Beeb tech boss seeks to expand TV licence online The BBC's technology chief has called for the licence fee to be extended so that people who only watch iPlayer will also have to pay. Erik Huggers made the call as he discussed recent comments by the BBC Trust, the national broadcaster's oversight body, that the internet means TV licensing law will need to be changed. "My …
So I only have to buy a license if I watch TV as it is broadcast? So if I only watch stuff that I have recorded onto my DVD / HD recorder then I don't need a licence (after all this is what iPlayer allows me to do but the BBC record the stuff instead of me doing it). So what happens if I use the ability to pause live TV that my recorder has and then start it again 15 seconds later? At that point I am no longer watching as the stuff is being broadcast and I'm watching something that has been recorded onto my player, hence I don't need a licence.
From now on I will watch all my BBC stuff for free.
More than high time they got rid of this TV licence nonsense. Saved us a fortune from no more persecuting innocent non-TV owners. Or for that matter guilty freeloaders. If a nationally owned broadcaster is considered valuable (and in my opinion there is no question about it) then create a fair algorithm for working out a BBC budget, and fund it from taxation.
Current broadcast technology (Satellite,Terrestrial) means they cannot glean your viewing habits as much as they would like.
Since iPlayer does not match up an IP to a particular user they cannot data mine the results at an individual level.
Charging for iPlayer will allow them to do this.
Do you know how libraries can turn over your reading list to the spooks/police if they feel you have been viewing inappropriate material or material for inappropriate use?
Same thing. Different media.
They need a barometer to see how dumbed down the viewing population is. When the results show only Family Guy and American Dad are being watched I am sure someone at Gov Central will be opening a bottle of bubbly.
Im surprised that some people are ignoring the bigger issue here - the fact that we have to Pay £130+ a year to watch a TV where a small fraction of the programmes on TV are through BBC channels. If the TV licence is purely for the BBC then shouldnt we have the choice not to receive the content?
Surely this is a joke on us licence paying folk who have no option to 'opt out' or turn off the BBC related channels/content so we dont have to pay for a licence. Is that too much to ask? I dont understand the legal requirements of TV licencing but the way non payers are portrayed you would have thought they were murderers and scum of the highest order. In a democracy we should be able to choose not to watch content from the BBC and not have the pathetic few BBC channels on our TVs which would negate the iron fisted rule of TV licencing bods.
Paying for iPlayer use? what a load of rubbish - people pay ISPs, Sky, Virgin etc etc so why on earth should people without a TV be forced to pay for iPlayer??!! Sheer greed on the part of the BBC which is spawned from the ridiculous situation regarding the Licence fee in the first place!
can someone explain the inner workings of the TV licence and what we can and cant get away with?!
all you need to enter is your tv licence number, no licence number, no iplayer!
"Why not just add a unique key to each TV licence (if it doesn't already have one). Set up an account on the beeb's site, enter your TV licence number, and viola, you've got access to BBC programs from anywhere in the world"
What he said :P
Make the account usable for 3-4 simulatinous logins at once to cover the family and voila, simple and effective.
"I must be very naive then - as I thought that as it stood at the moment you ought to have a TV license to watch iPlayer."
Its an odd situation, you both do and don't.
I don't have a licence as I don't watch TV, even on iPlayer, but I do use iPlayer to catch up on the radio broadcasts. As good as I think radio 4 is, there is no way on this earth I'd pay to listen to a few programs that I'd missed - I might as well wait a few months and get them on Radio 7, the home of repeats....
I don't agree that the license fee needs to be extended to cover the iPlayerati (sorry iPlayer-tards in Reg-speak) it seems like an unworkable arrangement. Far better, imho, for parts of iPlayer to become subscription based, if the Beeb is determined that iPlayer must pay it's way.
For example - £25-50pa (or the equivalent in local funds) get's you full access to good quality streams/downloads. Without that, you're limited to the last seven days of content in a 'low res' format. AND NO DRM!!!! (yes, I'm looking at you C4!)
