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BBC & licence fee (merged threads)


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The Goons get up to £20 commission for each visit.  They have to get 28 new sign-ups a week to meet target.  It’s the sign-ups that they get the £20 each for.  I think that they are on a basic of £18k, but they have to supply their own car.  I assume that they get a mileage allowance for that.

 

I last had a visit about 5 years ago.  He got told to leave my doorstep.  He didn’t try the usual con, which is to get you to sign the Form 178, ‘to say I have visited’, which they have been then known to fill in with ‘evidence’ after the fact.

 

Film them, it’s the quickest way to get them to leave.  Other than that say nothing, sign nothing, shut the door.  Ignore all their threatening letters too.  I file mine in case I need to use them against them in future.  It costs them millions to send out these letters every year, and as far as I am concerned they can carry on sending them, well, it’s nice to get post these days.

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A "goon" visited where I was briefly staying on the Scottish mainland a couple of years ago. He politely pointed out that I had no TV license. I politely pointed out that I had no TV. We exchanged pleasantries, and off he went.

 

Remember that these are people who are just doing their job. I'm sure most of them would rather be doing something else.

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I have no problem paying my TV licence,considering the number of channels available nowadays plus the fact we can also use broadband for Netflix,You tube and many many other things as well i think we get good value for the price of the licence.

 

All the transmitters and antennas,plus the masts have to be serviced,I imagine some of the funds for that must come from the licence fee. 

 

Once all the terrestrial TV stations are shut down  and we all have to depend on broadband IMHO we will be paying an awful lot more. for an awful lot less..

 

Thankfully my TV has an off/on switch and we have other means like CDs  ect for entertainment, but I do believe that I get value for the price of my TV licence..

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Goons spend most of their working hours preying on single mums on council estates and vulnerable members of our society.  They lie and trick their way into people’s home, where they have no right to be without an invitation or a warrant.  They won’t advise people that when they caution them they are entitled to legal representation.  TV Licensing Officers, are actually commission based salesmen, would you want this guy in your house:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033075/Rapist-TV-Licence-inspector-fantasy-frustrated-housewife-throw-him.html
 

Remember, you don’t need a TV licence to watch Netflix, Amazon’s TV service, YouTube or any catch-up TV service.  You only need one to watch live TV or BBC iPlayer.
 

The BBC keeps telling us how good they are, and how much we love them.  So why don’t they join the real world and provide a subscription service?  If you want it you pay, and if you don’t want it you use your earnings for other things.  The reason is because they know that without threat of legal enforcement very many would decide not to pay their TV tax every year, and manage with better quality services from other providers.  In this day and age why on earth do we have to have a permit to watch TV?

 

No other service, that I also don’t use, sends me threatening letters every 6 weeks.  No-one comes to check whether I have fishing rod, shotgun, car, or anything else I need a permit for.  TV Licensing assume guilt from the outset.  Everyone else has a TV so you must have one too, is their mentality.  Some of us have lived many years without one.  We have found many other means of entertainment.  I don’t want to sit down and consume the crap that they broadcast, especially now with all the woke nonsense.

 

I would agree that we need a public service broadcaster.  Channel Four is a PSB and manages to run a service without taxpayer handouts.  It relies on advertising for its funding, another alternative option that the BBC should be forced into.

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Goons spend most of their working hours preying on single mums on council estates and vulnerable members of our society.  They lie and trick their way into people’s home, where they have no right to be without an invitation or a warrant.  They won’t advise people that when they caution them they are entitled to legal representation.  TV Licensing Officers, are actually commission based salesmen, would you want this guy in your house:

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033075/Rapist-TV-Licence-inspector-fantasy-frustrated-housewife-throw-him.html

 

There are bad people in the world, and I'm sure there will bad TV License inspectors too. And I'm also sure the Daily Mail has carried stories about people from all walks of life doing horrendous things. But blaming TV Inspectors is a sideshow - it's like blaming the bailiffs if you get into debt.

 

If folk have a complaint about the conduct of an inspector then they can complain to the TV Licensing Company, and if they're not satisfied, they can go to the Ombudsman. If it's a serious complaint, then they can go to the police.

Edited by Davie P
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TV Licensing staff are assuming that I am a criminal.  I do not use their service.  I don’t want any interaction with them ever, but they continue to write and threaten to visit.

 

A bailiff will only call if I am in debt, to collect a debt on behalf of a company to which I am allegedly indebted.  They won’t come to my house touting for business.

