UK.gov pledges licence fee 'rethink' over heavy catch-up use

Democracy and fairness at last?

Well, why not introduce an accounts based system - whereby on paying your license fee you are given a login to the BBC iPlayer website. This way we will finally be able to watch other TV material (ITV, Channel 4 etc.) without having to pay the compulsory BBC tax.

I am not suggesting in anyway that BBC materials are not of excellent quality - but the current situation amounts effectively to compulsory BBC tax for anybody wanting to watch *any* broadcast TV material on their TV. That is not fair or democratic - and it amounts effectively to lack of choice and freedom. Not exactly in line with a supposedly democratic country with a free economy.

Or are they by any chance worried that, on given the choice, they won't get 97% of the country watching their material and paying for it? Well, welcome to the real world - ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and everybody else have to fight for their viewers - why would BBC be saved from having to serve directly and fight for their customers? And by real customers, I don't mean lobbying the government for more money (from us).

Not quite

It is legal to use a TV as a monitor or to watch pre-recorded material without a TV Licence. The onus of proof lies with the TV Licensing Authority to prove you watch broadcast material. However, the Freedom of Information act had to be used to get this clarification from them. Fortunately, I found a copy of their response to a FOI request online before my friend soldered up the coaxial inputs on his 40" TV (try getting a monitor that size for reasonable money!)

But that's just him. I have no problem with paying a license fee, as I've watched TV in the States- urgh!

Remember, they would tell you that they have vans capable of detecting TVs!

Because you can't stop people watching online...

I can think of many online video sites that you're required to be a member of and pay your monthly subscription before you can view there videos - why should iPlayer be any different, simply add in your licence fee details to your account and away you watch.

Problem solved, you send my cheque in the post.

And in before the "bugmenot" workarounds, I've yet to use credentials off of such sites that actually still worked and hadn't been either picked up by the site owners as being abused or simply changed by some other asshat because they could.

Licence fee anachronism

It is totally inappropriate that we still have to endure the "BBC tax". When the BBC first started it had no way to fund itself and so the special fee was introduced. Broadcasting was such a novelty that no-one found this fee unacceptable.

However, this business-model does not apply in to-day's world. How many other companies are given several billion pounds a year to spend as they wish, and keep all the profits. Then, even if they do not use the money wisely it does not matter since they will be given another few billions again the next year.

I am quite surprised that Sir Richard Branson has not requested billions from the tax-payer to support his profit-making ventures, after all it is free money! Even the ways of obtaining this money are questionable, some might say that "extortion" would not be an unfair description.

If those contributing to BBC funding were considered as shareholders they would naturally enjoy a share of the huge profits that are generated by the global sales of programme material but no, money is only taken from the taxpayers, none is returned to them!

Then of course there is the topic of the remuneration of the management. This is on a scale comparable with industrial companies or banks and is again inappropriate for a publicly funded body. These people are not "captains of industry" are they? Well no, they cannot be since they do not follow the same model as commercial companies. One top female last year was awarded a raise of £100,000 - goodness knows what he basic salary was!

Does anybody realise what a ridiculous mess it all is? Give it up BBC and live by the same rules that other broadcasters do.... work for your money!

letters and/or digits

"If that device is plugged into the mains electricity then the premises must have a licence or the viewer is committing an offence"

Just like it's an offense to lend a DVD to your mate but literally no one cares.

The legal distinction between plugging a device in and not doing so is so abstract they might as well put restrictions on the number of individual pieces of popcorn you can eat for every 38 seconds spent watching TV. Or what colour shoes you can wear on Tuesday.

It's nonsense like this that confuses people into having a total disregard for licensing and copyright.

As the guy says: it's a tax

The minister is quoted as admitting that the licence fee is a tax. Yet it's a pretty unfair tax, since it is collected per household - rather than per viewer. So (like with the council tax) a house of 4 wage-earning adults pays the same licence fee as an address with just a couple of workers. However, unlike the council tax, there's no single occupancy reduction.

As it is, the BBC Trust reckons that the evasion rate (the number of people who should pay this tax is about 5% - costing roughly the same amount as collecting it from the rest of us does). If they want to rethink how the tax is collected, there seems to me to be a lot of commonality between the BBC tax and the council tax - which might be the best way to approach it.

Council tax, despite its name doesn't just go to the council. It is split up and parts are sent to different organisations: the police get some, district councils get some - so adding another begging bowl to the disbursement process wouldn't be too hard. Doing it this way would also mean that the more affluent households (possibly those with the largest number of telly's) would pay more than the bed-sits with just one goggle-box.

Britain Broadcasting Crap ....... for All of your Sub Prime Ministerial Needs and Infected Feeds

""It is not yet clear whether households are likely to switch to internet streaming as the sole method of watching television, avoiding the use of a dedicated television set. It is clear, however, that this is happening in some segments – research for the BBC Executive shows that 40% of students in halls of residence use a laptop as their main way to watch TV," it said."

Actually, the truth is that the laptop is used as a main way to watch certain TV Channels ....... the Garbage In Garbage Out Programs will be Provided by the Mainstream TV and Media Players, who would be dependent upon Public Taxation.

Why all or nothing?

Most TV is rubbish. I don't have one but I watch some things on iplayer.

I *WISH* there was some way to financially support the programmes I find worthwhile and I WOULD do it.

But no - I either buy a TV license (which I don't need) and support programmes as the BBC execs decide, or I pay nothing.

So I pay nothing.

When there is a mechanism to pay for the programmes I appreciate,I'll pay.