I don't use iPlayer a heck of a lot, except for taking a local copy of content that I want to refer to later, like the Grow Your Own Drugs series or Science and Islam. iPlayer-dl is just a wonderful piece of software! ;)
They could even - horror of horrors - generate a proper access/download API so we could get a range of clients (inc Linux - yes you again C4!)
I realise that merely suggesting paying for something is going to get me flamed - but what the heck, it's better than being forced to watch the Apprentice (barf!)
Erik Huggers ... hee, hee - that's a funny name. :D
Damn the moaners and their whining - the whole point of a public service is that you pay for it even if you don't use it. If the funding for the BBC had come out of (specially ringfenced) taxation in the first place rather than the licence fee then we'd have none of this fuss now.
"Waa waaa! I don't watch the BBC! I have Sky, so why should I pay for quality television when I have as much Murdoch-produced prole-crack as I need?". Well, shut-up. You may be an idiot happy to watch American sit-com re-runs, 'Ibiza gone wild' and dumbed-down documentaries on Discovery, but thankfully at the moment you pay towards some quality television. You might not like this, but so what? Ridiculous things such as Trident cost us far more, with no positive gain. The BBC is a great thing, and once selfish twunts like you get rid of it, it will be gone for ever.
The anti-BBC ranting is tiresome on here. Go and get a life, whiners.
Those aren't commercial adverts. If they weren't shown how would you know what Ashes to Ashes was etc.? They take up all of 30 secs, if that, between programming as opposed to a commercial break.
@James Greenhalgh - I bet if we were to observe your viewing (and listening) habits you would watch and listen to far more than you would dare admit to on a BBC bashing article.
People seem to forget the service the BBC gives us. Without the BBC the broadcasting standards in this country would fall through the floor. Think Sky and the incessant 5 minute advert breaks.
Think that the iPlayer wouldn't have been developed so soon and that the ITVplayer, 4OD, and Demand Five are all responses to the BBCs development.
Radio without those annoying adverts. Programmes not particularly commercially viable or risky like the large nature series filmed over 5 years etc.
Its not that simple that the BBC should become a public company. If the license fee was abolished what to replace it with? Tax like in Australia? This would reduce admin and collection costs certainly.
@Anonymous Coward:
" is that If I'm paying you for these shows, with my license fee, why cant I download them, store them, and watch them at my convenience? why should I have to pay for them on DVD? "
Does that go for every show "you pay for" on a Sky subscription, or every DVD "you pay for" in a rental shop, or every film "you pay for" in the cinema or...
" or am i being far to simple? "
Yes.
We pay for our material on how much we use it. The TV version we can watch once, at restricted times. A DVD version we can watch on repeat for a decade if we really want to. Buying the DVD means that the heavy users pay more than the light users.
i have no license. don't have a telly. have a home cinema to watch films. sometimes watch stuff on iplayer, but nowhere near enough to justify £140 as I'm skint. I've got a particular interest in comedy which is a shame as the bbc seem to have gone off the idea. rehashing reggie perrin and the aging have i got news for you feels like watching the same show over and over again if it wasnt for the stuntcasting of presenters. anything new goes on bbc3, which is aimed at toddlers and the mentally insubstantial.
although a member of the two best uk torrent sites, havent downloaded anything for weeks. from any channel.
even newswipe sucked arse.
so fine, do something. register iplayer to tv license numbers. i'll just download the 3-4 shows a year i like from torrents.
or now you can monitor on iplayer how about a PAYG service? might be worthwhile. or a teired service. seeing as i use about 1/25th of the average of the service, if i paid 1/25th of the price that'd be ok. (about an hour a week on average over the year, compared with ofcom figures of over 25 hours a week)
btw wonder if they are trying to trap people at the moment. a couple of times i've clicked on bbc news headline links to formula 1, expecting to see some text about the race, only for it to kick off a player with a live feed. that is illegal for me (no license) but then i haven't clicked a link saying "watch live formula 1". doesn't even have a click through to the content (saying "this is live"), just auto starts. gets on my tits.
