My friend with TV Licence hassles, who shall henceforth be known as The Present Occupier, as he is addressed in letters from the TV Licensing people, has provided a link to campaign site BBC Resistance run by Jonathan Miller and Erik Oostveen.
The site is a fantastic resource. Its manifesto makes the argument that the TV Licence is no longer legitimate because it is unfair, poor value, anti-competitive, and fuels a journalistic bias in favour of the BBC’s (and the license fee’s) survival, breaching the charter the BBC is duty bound to uphold in return for our money.
The site contains information on what you need a TV License for and what you don’t. The law is quite clear – it is the act of receiving broadcast TV that requires a licence, not owning a TV or using it for purposes such as watching DVDs or playing computer games. However, if you don’t need a TV licence, the site explains how TV Licensing will harass you anyway – the correspondence pages make for an entertaining read.
Another site by Duncan Bennett also highlights how difficult it is to refuse television. Despite co-operating fully with TV Licensing, he has had to continually write letters explaining that he does not have a TV, and still these people want to violate his privacy by coming into his home.
The TV Licence really is past its sell-by date. It may have been appropriate in 1949 when there was only one broadcaster. Now there better ways to fund the BBC, through subscriptions or advertising, without having to force people to pay for a service they don’t want to use.
Time and time again the issue of the Licence fee crops up.
Personally, I fail to see how introducing advertising will improve the BBC’s programming – you only have to look at modern day ITV to see that advertising does not necssarily produce a suitably broad range and quality of programming – they don’t even seem capable of buying in decent programming from the US. Where are the West Wing’s, ER’s, Friends, Frasier’s, Buffy’s, Star Trek’s, CSI’s? Not on the channels that take the most in advertising revenues, but on BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky…
Now imagine that the BBC has to take advertising – that’s a further 2 TV channels (4 if you include digital) plus 5 national radio (plus a few more on digital once again) and god-alone-knows how many local radio stations, all competing for the pot of advertising cash currently split between ITV, Channel 5, Channel 4 (which, if memory serves, is still funded in part by the taxpayer), and the digital channels on Freeview, Sky and cable that aren’t available on terestrial.
Will that lead to a rise in programme quality, or a fall as the channels start appealing even more to the lowest common denominator? Will it lead to such debacles as the advertising break in the middle of Gran Prix races?
What about subscription? Well doesn’t that stop it being a public service broadcaster? Also, I notice that current subscription services like Sky still have channels that carry an awful lot of advertising, which suggests that unless you charge a large amount for the subscription, this theoretical subscription BBC would also have to carry advertising – again eating into the pot that currently fails to provide enough quality programming on the main channel funded by advertising at the moment, ITV.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there must be a better solution than the licence fee, but I don’t see any of the oft-mooted solutions being any better.
Do you really think that the license fee improves the BBC’s output quality? Have you seen Fame Academy, Ground Force, Changing Rooms, Ready Steady Cook, Death by DIY, or anything with Anne Robinson in it?
On the contrary, three billion pounds a year for nothing makes the BBC complacent, bloated, and un-innovative. They do occasionally make some decent original programmes, but they sell those off to foreign networks anyway.
As for the advertising cash being split between channels – giving people a choice does not reduce the total amount of income available to the TV industry as a whole. That £100 per year will get spent elsewhere. Natural market forces will dictate how much programming is made, how it is split between channels, and how many channels there are. Artificially propping up one network in favour of another does not magically improve this picture.
Why do we need a public service channel? It is arguable that the BBC is not providing much of a public service anyway. At the very least, the licence fee presumes that the BBC knows how to spend the people’s money better than the people do. This is astonishingly arrogant.
If the BBC is so good, enough people would pay the £100 a year voluntarily. Forcing people to pay for the BBC when they don’t want to use it is theft.
I would suggest that the BBC has a sizeable marketing division, more than capable of selling products such as Walking with Dinosaurs, Blue Planet, Life of Birds etc. etc. (it is a pretty long list) both domestically and overseas. The programs themselves are sold to other networks (at no small cost), DVDs & videos are sold, books to tie-in with the program – all sorts of merchandise. I’d quite like to see some operating figures for the TVLA to find out what proportion of the licence fees collected directly funds their operation.
Further – the BBC does advertise. All the merchandise mentioned, the Radio Times and so on are displayed as wares for your delectation, occupying a significant amount of your paid-for viewing time. It is little more than maintaining a monopoly position on advertising, whilst trying to claim a moral high ground.
i believe if you have sky tv you shouldnt have to pay a tv licence as well as the monthly subscription fee.
The licence fee increases in April.
Here’s some of what they’re doing with it…
http://dailyablution.blogs.com/the_daily_ablution/2003/11/bbc_licence_fee.html
I feel a bit funny about this because I don’t watch TV and therefore don’t pay the licence, but I cannot stand commercial radio. A life without BBC radio (not all BBC radio I hasten to add) as a non-commerical entity is rather frightening. No John Peel, fr’example.
So I like the licence fee, not for the TV it provides but for the “minor” public services that float around it. But I don’t pay it. Odd really.
Oh and to be a bit provocative, my beer and fags are taxed, so why shouldn’t television be? It’s just as addictive and potential more damaging to your health.
I have a pet theory that the reason commercial broadcasting appears worse is that the BBC fills the niche for programmes preferred by a more discerning audience. Since it is hard to compete with the BBC and all its funding, commercial broadcasters don’t try. If the license fee were abolished, either the BBC would be able to sustain itself commercially without sacrificing quality, or other, better commercial broadcasters would fill its niche.
Regarding beer and fags, I don’t think they should be taxed either.
I feel for the BBC sometimes. In order to justify the license fee it has to be popular and appeal to the majority, but if it’s popular and appeals to the majority then it can’t justify the license fee. Catch 22, and hence, I think, all these cringy public service things like the Big Read and campaigns on Radio 1.
Anyway, here’s a story…
A year ago or so I was working in a bookshop in the City of London that didn’t open at weekends. A TV production company wanted to film a scene in a bookshop and it was decided that they would use our branch to do so on a weekend. This scene was about five minutes long. Remember that.
A few days before filming a bunch of TV people came into the shop to check out the lighting and figure out what equipment was needed for the shoot. There were about 20 of them, and I’m not exaggerating. More people that worked in the shop just to check out the lights. I wasn’t there for the shoot but a couple of my colleagues got parts as extras and they reported a huge operation with a good hundred people, catering vans, equipment all over the place and so on.
This was for a five minute scene in a dodgy prime time police-style drama that would probably only be broadcast once on terrestrial TV and then maybe repeated on cable a couple of times.
I think maybe we should be looking at how much TV costs rather than whether there should be a license fee. There seems to be huge, gaping disparity between the television industry and the rest of the business world. They are fleecing us, not only with the license fee but with the excessive advertising, for an art form that really doesn’t need or deserve these kinds of resources.
Oh, and beer and fags should be taxed, just not as much as they are currently.
The BBC has ads, but why are they allowed to advertise their own products and services?
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would like to get all the details of the Multi National Company who advertise their TV Commericals in Orbit & Show Time Movie Channels. As we are targetting a specific segment in our region and the segment is Hotels. I would appreciate if get some details of companies with their Names.
I look forward hearing from you.
Regards,
Satyajith P Ashokan