Metropol

In response to Mr Q, I give you Stephen Fry... http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=44

You know when you visit another country and you see that it spends more money on flowers for its roundabouts than we do, and you think … coo, why don’t we do that? How pretty. How pleasing. What a difference it makes. To spend money for the public good in a way that enriches, gives pleasure, improves the quality of life, that is something. That is a real achievement. It’s only flowers in a roundabout, but how wonderful. Well, we have the equivalent of flowers in the roundabout times a million: the BBC enriches the country in ways we will only discover when it has gone and it is too late to build it up again. We actually can afford the BBC, because we can’t afford not to.

As to the detector vans... I don't believe they've ever detected anything.

Not that you're biased or anything mark I too believe we're better with the BBC than without it and I've got no qualms about paying into it, I just don't happen to be watching enough TV for it to be worthwhile. I'm pretty confident that without it we'd slip quickly into a hideous mess like Australian TV's terrible TERRIBLE quality (sorry Mr Q, televisually I've never seen anything remotely sophisticated come out of there yet!) or America's obsession with ramming adverts down your throat for up to 50% of the time. As for the internet, it's certainly easier for the BBC to run a subscription model for the online services if they really want to. Greg Dyke's master stroke for preserving the license fee was Freeview: now we've got millions of set top boxes in circulation with no card slot so a subscription model for the BBC on air is basically impossible.

I can often be very critical of a lot of what the BBC does, though generally more inside than out.

However, for me, the fact that BBC Television and Radio allows me to watch and listen to a variety of stuff without insessant, crass, horrible adverts and sponsorships for things that I don't need or want, is enough reason to support it and hope that it exists at least as long as I do.

If the content of that television and radio is of a high quality (and much of it is) then so much the better.

Could it be funded out of general taxation rather than the license fee? Yes, I think it could, but only with safeguards that would prevent governments from using that slice of taxation as a stick to beat the corporation with. Without such safeguards its independence of government could be compromised. I think Greg Dyke has proposed such a thing recently.

I think its important to separate the two issues here. I agree with the BBC's public funding in principle (even if I do think they could tolerate a certain amount of slimming down - and I don't think partly funding it through subscription should be ruled out). Indeed having seen the way the government has used digital switchover to ruin commerial television by allowing a ridiculous number of channels to broadcast here I'm actually more pro-BBC in 2008 than I have been for many years.

But, I completely disagree with a TV Licence as the vehicle for collecting those funds. Pro-licence fee payers often bleat about how cheap it is per person really. If thats the case, why can't it be paid for out of general taxation? And when there are allready mechanisms in place to collect public funds (and detect and prosecute those who don't), why the does the BBC needs it's own separate mechanism to collect its public funding? Just how much does TV Licencing cost to operate (specifically, how much money is blown each year on unsuccesfully trying to get non-payers to comply)?

Why also should TV use be used as the qualifying factor for whether or not you pay for the BBC when they also have substantial radio and online outlets? Indeed, these days little of BBC Television is particularly special IMO; commerial broadcasters would doubtless be more than happy to carry most of their primetime programming. To me, the actual crown jewels now are their radio stations and website. No commercial broadcaster would touch anything like Radio 4, or give you a huge website where you can read news stories without advertisements in the middle of the text. Yet I can legally use these without paying anything. And these days, so can people in other countries. Why is that fair?

I had a chat once with a bloke who used to operate a detector van. He was adamant that they *did* actually detect TVs, and it wasn't just a con. Although he admitted the suggestion that they could tell which channel you were watching was bollocks.

One thing which did piss me off recently though with TV licencing was after my boyfriend and I bought a new telly. The telly was bought in his name, but the licence is in my name. Soon after buying it, he got a letter from TV Licencing demanding that he contact them, as there was no licence in his name at the property. Somehow I doubt had we been a heterosexual, married couple with the same surname this would have happened.

Anyway on the subject of the licence fee, ironically, working in commercial radio has emphasised for me the value of the licence funded BBC. Without a doubt, these days, the main force shaping ILR is profit. Serving the listeners is almost an afterthought. Programming decisions have to be justified commercially, and almost everything that ever comes out of my mouth has a sponsor attached to it.

I think it's so important that the country has a broadcaster which makes programmes purely for viewers and listeners, and not to keep advertisers happy. Admittedly the BBC doesn't get it right all of the time... but you only have to look at the way ITV and Channel 4 are going to see how important a non-commercial national broadcaster is.

Sput wrote:...we'd slip quickly into a hideous mess like Australian TV's terrible TERRIBLE quality (sorry Mr Q, televisually I've never seen anything remotely sophisticated come out of there yet!)

Hahaha, see this is why we have the ABC, and to a lesser extent SBS. Their programming doesn't fit squarely into the soap-opera life-savers-and-well-endowed-women stereotype so you don't see much of it overseas, least of all the UK where shows like Neighbours get ten times the figures they would at home.

