> The BBC has been a mouthpiece for both the UK and the US government for quite a few years.

This is quite well known—at least to people who think about such matters. Strangely, it seems to have been missed by the majority of HN.

It's a state sponsored news agency: the BBC are the recipients of a "TV tax" (licence fee, if one watches TV).

It's an organization funded by tax payers. That doesn't automatically mean it is a state mouthpiece. Unfortunately, they have not been very bold in their reporting since the Hutton Inquiry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Inquiry

The BBC is not funded by tax payers. It's funded by the TV License which is not compulsory. If you choose not to watch live broadcast television then you don't pay for a TV license.

Your definition would mean VAT isn't a tax. Just avoid the luxuries[1] and you avoid the VAT.

You have to pay the licence fee even if you never watch any BBC broadcast material. A person who only ever watches ITV would have to pay the licence fee.

And non-payment of the licence fee was a criminal offence with fines, and non-payment of the fine sent many people to prison.

It feels like a tax.

[1] also tampons and sanitary towels, which probably don't feel like a luxury purchase.

I hate to "well actually" you Dan :)

I was informed by a TV license "officer" that provided you detune BBC channels you can still watch commercial channels. In the same way that I am permitted to listen to BBC radio channels (for which no license is required) via a Sky box.

TV licensing have to prove that you're watching on-air BBC broadcasts.

Incorrect, you need a license if you watch or record live TV broadcasts, regardless of channel. Sounds like you were misled.

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/Li...

In the UK even if you do not watch TV at all (live or recorded) you have to pay the BBC Tax / TV license fee under certain circumstances.

Best known one is having a car with a live video feed (e.g. a reverse camera to the dashboard) -first ones were Range Rovers and other luxury cars but these features are now arriving within more "bread and butter" cars as well.

Still better than in Germany where they recently turned it into a per-household tax to be paid even if you don't watch any TV / broadcast at all.

Incorrect, I pay no license fee as I only watch things through non-live streaming services such as Netflix, NowTV and iPlayer.

I used to have a TV license and cancelled it. When they asked why I was cancelling, I said that I consumed my entertainment through non-live streaming services and they were happy. That was at the end of last year and I haven't heard anything since.

just half true - you're right with regard to recorded broadcast, but...

Do you drive a modern car, do you have surveillance cameras at your property / your offices? - Bang you have to have a TV license in the UK even if you don't watch any TV.

Every year thousands of people in the UK are pulled to court / persuaded to pay thousands of £s to settle enforcement cases against them (or even go to prison) because they only look at half of the rules.

No, you don't. You're reading the legislation incorrectly which can happen if you just read it sequentially. Nobody goes to prison because their car has a reversing camera, that's absurd.

Whilst true that in Section 9 (Part 3) of 2004 No. 692 ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS BROADCASTING The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004[0] a 'television receiver' is defined as:

    any apparatus installed or used for the purpose of receiving (whether by means of wireless telegraphy or otherwise) any television programme service, whether or not it is installed or used for any other purpose.

...the key part is Section 363 of Part 4 of the Communications Act 2003[1] which states:

It an offence to

    * install or use a television receiver or

    * possess or have control of a television receiver with the intent to install or use it or

    * possess or have control of a television receiver and know or have reasonable grounds for believing that another person intends to install or use it without a valid TV Licence issued under the Communications Act.

If you own or possess a television set without installing or using it as a TV receiver (e.g. you only use it to watch videos or DVDs, or as a monitor for a games console) then you don’t need a TV Licence. This is what the ''television programme service' refers to in Section 363 - the key part being that a TV receiver is concerned with the reception of live or 'virtually live' broadcasts.

This has been confirmed many times and directly by the BBC in this FOI request[2]

[0] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2004/692/pdfs/uksi_200406...

[1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/part/4

[2] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/laws_on_tv_license

Mind pointing me towards where it states this? Some examples of the court cases would be nice too, seeing how they're so plentiful.

> In the UK even if you do not watch TV at all (live or recorded) you have to pay the BBC Tax / TV license fee under certain circumstances.

This isn't true.

You can quite happily watch iPlayer or 4OD or Netflix and not be liable to pay the license fee as long as what you're watching isn't live or being broadcast at that very moment.

You can avoid the TV License Fee if you only watch BBC iPlayer, or stick to things like Netflix.

It basically applies to any TV being watched as it is being broadcast at the time so you are liable to pay anything if you only watch shows after they have been aired.

Myself I tend to watch Netflix, some iPlayer and 4OD stuff and I do not have to pay anything.

That doesn't stop them sending letters once in a while to check though.

wrong - you need a TV license for "ANY" live broadcast in the UK - as mentioned in another comment here this includes any live camera feed (surveillance / in cars / etc) - so even if you never watch any TV (recorded or live) there a plenty of cases where by the law (under threat to go to prison) you have to sponsor the BBC.

The BBC is the only recipient of TV license fees in the UK - of course after plenty of cost created on the way between the consumer / license payer to the BBC / payee.

BTW the BBC is also the TV licensing authority in the UK and is authorised by the government via the Communications Act 2003 to collect and enforce the TV license fee. One of the companies in the Capita conglomerate has been "entrusted" by the BBC / the government to collect the TV licensing fees.

Well, representatives and the documentation from the TV Licensing authority themselves that they provided me with would seem to disagree with you.

A lengthy correspondence with them led them to conclude that because my TV was not connected to a TV aerial or cable, and I only used it to watch Netflix and iPlayer from my computer, I did not in fact need a TV license.

I've been through this dance with them three or four times.

>The BBC is not funded by tax payers. //

Has this changed in the last 2 years?

