot themselves in the foot, and are themselves, destroying through their own political bias, what was a very good institution. Shame on them. It just needs to be run with better balance. Go on George, give them the financial spanking they deserve, no sympathy from me.
As usual, no secrets about political allegiance over at BBC Radio Nottingham – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02vd9wn#auto [Fast Forward to 03:46]
The BBC iPlayer is over valued. The iPlayer is popular simply because its a convenient catch up service. This popularity will disappear when they demand payment for it. The Times is forever trying to make money from its ‘online editions’ which I suspect still loose money. The Daily Mail online is profitable but the BBC is clearly over staffed, over paid and protected from any real competition through it’s former charter. In short it can survive by downsizing and regroup with the Guardian newspaper which in effect counter balances the Murdoch media empire which they despise as much as Maggie Thatcher. Another little problem the BBC has is that they can no longer rely on TV purchases which ‘automatically’ created a Telly license. TV’s are in decline, their last hope was the BBC iPlayer to match NetFlix and Sky TV seems a far off dream. The contract for Wimbledon Tennis will surely go to Sky next year after the balls up this year if there was a choice we would all go elsewhere. They still have 70% of the viewing/listening public, 20,000 staff and make 3.8 Billion in license fees and earn over 1.2 million in BBC repeats and TV ‘brand’ licensing such as ‘Top gear’ repeats. If we remove the license fee, the size of the BBC is realistically what it earns from repeats elsewhere. Its impresses third world countries only as they have ‘free’ service we end up paying for.