From what I read at TVF your commercial stations are just as ghastly as ours!

The key difference between the BBC and the ABC is how they're funded - the ABC gets all its money from the federal government, which means no TV license (abolished in the '70's). This has its ups and downs though - successive governments have cut back funding which means that they need to import more programming, particularly from the UK (ie, the BBC).

The only problem with that model of funding is that it can be a bit starved for funds, as successive governments have done when they discover what an independent and potentially critical national broadcaster can do! Of course the politics of the ABC and how it is managed could fill another post entirely - in that sense I think the license fee is a more effective way of funding since it isn't open to any political interference.

Mr Q wrote:Obviously I think the BBC should be stripped down to bare basics. As a public service broadcaster, it clearly exceeds its remit. Yet this is neither here nor there. Even if you believe the BBC is fantastic as it is, or you even believe it deserves to be funded more than it currently is, this still doesn't justify support for what is a completely anachronistic approach to revenue-raising. If you're going to tax people, the objective should be to get the most money while imposing as few costs as possible. The licence fee does not and will never meet this criterion.

I'm going to stay out of your argument (purely because I couldn't argue with an economist about this sort of stuff), but just in case you're not already aware (which you probably are), the licence fee is not unique only to the UK, most European countries operate a similar system, many also using advertising to derive additional income.

Hm, I really do not like the idea of making the TV license as a general tax as like Tim and Mark mentioned the government could use it to hold the BBC to ransom by having total control over what funding they get and could be manipulated into a government mouthpiece which would be disastrous, they need to be as independent as possible if quality is to stay up.

I rarely watch much from the other networks and nothing at all from ITV so I obviously get a decent RFI for my money but others clearly do not but this little chestnut is a tough one to crack, many people benefit from the BBC in way few if any other broadcasters do but getting a good way to fund them whilst being fair is almost impossible.

Sput wrote:1. "the technology is so secret that even the engineers working on different detection systems worked in isolation – not even they know how the other detection methods work."

Either that's utter bollocks...or it's true. If it's true, then that means that TV LIcencing has the resources to recruit top-class engineers in full time work developing detection systems in isolation. To me, that sounds rather expensive. So I come back to my earlier point, just how expensive is TV Licencing as an operation? And who pays for it? Either an awful lot of our TV Licence is simply absorbed in internal bureaucracy and never reaches the BBC's output, or an awful lot of public money is committed by the government to run TV Licencing,

This would create a situation where the government gives the BBC a lot of taxpayer's money to operate something that in turn takes a lot of money from the taxpayer to pay for their output. If that's happening, then the TV Licence is surely just a needless step of administration designed to keep a few jobsworths in 6 figure incomes rather than having any real need. I'd be very interested to see a comparison between the amount the BBC costs the taxpayer under it's present funding arrangements, and what it would cost if there was no TV Licence and it was simply funded directly through general taxation.

Sput wrote:it's betrayed by the fact that they tend to send people without TV's their angry letters too.

Which I think shows just how ineffectual any detection methods they might have are. Despite decades of development, they still can't conclusively say whether or not a TV is in use illegally, all they can tell conclusively is whether or not a given address has a TV Licence...which proves nothing. Indeed, I believe many (most? all?) courts will not accept 'evidence' from detection equipment as conclusive proof that TV licence evasion has been comitted, there will always need to be photographic proof to back this up.

And about this much vaunted database of theirs...hardly that amazing is it? I know that the street I live on goes up to number 46. If I fire up Access and type in '1 Fake Street', '2 Fake Street'...'46 Fake Street' then I have...like...A DATABASE OF EVERY HOUSE IN MY STREET!!! If I then start a business selling a single product which no one else sells and record who has and hasn't bought it then...like...I KNOW EVERY HOUSE IN MY STREET THAT DOESN'T HAVE ONE!!! All TV licencing has is a much enlarged version of the same concept.

In fact, as a contact database, its remarkably simplistic. They only even have names for people who have previously been licenced and allowed it to expire, or who have bought TV receiving equipment and the retailer has sent the details on. Everyone else is simply 'The Occupier'. Basic checks they could do to plug the gaps, such as consulting public documents like the electoral role and the phone book, aren't done. And they have no way at all of tracing a person if they change address, they're totally reliant on the person telling TV Licencing that they have moved. A database which knows me only as 'The Present Occupier' and can't tell when I move frankly isn't very scary...this is no DNA database here.

Sput wrote:That's what baffles me about it: the scariest thing that can happen if they can detect you is that you get a knock at the door, and you don't have to let them in. Thing is, that's the exact same thing that they can do if all they have is a list of unlicensed addresses. There's nothing to gain by bullshitting people.