I've had a to-and-frow with TV Licencing for the last 6 years. I really don't watch 'TV', that is via an aerial/live broadcasts. I've disconnected the Aerial. It was the best thing I ever did in my opinion.
Axelis Sayle once clarified it - calculating the total revenue of the BBC, only to state that from this 'They made 5 good programs with it, and that includes this one' - which said it all in my opinion.
The real problem is the licence fee is like a safe snug blanket to the BBC Trust - the revenue is vast. Far more than any subscription service would ever generate. Sky pales into insignificance in comparison.
They have developed the iplayer and probably didn't realise how popular it would become - thinking it would be a niche product like the magazines such as Top Gear.
I have argued with TV Licencing that it is no longer a minority of people that don't watch 'TV'. They can no longer assume everyone is watching via Aerial and not paying (which is the general theme of their correspondence)
People today have far more means to entertain themselves - TV can no longer be said to have a monopoly on people's spare time. I'd much rather cook a nice meal and head out for coastal walk nearby, watch an up to date DVD, or watch the latest Film at the Cinema, read a good book than watch Celebrities laughing at us. Honestly - unplug it for a month this summer and see how you get on (if necessary - may a bit of iplayer) - you won't miss it.
There aren't many Celebs that watch TV-because they have realised there are far better things to do with the majority of their time (and get paid for it in the process by us the plebs watching them)
I actually think there is a now a significant minority that don't watch 'TV'. And of the 5 good programmes the BBC make you can now catch up on them for free on iplayer. So the idea of a TV licence is even less appealing. To state you should have a TV LIcence to watch iplayer - i'd be happy with this if it is still 'free' at the point of watching.
This means that the BBC licence subsidies a broadband connection which can stream 2 simulataneous programmes at low definition or one HD programme continuously via my broadband connection.
So for my monthly licence fee of say £12 a month I get Broadband access which I can either watch the BBC or surf the net. Any usage above the download limits required to Stream 1 HD Channel 24 Hours a day I pay in addition to my ISP. BBC access is controlled by the ISP. I either subscribe to this 'free' monthly licence fee - so I pay £139.50 a year or a pay a traditional monthly broadband connection separately and I don't have access to the BBC iplayer.
Another optiion would be to use the current licence fee to subsidies this download capacity - and for the bbc to rent back spare bandwidth to ISP which they can then sell to the consumer.
You could also keep this two licence fees separate, so you are entitled to only watch via the iplayer and pay additionally to watch via Transmitter (this payment covering the maintenance of the transmitters)
But the idea that you should just pay a licence fee to watch the iplayer negates the savings the BBC are making from having a much cheaper distribution system. They may pay for Siemens to encode and stream their content, but in the long run it is a far cheaper model than the money that could be made auctioning off the airwaves and maintenance of the existing transmitter system. We are paying towards the transmission of programmes into our home via Broadband, so to expect us to pay a full licence is wrong.
On the one hand the BBC want to keep the licence but on the other technology is showing them that access could be restricted by ISPs and be part of the ISP Subscription model. ISP's see the BBC as the 'freeloader', (not the customer) which has caused additonal bandwith costs, while not offering any of its licence money to help build this infractructure - leaving it to ISPs to adjust their subscription models. But ISPs aren't completely against the BBC because media content means continued broadband subscription, so it seem they might have a common model between them.
Oh, do shut up.
Every time, an article mentions the license fee it's the same: Read the article, don't bother to actually understand it, then froth away.
All that needs to happen here is for the iPlayer site to take a serial number of a license fee, for an account to be setup, or something like that. Noone is talking about extending the license fee to become a fee for broadband.
@David Haworth
The TV license is required if you use a tv for not watching broadcasts/BBC
Its in the terms that even if its just a DVD player plugged in you stil have to pay. You also have to pay if there is a computer in the house. As this constitues a tv(Monitor as TV, Internet TV etc)
Its just damn stupid
"I don't believe in a free ride."
Welcome to the internet buddy. We pay our ISP for the access. If you dont want people to have free access to the content. Dont put it on there. SImple logic.
