Here's why Whittingdale kicked a subscription BBC into the future

Re: A TV tax based on income?!

I guess it goes like this : you stop paying BBC directly and instead BBC is subsidised, to the tune of £4bln, from your taxes. Well, they might not admit it, but this is how it would end up at the end.

Re: How much for

Although the TV License covers TV, radio and online, it's only required if you do, or have the capability to watch live BBC broadcasts. If you've just got a radio then AFAIK nothing....

Re: How much for

Careful! Subscribe to that, and you'll suddenly see a lot more crap and correspondingly less good stuff on Radio 3.

I'd go for Radios 3 and 4. And I'd pay double to be spared some of the others, like Radio 2 inflicted on us by builders.

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

The BBC lost 150 million this year, as this trend (which has been known about for a while) has happened more quickly than was expected.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbc-axe-1000-jobs-searing-5987176

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

This is exactly what my brother did after the TV licensing people sent him a threatening letter. He'd always paid his fee up until that point.

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

This is something being specifically enabled as requiring the license in the new "deal" the BBC is getting from the government. It won't make any difference but it is possible. Presumably they'll force you to enter a TV license number to access iPlayer and restrict simultaneous usage.

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

And you can get paid subs for t'internet, like wot those Netflix and Amazon chappies do.

Seems to me someone could work out something like plumbing your license number into the iplayer and getting access to everything on one IP at a time (to reduce the benefit of sharing your license# with pals) and people without licenses could pay for individual programs/channels/series to be streamed as they wanted, charged pro-rata in line with the BBC's own published viewing figures for their programs/channels or something

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

Yes, that is what you are allowed to do. Is it an important issue? Well the BBC (and the Government) think so as that was part of the review of the licence fee and one of the factors that triggered it.

Less percentage of the population are paying a licence fee and a large part of that group are people who only use 'catch up' for their viewing.

The ability to require a licence for using catch-up would required a change in the law and so it is part of the negotiations.

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

As an honest no TV license holder my understanding is the viewer needs to pay to watch anything real-time or within one hour of broadcast regardless of the medium.

Luckily for me I think 99.5% of TV is risable so I'm happy to wait infinity or maybe the odd clip on youtube a year or so later. I wouldn't touch iplayer in case I slipped up.

I'm heavily against taxing the device as it is levied on an assumption that everyone is a dishonest TV watching sheep. Some of us love to learn and there is precious little to learn from most TV content.

I know the propaganda machine needs us to watch TV so I guess mine will be a voice in the wilderness. As part of the justification for device tax new meme will start, "those who don't watch telly must be off interfering with goats" or similar.

Re: Licence 'rewording" required?

This is exactly what I do - watch TV on catchup (nothing live) and hence pay no license fee.

Re: "Other countries are bounding ahead"

My understanding from the article was that:

- the government would provide funding for services that benefited the whole of the country (examples given of news and children's TV but not necessarily limited to that)

- further services would then need to be provided by a subscription service

- the current DVB-T hardware does not have uniform hardware support for hardware necessary to support a subscription model

- DVB-T2/HEVC is a EU standard and moving to this would allow the introduction of hardware to support subscriptions as a standard in addition to supporting 4K

Personally I believe the BBC needs to change and has needed to for some time - not so much through the current, apparent political conflict but more due to the changing nature of their audience and competing services.

Younger audiences (16-24) watch significantly less TV content than older audiences across all UK channels and have been for some time as this is beginning to affect the older demographics as well (i.e. 25-34).

Combined with BT/Sky's competition of new series and sporting events, the BBC stands to become left behind unless the change how they deliver and charge for their content.

Re: "Other countries are bounding ahead"

Agreed.... the discussion should primarily be about content, AND developing delivery methods that align with changing 'generational' viewing methods.

One example of this can be seen with sky news, that now streams to Youtube.

Once the content (and quality of it) is established...... the cost is pretty much pre-determined.

So what about concentrating on a broad range of interesting/intelligent/educational programs, and leave the general entertainment garbage to commercial channels, who are anyway doing that kind of stuff.

While the garbage might be cheapish to make... the scale of offerings demand a huge BBC administration.

Slimming the BBC down, to concentrate on the described content, would ensure that there would still be a channel or two that offers stimulating broadcasts IE. ensuring that Britain would not suffer the total dumbing of the population.

Regardless of whether you are rich or poor...... you may want to watch intelligent broadcasts.

It may even be the case that the commercial channels would happily prefer the garbage, and even accept advertising on the BBC, as being specific to intelligent programming.

In this way, we could gain a subsidised advertising model, as a necessary national service.

Like a rail infrastructure is subsidised (while it generates it's own income).

Then just let it go out to the world, as Britain's contribution to culture.

Everybody gets it for free anyway (Filmon and geo blockers).

The value/returns would be significant, if historical evidence of the impact of BBC World Service, is anything to go by.

Re: Need an opt out

I watch part of the BBC and occaisionally another part the the BBC. The pay nothing option is easy, don't watch any BBC content. My sky subscription is only reasonable because I don't watch any sky output.

Re: Need an opt out

> I want the option to not pay anything, and throw the TV in the bin.

You already have that option.

Re: Need an opt out

Well, I don't watch Dr Who so if you want to watch it, will you pay my share of my subscription that goes to that programme? And somebody else can pay the share that goes to football...

Re: Flawed comparison

I'm fine with the licence as it stands, and I can even understand closing up the old on-demand-is-exempt-for-some-reason loophole, but anybody who tries to tell me that a tax on PCs or smartphones can sod off.

The TV licence funds essential services which enable us, the viewing public, to receive content - and that's fine, we're funding the content we consume (and the upkeep of the transmission network?) - it makes sense. But if I've paid my internet bill, and my phone bill, and bought my PC and smartphone, and consume (for example) YouTube, Netflix, Amazon and Twitch content... well, what would I be paying a licence for? At no point does that money contribute to the content I'm viewing or the infrastructure over which it travels, that's what I pay my ISP/mobile phone carrier/content providers for. Even if you consider content created by the BBC, not only has that already been paid for by the TV licence, the rights fees are being paid by Netflix/Amazon/etc for streaming online, which are in turn being paid for by me, the consumer. This argument also applies to the BBC Store, whenever that goes public sometime later this year. I see no justification for arbitrarily deciding that just because I own a thing with a screen and speaker I must be doing something which requires a TV licence. Put a TV licence check on iPlayer if you suspect I'm a freeloading licence-dodger, that'll be fair enough by me.

Re: Flawed comparison

"Want cheaper, universally accessible TV? Require more sports to be free to watch."

Or drop sports from the Beeb's mandate altogether.

Assuming the BBC wins the rights to a hundred or so 90-minute games of football every year, that means it's spending half it's annual budget on just 6 and a quarter day's worth of TV time, which a considerable portion of the audience couldn't give a toss about or even actively dislikes. I'd rather see that money being put into documentaries and good script writing than being used to pad Wayne Rooney's salary and 3000 hours of Strictly Come Dancing being used to pad the shortfall.

Re: Flawed comparison

Never mind the fancy stuff.. I'm amazed that when it comes to the local news on the BBC HD channel you get an interlude... why can't they pipe the SD channel down the HD channel ?

Re: I love the BBC but....

I no longer turn to the BBC for news, finding Channel 4 to be much better these days (still watch the occasional Newsnight though)