Isn’t it time to end the BBC’s license to extort?

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I have many questions to ask about the BBC license fee. In light of recent events isn’t it time we have the right to decide what TV services we buy and who we pay our money to? Earlier this year the BBC even made a royalty payment to Garry Glitter because they still choose to show programs with him performing in them. Why should we be forced to pay Garry Glitter just because we want to watch Television? Why can’t we just subscribe to SKY if we so choose?

Why should we be forced to buy the BBC’s service? Why shouldn’t we be able to watch TV without been harassed into paying the BBC? Isn’t this how gangsters work? All be it using the courts rather than heavies.

Rupert Murdoch may be scum but at least I get to choose whether to fund him or not, at least I can buy the mirror newspaper without having to buy or pay the sun for the privilege! What other product or service do we have to stand for this with and be bullied into buying in this way? I want to buy SKY but I don’t want to buy the BBC, why can’t I do this? Does anybody ever question the morality of this principle? Or have we all just been brainwashed into believing it is acceptable and morally ok? Why are the people who don’t pay made to look like the bad guys?

Why should we have been forced to fund SaVILE? And pay to make his TV programs when people at the BBC basically seemed to know what was going on and were covering it up even until a couple of weeks back (i.e. news night)? Why should we have been forced to be his enabler and give him a position that allowed him to do this? Why should we have been forced to pay for his Rolls Royce in which he would drive around raping our children?

Why can’t the BBC use a subscription technology like SKY? The technology has been around for decades. The BBC may keep people in work but so did the Krays, it doesn’t justify this way of operating and forcing people to support you? The value for money is not the issue at stake here! Why do people who defend it keep saying that? Is it because there is nothing else they can say to defend it? Why can’t the BBC operate like other channels and use advertising, subscription or both? Why can’t the public be allowed to choose?

I also wonder if we should all be doing what Noel Edmunds did and refuse to pay. Enough people did it in Australia and in the end they had to abolish it. Isn’t it time to stop supporting this extortion racket for moral reasons alone? What morality justifies the BBC license fee?

If the government want to give the economy a boost by putting money back in people’s pockets is this not a £120 a year start which should be the very top of the list? If David Cameron wants to now let the public start choosing what they spend our money on can’t we start on this? Isn’t this less important than welfare? Who else is for this tax cut? Is it me who is mad or just most the rest of the country who seem to think this is ok? Or is it the majority who support it? What’s your view?

Do you by any chance work for the Daily Mail?

It wasn't just the BBC, it was the whole media. The reason the BBC is a vital service and deserves to be funded in this manner is quite simple:

1. No adverts = freedom to broadcast whatever it likes without worries of commercial obligations
2. Theoretically impartial news (open to opinion, though its usually those on the hard-right or hard-left that complain)
3. A wealth of some of the best programmes ever made have been BBC
4. You might not use the NHS ever in your life, but other people do and use it with your funding and enjoy it's benefits (yes television isn't as important as health but still)
5. It irritates Rupert Murdoch
6. People argue that there are hundreds of channels on Sky or Virgin, yeah, but look at Dave, almost wholly repeats of BBC programming, other channels are American imports, only Sky has really gone into British programming and to say its comparable to the BBC is laughable
7. The BBC protects programmes which are commercially unviable for a minority audience, look at the Open University in the mornings, Crimewatch or Songs of Praise
8. Their website is brilliant for everything, and compare their iPlayer to others
9. Some countries have or have had tv licences where the money goes directly to the state
10. Freedom of choice works doesn't it? I mean look at the privatised railways or the water companies or the energy suppliers.

Well that's just my view

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 21

L i b

As much as I think the BBC is good - which is, of course, an entirely subjective preference - I can't defend the licence fee. Taxing for television is just bizarre, forcing people to pay it even if they don't want the BBC's services is immoral, and there is no level of quality which can offset that.

The BBC is good because it can charge everyone a considerable amount of money regardless of whether they want to or not (and the BBC's own polling discovered the vast majority would not pay their fee if it was a subscription service). This not only makes life incredibly easy for them, it also damages the other broadcasters who are then forced to compete with a state-backed monopoly.

Reply 22

alexs2602

Here's a question, what channel or network rivals the BBC? Serious question.

I doubt you can think of one. ITV is terrible. Channel 4 is good but doesn't rival the BBC. Channel 5? Are you having a giggle? That network that includes Dave etc? Nowhere near as popular and Dave is mostly BBC repeats.