Previously, when I looked, the BBC stated that they received a substantial sum from direct taxation in addition to the license fee. On that basis you pay in part and the BBC is funded [partially] by tax payers. IIRC it amounted to about 5% of the take from license fee payers.

Ah, decided to track it down ... http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/pdf/2014-15/BBC-FS-2..., p.34 - "grant-in-aid" funding £243.6 Million up to March 2015 (6.5% of the license fee income).

However it looks like this has stopped in 2015:

"Grants from Government departments For the year ended 31 March 2014, the BBC World Service received Grant-in-Aid from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Previously, BBC Monitoring also received a grant from the Cabinet Office. These grants have been drawn down to meet estimated expenditure in the year but unspent amounts do not have to be repaid, as long as they fall within predetermined limits. The grants are recognised as income in the financial year that they relate to."

Very minor nitpick: you should say "consume live broadcast TV" as blind people don't watch but still have to pay.

TV licenses are an excise tax on TVs. If you own a TV capable of receiving broadcasts, you have to pay.

The guardian is very left leaning as well, a more neutral paper would be better.

A newspaper cannot be neutral. The real problem with the BBC is that it is officially proud to be neutral but it is not. I way prefer a lot of non neutral papers, where I know before hand their base political/economic/social views. This way I can go and read both sides of the story or if not that important, read just one side knowing that it is a partial view.

The BBC is by far the most neutral news source I have ever encountered. It's constantly subject to attack by both the government and the public, to the extent that it's terrified to take a stance on any issue.

This is what you think and this is the problem because you are not alone at all. I highly recommend you reading this book: "NEWSPEAK in the 21st Century". It is highlighting the fact that the BBC is not neutral for a lot of critical issues. This is why I prefer "opinionated" papers.

Sorry for this thread going maybe a bit off-topic, but this a subject I am pretty attached too. Again, I am not saying that the BBC is not doing great work, but just that it is not as neutral as what the opinion think it is.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/NEWSPEAK-21st-Century-David-Edwards/...

Thanks for the book tip will have a look at it.

Having worked in news for some years and seen how (esp. online) news are produced and weighted for priority, it is to say, that it is quite a sad state of affairs.

I stopped reading the news, following any news at all. If news do reach me and my interest exceeds a internal threshold, I start investigating the topic further.

So having a view from outside my home country might be interesting.

Cowardice is not neutrality. This is how we get global warming denialism given unreasonable amounts of airtime, using the "Views On Shape Of Earth Differ" approach.

Yes, that's a problem. But the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Hold on - there's no 'it' (it can rarely be said to speak with one voice) and where do you get 'terrified' from? 'Attack' is also pejorative. It is entirely appropriate that a public broadcasting organization paid for license holders to the tune of £3.7 billion or so, is subject to extensive positive and negative critical comment.

BBC neutral? Jokes on you :)

They're not supposed to be taking a stance, only reporting, that's the whole point.

There are basically no neutral papers in the UK. The Independent sort of tries, and the FT/Economist tend to be accurate with the facts but reflexively probusiness/neoliberal.

The Economist is increasingly pro-BIG-business, pro-establishment, rather than fair/free-market (as it used to be).

Good to know that I'm not the only one who's noticed this. It used to be my favorite paper, but I'm disappointed with the direction it's taken lately.

There's no requirement to or expectation that they will be. Papers are not required to present any kind of balance, as long as what they say is broadly true (external pluralism), for a given value of true. The broadcast media (the free-to-air ones) are required to be demonstrably internally pluralistic, to show a variety of sources and viewpoints within their output - and that applies across BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Channel 5, but not Sky News; goes back to when Radio came on stream in the 1930s.

Yes. Americans keep expecting "neutrality", which is hard to define and impossible to achieve.

The FT is not that neoliberal, it is fairly generally liberal, and generally more left wing than most of its readership by quite a margin, although it is quite varied.

Left-leaning? So privacy is a left-wing thing?

Left and right are increasingly meaningless labels. These days it is more pro-establishment vs anti-establishment.

For example, the most vocal people on privacy are an amalgam of independent thinkers on the "left" (The Guardian, etc) and independent thinkers on the "right" (Ron Paul, etc.)

While the "leftist" Hillary Clinton calls Snowden a traitor (so do a lot of "right"-wing people, too).

Although Britain's left wing party, Labour, is pro surveillance, even it seems under Corbyn, who is himself a target.

Stop it – this article is completely fine. It quotes the government, explaining what the plan is. It explains the views of other parties and what they think is wrong with the proposals. It quotes a civil liberties group, who explain why it's bad.

This is exactly what news should be. If you want more in-depth analysis or opinions, you should be looking elsewhere.

Hang on - he has a point, the BBC has become very pro government with its commentary and the way they choose to present information. Particularly above the fold.

I never understand this viewpoint, I read the BBC for online news and the Telegraph at home, it's very easy to see which one is pro government/pro Tory.

The BBC is basically going to be gutted by the current government, I don't buy into this world where they're pro government, I find they're fairly neutral while a lot of the people criticising it are almost certainly anti Tory.

Being less pro-Tory than the Telegraph is hardly a challenge. The Telegraph is the propaganda arm of the Tory party. As in they literally run press releases from CCHQ as news stories.

The BBC should aim for their coverage to reflect facts, not just be a the-truth-is-in-the-middle triangulation of Labour and Tory positions. Their neutrality and balance mostly consists of getting a comment from the Tories and then getting a comment from Labour, with the assumption that doing so will cover all sides of any issue. One of the aims of any decent media organisation should be to challenge the establishment, but when the BBC is constitutionally unable to criticise positions where Labour and Tories both agree then it's unable to fulfil that role.