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I would agree that we need a public service broadcaster.  Channel Four is a PSB and manages to run a service without taxpayer handouts.  It relies on advertising for its funding, another alternative option that the BBC should be forced into.

 

Part of the contract the BBC have with the government is that they don't compete with commercial broadcasters for TV, radio, and other advertising revenue in order to bolster the viability of the commercial broadcasters, and ultimately to support a plurality of commercial and non-commercial broadcasters.

 

As the TV License system is by no means perfect and scrapping it seems logical in many ways, but as the Peacock Committee reported back in the 80s, it's the "least worst" option.

 

As with other countries who have a centralist state broadcaster with editorial independence from the government, the BBC acts as a centre ground. If we want to see what happens when we go down a commercially driven deregulated media route then look to the USA after Reagan's office. Highly polarised, partisan, and where fact is often indistinguishable from opinion.

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Its not possible to avoid bias in reporting and it depends on what you mean by 'swayed' (the BBC is formally accountable to government but has editorial independence), but the BBC are the most balanced and centrist of all the news sources i read regularly.

 

If you read the Daily Mail, the BBC probably looks left leaning, if you read the Guardian, the BBC probably looks right leaning.

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I've gone for long periods without having a TV, and I simply returned their letter to say I don't have one, and didn't hear back from them. The one time they did visit, they were courteous. I don't see the problem.

Nobody sends letters and comes visiting asking if you own a firearm, drive on the road, sell food, alcohol, operate a hire car, are a trader of second hand goods, transport/dispose of 'waste or any of the myriad of other activities you need to be on some government list and have the appropriate bit of paper from them to do 'legally'. I have a very big problem with the Beeb being allowed to be so very speshul that they are allowed send monthly junk mail trying to confuddle the uninformed in to buying one of their subscriptions whether they need one or not, and if that fails send round salespeople to run a spiel on your doorstep designed to sell sand to Arabs. Nobody else is afforded that 'privilege', so why in hell are they.

 

Not many years ago our local government went on a crusade with 'no unsolicited callers' stickers, and they and the local plod regularly issue warnings about being wary of 'travelling salespeople'. Yet, the Beeb via Crapita are the worst offenders of the bunch, and there's plenty of evidence strewn all around the web to prove they are, apparently operate with impunity. Why?

 

Reporting a Crapita operative to plod for harrassment won't go noplace, nor will reporting their letters to Trading standards for making misleading claims, but just let some pikey show up with a few unbranded Made in China jennys, that *might* just be a tad on the shonky side for total comfort, and both will be on their case like hungry bloodhounds. Double standards much.

 

Its the dishonesty of the whole set up that really rankles. As is its a TV tax, pure and simple, but its dressed up as being 'those who use it pay for it'. Lets face reality, if you have a telly in the house no Crapita person or judge is going to believe you that its never switched on, yet there's plenty of perfectly legitimate uses for a telly other than viewing live braodcasts, likewise, neither are they going to believe that if you have a telly that is plumbed in so that it 'could' receive live Beeb broadcasts, that you never ever switch to any of their channels, yet again that is perfectly possible. So, most people just pay it so they're not hassled, rather than what, if anything they're getting for their investment. applied to any other product or service, that would be condemned as a scam.

 

*If* it is indeed a TV tax, lets at least have the honesty to call it what it is, and levy it on every new telly sold, and that's the only realistic way to make that one work, and *if* it is a licence to permit viewing and pay for the Beebs material, then make the Beeb a subscription channel, as that's the only realistic way to make that work.

 

The TV Licence was conceived back in the dark ages when the Beeb was the only broadcaster, videos and DVDs hadn't been invented, and it sat alongside stablemates such as radio licences and dog licences, bot now long gone AFAIK. It was fine and worked well enough back then, as there was no other reason for someone to own a telly except to watch what the Beeb churned out.

 

Times and technology have moved ahead at least half a century, the Beeb's financial model has not moved a whisker. long gone are the days when they held the monopoly for the entire industry in the UK. Almost as long gone are the days that they were the dominant player in the industry in the UK, they're now a small fry in a huge field, Information and entertainment became global and instantly transportable on demand decades ago, program scheduling is only relevant to live broadcasts of events these days, everything else is instantly accessible soewhere else somehow other than via the Beeb, They are a dinosaur serving an ever dwindling audience wringing every last penny they can by whatever means possible from an obsolete funding model, They need to get caught up and enter the 21st C. as every day they persist with what they've got, is taking them closer to joining Betamax and 8 track's

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