The internet is about freedom to access data/information. Something he fails to seem to grasp
Paris loves the BBC
"My view is that if you are using the iPlayer you have to be a television licence fee payer. I don't believe in a free ride. If you are consuming BBC services then you have to be a licence holder," ...
And yet the BBC website including news, online radio, sport, games etc has been live for years and is accessible worldwide for free. How do these not qualify as "BBC services". How about some consistency...
There is no need for conscientious objectors to have a TV license.
They have to show that you are using equipment to watch or record TV transmissions.
They have no right to enter your home or to question you so they would never be able to get the evidence unless you have a TV in the front windows.
They are employees of CAPITA working on a bonus in a mock official uniform and telling you that they must caution you under Police and Criminal Evidence Act. This spooks most bored housewives.
Isn't this what Jonathan Zittrain predicted in his book 'The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It' predicted? It seems more and more interests (commercial, governmental, etc.) are finding the model the internet espouses not to their liking. Now the genie is out of the bottle some interests are doing their hardest to pull it back. Rupert Murdoch wants to start charging for accessing his newspapers; record companies want to cut off internet access; Australia filters web access- I think some people hate the internet. A I can see the time coming when if you want to view a website you'll have to pay a fee. Maybe I'm pessimistic but there you are.
So, as someone who does not have a TV licence and does not want to watch Beeb content online, where can I go to register my personal /23 in the Beeb's Iplayer-blocklist?
[It's taken the threat of an injunction for me to get "TV Licensing [a.k.a. Crapita]" to stop sending me the traditional monthly threatening letters & blackmail-O-grams]
I sometimes use iPlayer to watch the odd program. I dont have a TV license because I dont watch any broadcast TV...
If they do implement a iPlayer tax... Most (including myself) will just download the actual programs they want to watch via BitTorrent.
This idea is dead in the water if you ask me. Maybe Sky or Virgin might start charging for "Online Services" but I can't see how the BBC would profit very much on it. They probably will do it eventually (just requiring you to enter your license account number when you register for iPlayer, 4OD etc...).
Bit fed up of the UK government trying to "police" the internet to be honest. Wont be too long before they are recording/monitoring all internet traffic.... no wait... ;-)
AC - Obvious reasons :-D
Spot on, David. It's as if they are hijacking the internet and ISP bandwidth to re broadcast content and then trying to apply a tax to fund it.
If I was a SKY subscriber (I am not) I might be unhappy at paying a monthly fee to watch their content only to find people could see it on the net for free. How would one feel if SKY tried to extract a fee from every computer owner on the basis that with a computer it is possible to watch 'some' SKY content?
My response: two words, one of which is 'off' ... (the other word could be Switch... :) )
Note to BBC:
If you cannot afford to run the web service then don't ! We already have the technology at home to record your broadcasts should we miss the appointed scheduled hour (and even if we forget to set the timer there is bound to be a repeat along shortly to fill up the slots made available by having 4 channels and not enough content!)
This post has been deleted by its author
I'm in NZ and would happily to pay to watch BBC programmes via iPlayer. Telly is shocking here! Thing is though, as someone else pointed out, this means a drastic re-think about how the fee is charged; not just adding more charges.
Evil jobs because that icon makes me chuckle.
There does seem to be a conspiracy between the Government/MP's and the BBC. The lenient approach to not replacing the the licence fee model with one more akid to the times.
The recent debarcle regarding MP's Expenses - I wonder how many have double claimed - i.e they have an appearance on a regional BBC show say in Manchester, and meeting in their constituency the next day 10 Miles away. They claimed the overnight allowance from both the BBC and through Parliament Expenses.
There should be a policy that they can only claim for original receipts - not photocopies.
The BBC is a gravy train for sitting MP's - guest apperances on Have I got News for you etc. No wonder they don't want to upset the BBC - any MP vocal against them will see their own pockets hit and the BBC will probably get its way regarding the iplayer to become a tax on ISPs.
Paris because she knows what its like to double up.