Reply 23

hslt

Original post by FreedomOfChoice

Are you serious? Is that the best you can do to oppose my arguments? We do indeed all make our arguments and points in our own way and my apologies if I have made mine in the form of too many questions or if you don’t like my English or whatever, but I think I have done far more to oppose the case for the TV licence than you have to defend it, what sort of defence is that? Is that it? The level to which people have been brainwashed when it comes to this issue is absurd I swear it’s worse than Stockholm syndrome. I don’t know how anyone can defend it.

Let me make my argument clearer for you, this is an unfair and extortion like way of operating, no LTD company which the BBC is by the way should be allowed to force people to buy its products or services or else have the right to deny people from using that sort of service period, even if it is supplied from other providers and the fact that it can use the courts to harass people and enforce it is an absolute moral outrage!

Is that clear enough, can anybody find a decent moral argument that actually justifies it?

Lets be clear. I didn't oppose your argument.

Reply 24

Renner

The BBC is the envy of the world, by that measure alone its worth keeping.

By keeping standards high at the BBC it ensures the other channals dont slide too much with adverts every 5 mins and wildly biased news reporting. And the licence fee doesnt just fund the TV. BBC radio provides a vital stepping stone for new muaical tallent that might not be found in a comercial situation, how many of our world renound artists had there first break on Radio 1. Also thr BBC supports our small film industry. Its culteral value is hugely important.

Have you heard of the concept of 'soft' power? British culture still plays a huge influence abroad and is an area where we unashamadly punch above our weight which is good for the nation as a whole

Finally, the BBC ensures all major sporting and political events are available to the whole nation regardless of finance. The fact the F1 has gone to sky is a travesty and should be reversed ASAP

Reply 25

Debtwarrior

FAKE FAKE FAKE SKY PR ALERT!

This is almost a transcript of James Murdoch's Mctaggart Lecture from the TV festival a few years ago.. with a Jimmy Savile reference!

BBC is the most strict about independence and unbiased reporting. Sky/Fox are biased, follow a right wing agenda and dumb down. They only sound moderately intelligent in the UK because they were forced to add a layer of bbc style delivery to get credibility here because their awfulness was too strikingly obvious for a british audience BECAUSE OF THE BBC.

Fox's headline challenge the politician programmes in the Iraq war were called 'showdown with Saddam', 'High Noon with Saddam' etc and the most challengin questions were 'So we are finally getting rid of this evil tyrant, can you tell us how this good decision was finally made' they are AWFUL.

BBC news, and especially radio 4 is like listening to intelligent disciplined reporters and experts. Listing to Sky is like watching into the night garden the 50s cowboy film version!

Honestly piss off.

(by the way this same 'freedom' rant has been published across the internet - cut and paste the lines from it and you'll see what I mean - here they obv. think they can influence young minds against the BBC - patronising bastards!)

IPLAYER IS FREE - UP YOURS MURDOCH!! You CHARGE for the Times online and would charge your granny for a kiss you sleaze!

Reply 26

Clare~Bear

Original post by FreedomOfChoice

It’s like some sort of communist state brainwashing network.
!

I agreed with you up to this point. Isn't it the opposite to communism, it's dictatorship, dictating that you have to pay for it or face court. Derp.

I do like BBC programmes, but I think people should have the option to not have BBC channels.

Reply 27

kka25

Original post by hslt

When someone's entire argument consists of questions you really have to wonder how well they've thought it out.

I would think the OP is making both of an argument and some questions as well...
I wonder what's your actual motivation to post this?

Reply 28

lulubel

If the BBC wants to keep its licence fee then it has to become more neutral. At the moment it is far too politically correct and left wing.

Why should be who are not left wing be forced to pay a subscription an organisation that uses their money to propagandise the nation?

Reply 29

That Bearded Man

Tbh I like the idea of having some amount of free channels without having to sort anything else out. They should flood it with adverts to lower the fee however.

Reply 30

ThisIsTheLife

Original post by FreedomOfChoice

What other product or service do we have to stand for this with and be bullied into buying in this way?

Healthcare, education, security, defence, infrastructure, bin collection, street cleaning, emergency services, libraries, etc, etc.

Pretty much all the big ones. All taxation works the same way that gangsters work.

If you think not being able to choose the TV stations that you fund, even if you don't use them, is your biggest issue... let me tell you, there are bigger fish to be fried.