BBC licence fee HIKED: Households forced to pay nearly £170.

You do not have a choice as to whether you should, or should not pay your TV licence, because (A) it is not a form of subscription, and (B) been a "LIcence" means it is a form of taxation, and it is an offence to not pay it.

Paying £170 per year which funds the entire BBC, is excellent value for money, and is cheaper than almost all subscription service TV options.

Netflix and Amazon Prime contribute nothing to the culture of this country, they make no programmes, they provide no meaningfull services such as local and regional news, minority language services, public service broadcasting or informative services.

Why do people insist that the one TV service left which is not plagued by endless repeats, cheap made programmes and garbbage has to be defunded and brought down to the level of commercial TV. ?

I cannot now watch most commercial channels, the amount of adverts drives me spare .... the TV licence is three quid a week for Gods sake.

Bah .... Humbug 

It is also a poll tax on TV ownership which takes no account either of income levels or how much you view or listen to their services, the only two real definitions of fairness.

It is in fact a de facto tax rather than the fee that it calls itself. Any tax to be fair ought to be based on the ability to pay. Whereas any fee ought to be based upon paying only for what you want.

The license fee is not fair either as a tax or a supposed fee

While I agree with your points, just on a factual level, both Netflix and Amazon DO make their own programmes. In fact, they spend insane amounts of money on content production (which is why their business model is so bizarre. Netflix, for example, are in hock for tens of billions in loans for programming and films that will never see a profit..). My own project, for example, is bankrolled by another streaming service. It may have a far more generous budget than UK Terrestrial would have given us, but the elephant in every room is that the "cost" is almost an afterthought - no one talks about "profit" from it. Quite crazy..

It's always interesting to look at the menus of streamers, and note just how much of their content is rented from the BBC back catalogue. Also, note how a broadcaster who ARE based in Britain - Sky - makes not only a minimal amount of original material, and their schedule consists almost entirely of US content.

The point about local broadcasting is one that the Beeb Haters usually draw a discreet veil over.

No commercial operation is going to maintain a regional and local news gathering operation, because such a thing could never be monetised. (Independent Local Radio is a thing, sure - but their "news" is bought in from agencies, there's very little of it, and you can also forget about live coverage of any sport that isn't Premiership Football..)

Last year I was chatting with a Production Assistant who'd just spent the best part of a year in one of the 'stans, working with a team filming a BBC wildlife programme. Few will argue that the BBC make the finest wildlife films of all. And NO commercial broadcaster is going to fund full crews spending "as long as it takes" to film their given animal. Not when they can find a cheap celeb', send them off for a fortnight to a wildlife reserve, and run "Simon Pegg Rides an Elephant", or "Bill Bailey Hunts With Otters", or whatever.


My rule of thumb. If it's commercial tv, "profit" should be front and centre. If it's Public Service - we can afford the luxury of making things that won't make shareholders rich, but should be made - just because they can be. ("Downton Abbey" (ITV) and "Call the Midwife" (BBC) sell all over the world and bring in a lot of revenue. That's good. But who, besides the BBC, would ever have funded "Time", or "Happy Valley" or "Boys From the Blackstuff"?)
Some things are just worth funding.

("But what about Gary Lineker?!" seems to remain the core argument against that, these days..)

I know the creator of Happy Valley well. It's easy to see, NOW, that she was onto a winner - but persuading anyone to make it in the first place was a slow process. The BBC are the only outfit who would take a punt.

The schedules are littered with things that look like an "obvious" hit - yet getting the thing made was a slog.

(As far as "commercial" vs "public service" goes, I should've said "commercial/UNcommercial"..)

Given the inordinate amount of cop shows on TV (on all Channels) I struggle to believe that any of them ever have a problem getting produced.

I have just finished watching 'Lessons in Chemistry' which was very enjoyable and different. Now you could make a case for a taxpayer funded public service TV to make programs like that - but just another cop show, I don't think so.

Maybe it wasn't a great example, but Happy Valley was just one programme that I know was deemed (until it became an instant hit with audiences) "uncommercial" by the people with the money.

Yes saw that , the people at the BBC who have years of experience  of knowing what people want to watch have given way to answering to Woke . 50 years of being a top rated show destroyed  by diversity quotas and poor recruitment . 

Top sports stars of the day replaced by people nobody would have any chance of getting in the mystery personality round if they stood face on to the camera and they wonder why its lost viewers . And don't even go there with Paddy Guinness , about as funny as Jeremy Corbyn knocking on your door at midnight .
Football focus and most day time TV has gone the same way with quotas being all to evident . Dr Who might just survive its new cast ,surely even the BBC cant feck that up even though they are doing their best casting a gay black actor in the lead role . Hardly Jon Pertwee is it ?