So please explain the 'public service' delivered by the BBC, which these days splits its efforts between
-Celebrity X-Factor Apprentice on Ice, BeastEnders and other low-rent swill
-Pointless arts programmes watched by a handful of chin-stroking arts graduates
-Trying to be a commercial operation in the rest of the world?
Public services are things like street lighting, healthcare, policing and so on. Ad-free radio and TV is not a public benefit that justifies confiscating money from those who are not interested in contributing voluntarily.
If I could save £139 back in return for giving up half an hour of Radio 2 every day, I'd definitely go for it. The tiny amount of BBC TV I watch is nearly all repeats on Dave - complete with ad breaks.
We're not great consumers of TV shows, and the vast majority of what we do watch is US imports.
Don't people actually read ?
"My view is that if you are using the iPlayer you have to be a television licence fee payer. I don't believe in a free ride. If you are consuming BBC services then you have to be a licence holder,"
For all the people complaing about a blanket tax on the internet - where does this quote mention that people who don't use iplayer should be charged?
I have to admit - I don't watch a lot of BBC1 or 2, maybe an hour or two a MONTH, but I do not mind paying the 'Tax'.
My children watch CBBC/Cbeebies
I listen to Radio2 in the car for 3 hours a day (can't account for taste)
I use the BBC website to check the news and sport.
I use iPlayer to watch programmes that I missed (cause the kids are watching CBeebies....)
All these are paid for through my TV license.
I notice so many of the people saying - "I don't watch BBC - I just download what I watch from iPlayer." Do they think that the license ONLY pays for BBC1 and 2?
Mind you I also pay SKY for 300 odd channels of which I only watch about 5. That costs me twice as much as the license.
hmm good luck proving and collecting fees on that one unless they do put a login system on.
But then as the TV License guys can't even work out that if one person in a house has a license then the partner doesn't need it I can't see a new system adding onto that working too well.
Make it too much hassle and people will just use other methods like every other website that gets too ambitious
First of all it seems most haven't even read the article. This isn't a blanket tax for the internet, this is for iPlayer. For a supposedly tech-savvy bunch of people I'm surprised most haven't realised it'd be rather easy to tie a login to the licence.
By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 14th May 2009 17:29 GMT
'And yet the BBC website including news, online radio, sport, games etc has been live for years and is accessible worldwide for free. How do these not qualify as "BBC services". How about some consistency...'
AC you are an idiot. If you've ever been out of little england you'd know that these sites have advertising all over them.
BBC domestic full of adverts? Come off it, if you try to watch commercial channels you are constantly having content broken by advertising. Anyone been to the states and endured 20 minute infomercials?
By Zimmer Posted Thursday 14th May 2009 22:43 GMT
'If you cannot afford to run the web service then don't ! We already have the technology at home to record your broadcasts should we miss the appointed scheduled hour'
Who the balls is 'we'? I don't have anything set up, and certainly don't know anyone that does. People like iPlayer - and I'd guess it's one of the reasons for its popularity is its simplicty.
As a BBC employee (on his lunchbreak) I sometimes despair at attitudes towards it. It's not perfect and I personally think its remit to entertain should largely be dropped (that can be catered for by the commercial sector), but it produces some fantastic content and I'm sick of the cynical, miserable attitude that pervades public opinion - until that is, they're gone - at which point everyone gets misty eyed and begins moaning that it's not how it used to be.
In Denmark they introduced a "media license" which has to be paid by everyone with an internet connection faster than a certain level (I think it's 256kb/s, but I'm not sure). That's because the public service TV/radio company decided to send its programs over the internet.
Made a lot of people angry - especially those who didn't want to see TV and didn't want to pay a license, but now had to simply because they had an internet connection.
The same is happening in the mother country I see. All the same arguments about "logins" etc fell on deaf ears - despite the fact that pay-to-view internet tv can apparently cope.
He rabbits on about not giving us a free ride, I agree, WTF should the BBC have a free ride? If I don't WANT to watch BBC's crap WTF should I be FORCED to pay for it? I watch sky, ITV, etc etc, I PAY for the channels I WANT, I PAY for the BBC SEPERATELY when I DONT WANT IT!
Fuck off BBC
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