Catch-up doesn't need a licence

The point is that a licence is only required for *live* receiving (watching or recording). It isn't required for watching via a catch-up service such as iPlayer. This is because the legislation only provides for live transmission since there was no other way to receive a TV signal when the legislation was originally written. There is no need (yet) to tie individual iPlayers to licence numbers or special PINs or other enforcement mechanisms because a licence simply isn't required for that purpose.

Catch up with the times.

Surely, the time is right for the BBC to become a subscription TV service, instead of retaining a draconian method of a "licence fee"? Or, to resolve the Beebs problem of the iPlayer, simply remove that service, as it will also save money on the Beebs server bandwidth.

@ Martyns: There is no requirement to obtain a TV licence for simply having a laptop, personal computer or a pc monitor. However, there is a requirement if your computer has a TV Tuner/receiver card/adapter.

A solution?

As far as I can see, nobody has mentioned Sky's watch-via-the-net service which is logged against a subscriber's account and allows you to install the player on up to four computers.

This seems like an ideal solution for the Beeb too. If you don't need four permitted computers, you could share it with someone ineligible but it can't get shared with hundreds of other people until you remove some of the already-authorised computers.

And why don't they offer an option for overseas viewers to pay per programme, perhaps via Paypal? My sister in the USA would love to be able to watch them and would happily pay a few quid here and there for the better stuff. I reckon it would bring in miles more revenue than it would cost.

It would also negate the need for the IP blocking and would stop me having to bugger about with VPNs back to a British IP address when I'm abroad on a business trip.

Let me get this straight..

You need to have a TV licence to watch live tv. But...people are moving to watching catchup TV which doesn't need a licence. The powers that be have realised that their income stream is drying out. Now they are thinking of licencing any form of streaming video?

Best in the world?

Some of the BBC output is worth keeping. Most isn't.

I live in Ireland now; the main BBC (and RTE) channels are included on Sky. I rarely watch them. Occasionally I watch some badly scripted, cheaply produced piece of me-too drama (most recently Sherlock Holmes) and wonder where all the money is going.

£237m on the World Service for instance, much of it not in English. BBC Russia? Why is the British taxpayer still funding this stuff? It's like some bizarre throwback from the empire/cold war.

Whilst most of the Sky-produced stuff is crap, they buy in the same reasonable quality US drama stuff that the BBC and RTE pay for, except usually a few months ahead.

Why would I want to pay for Holby-bloody-City when I can watch considerably better US produced output? If I want a bit of Englishness I can watch Hugh Laurie and Tim Roth in a programme that doesn't look like it was produced in someone's shed.

The future is ad-free and on-demand for those that want it. A sliver of general taxation would pay for Today, BBC News and a bit of World Service.

As for the ludicrous suggestion that the independence of the BBC via the licence fee somehow keeps us free from totalitarian oppression, give one meaningful example of where that has been the case. Iraq War? Ministerial expenses? Where's the powerful investigative reporting that stopped those clusterfucks. No 10 is probably still full of comfortable ex-BBC types maintaing super cordial relations with their ex-colleagues as they craft the next dodgy dossier.

Rip it all down, wait a couple of years and then see what market intervention is required.

Idiot

>> Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ruled out introducing a licence fee for PCs but has said that his administration will need to find a way to stop people consuming material paid for by the licence fee for free.

Clearly he doesn't understand what the BBC is nor what the Television Licence is. Most of us frequently consume material 'paid for' by the TV Licence which does not require a licence - i.e. iplayer, BBC website(s), BBC Radio. On the other hand, most of us also pay for a licence to watch material which is not paid for by the licence fee - i.e. commercial broadcast television. This has been the case for decades - how does iPlayer change this? 95% of homes are still paying for a licence and this shows no sign of changing rapidly, so why mess with it?

Licence Fee....

The worst thing about the license fee, is there is no opt out clause. I personally can live with out the BBC TV Channels & the other services they provide. Everything is repeated on the other channels (Dave for example) that show adverts, so the BBC make revenue from licensing that program to that channel. I would be quite happy to have my access to the BBC restricted & not have to buy a license.

The license fee should have been scrapped years ago. They should become "the sucker of Satan Cock" & start making money from advertising.

Wheres the Bill Hicks icon when you need it?

licence number authentication

Earlier a poster suggested using licence numbers as login. To those that think licence numbers would be shared with those outside the home i.e. ending up on the internet; and thus the idea is invalid. We could consider adding a 'refund my remaining licence fee' button, followed by a form to input a new address and name.

Put it on the net and then try to licence it

God forbid that perhaps all the BBC should do is put iPlayer on subscription? Maybe they should just scrap it - it's not like we don't all still have Sky+, DVDRs and even VCRs is it?

Who made BBC god of the Internet? I say scrap the whole poxy service before the politicians decide they can add it to the

Give me a PAYG TV License...

Price it in such a way that if I watch live TV, I pay per show per day, with a top limit being the annual TV license, so that people who don't watch tosh like Eastenders or whatever don't have to pay for it.

I'd be perfectly happy to pay for technology/science programmes like Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections or James May's Toy Stories, or series like Spooks, but crap like Strictly Come Dancing, any soap stuff etc I don't have time for.

With a PAYG license I would pay for what I consume, and if I get close to the the annual license fee, TV Licensing could encourage me to pay for it annually instead. I would be ok with that. It still indicates some sort of choice, as opposed to the current system where I am practically threatened under pain of death (well, close enough anyway) to pay for a license, even if I don't watch TV.