Oh but there's everything to be gained by their approach. TV Licencing employ what I refer to as 'The debt collector model'. That is, just like debt collectors, they have absolutely no power and authority to do anything at all. Nothing, None whatsoever. The only thing they can do to you is take you to court where the burden of proof lies firmly on them to prove their case - exactly the same as anyone else on the street is free to do.

However, this leaves them a decidely ineffectual enforcement body. So, to make up for the lack of any actual position of authority, they simply pretend that they have one. Just as debt collection agencies like to call their workers 'bailiffs' (which they aren't because a bailiff is a court appointed official), TV licencing like to call their employees 'officers' (when the only office they hold is the bathroom in their own house). They also like to quote the police act in their various bits of propaganda.

That way, they've used 'police' and 'officer' in the same sentence. Coupling that with talk of 'enforcement' and a 4-figure fine, their finely honed detection technology created under conditions so secret it would make the USSR blush, and of course not forgetting the evil computer database that is alive and knows everything about you...including such personal information as whether you, 'The Present Occupier', has a TV Licence or not, Joe Bloggs now seems them as an official organisation to be feared.

Just like all these heavyhanded arseholes, the TV Licencing 'Authority' is nothing but a wall of bullshit designed to scare you into submission. Fear is the only real tool they have. Take that away from them, and they are nothing.

Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:I believe you would still be deemed to have apparatus that is capable of receiving television signals whether it is plugged into the aerial or not. After all, if simply the lack of aerial cable was enough to get away without a license, everybody would just be ready to disconnect the cable when an inspector arrives!
If your TV (or receiving equipment) has a UHF tuner in it, they have grounds to attempt to fine you.

Actually not. People commonly believe that, and TV licencing are quite happy for people to commonly believe that, because they'll sell a few more licences to addresses that don't actually need them. There is nothing at all which says you need to have a licence to own a TV. You only need a licence if you use TV receiving equipment for the purpose of watching or recording TV broadcasts in this country. For any other purpose (using it is a monitor is the only one I can think of, unless of course you want a TV as an ornament) there is no requirement in law to have a licence. TV Licencing's own website does actually state that if you look hard enough (although they don't exactly put it on the front page, and also warn you that it will be necessary to for an 'enforcement officer' to inspect your house to confirm your legal use of a TV without a licence in a tone which implies it would be more painless to buy a licence you don't need rather than having to endure the ordeal of this inspection).

stuartplymouth wrote:BBC iPlayer states that you do not need a TV licence to watch downloaded files from its service on a laptop or other device. But, did they check whether I had a licence when I registered?

Now here is where shades of grey start to come in. 'TV receiving equipment' originally meant a TV. Later, it was expanded to include anything with a TV tuner, covering video recorders, satellite receivers, cable boxes, and latterly DVD recorders and TV cards for computers.

But where do they stand with IP TV? I'm sure a couple of years ago, TV Licencing tried to expand their definition to include IPTV services such as those on mobile phones or streaming TV through the internet. BBC iPlayer is also an IPTV service. But if the BBC (which is now the body under which TV Licencing operates) have said that you *don't* need a licence for iPlayer or to watch News 24 online then surely they are saying that you don't need a licence for IPTV? Where then does that leave TV Licencing's earlier implication that you *do*?

And if you live in area covered by Homechoice, which is also an IPTV service not using a TV Tuner, and the BBC have confirmed that you don't need to be licenced for using IPTV then surely if you use homechoice exclusively and never use a TV tuner to pick up your TV, then you don't actually need a TV Licence?

Obviously, TV Licencing (and probably the BBC with them) will tell you that you do, but it'd be interesting to know whether or not the law as it currently stands actually requires you to be licenced for IPTV use.

timgraham wrote:

Sput wrote:...we'd slip quickly into a hideous mess like Australian TV's terrible TERRIBLE quality (sorry Mr Q, televisually I've never seen anything remotely sophisticated come out of there yet!)

Hahaha, see this is why we have the ABC, and to a lesser extent SBS..

I'm not using Neighbours (amazing as it may be) to inform that opinion. There's a documentary called Thunderheads (ABC) that features a project we were involved with. It's quite simply the worst documentary I've ever seen. It's cliché-ridden, has absolutely no qualms about planes = rock music and is borderline racist. It's also melodramatic.

Cwathen: I believe it's in the region of £2 million to collect the license money, it's in the BBC annual report.

Wikipedia has a graph that lumps it in with transmittion at combined they equal 10%. I'd presume transmittion easily takes up a substantial chunk of it.

As has been said above, paying the slight overhead of Licensing vs. the potential for the govt to beat the BBC with a stick (see Hutton), would seem to be worth it. Yes its expensive but the BBC seem to force the other channels to up their quality.

Having said that, I notice Spencer comments on C4's declining output. Really? I find C4 is easily my most watched channel, I mean obv Big Brother is bilge but it pays for the rest of the channel.