I appreciate state TV content and watch it regularly. But this argument just doesn't hold water. The service is so wonderful that they had to make it a criminal offence not to be a subscriber? And surely an "independent" TV station would have to be one which is not completely controlled by the state.

It's only an offense if you watch live TV [1]. They could have just lumped it in with your taxes, like they do in many other countries with state TV, but this approach in theory lets you opt out, even if they like to check up on you all too regularly. I suppose one downside of the BBC approach is tax is usually proportional to your income, while the TV license fee is not, and in fact you need to pay it even if you have no income. We had great games of hiding our TV in the closet as students whenever the license people came down the street.

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...

> hiding our TV in the closet as students whenever the license people came down the street

There are people going door-to-door to check TV licenses? Are they cops, what kind of power do they have? Seems extremely annoying and dystopian.

They have zero power, it's just a man with a clipboard asking to have a look around your house, the correct response is to shut the door in their face.

They rely on a uniform and vague threatening language to trick people into thinking they have any authority.

Not a UK citizen, but from previous discussions on the topic:

> There are people going door-to-door to check TV licenses?

yes

> Are they cops?

no

> what kind of power do they have?

none. I mean write you a fine if you admit to illegally watching TV I guess. But as far as I've been told you can have the TV on and visible to the guy and go "nah that's an aquarium" and be fine.

What happened to the vans with antennae that scanned for operating TVs (there’s an IF oscillator in there I guess) to find unlicensed receivers?

The BBC has never offered any proof or explanation of how they worked, and there is some suspicion that they are fakes used for their psychological effect.

You can absolutely listen for the TV heterodyne leakage.

The bbc has been in a state of cost cutting as the Tory government of past 15 years has consistently throttled the licence fee as “punishment” for not being state controlled enough (ie Tory’s feel the BBC is biased against them

This is unlikely - partly any news media is biased against government as they do the actual decisions, but mostly the BBC is middle class britain incarnate, whereas the tories represent - well whatever the right wing is becoming these days.

As for licence fee - it’s basically a historical accident that became a ring fenced tax. Governments have strong views about people not paying taxes.

It’s not a criminal offense not to be a subscriber… it’s a criminal offense to pirate their content without being a subscriber.

Pretty much the same as using Cable TV or Satellite TV without paying for a subscription. I don't see much difference between paying the BBC and paying Comcast.

In the case of Satellite TV, in the 1990s there were companies that sold decoder boxes so you could use a dish antenna without paying the Satellite TV company. You'd pay the pirating company instead. Lots of cat-and-mouse games involving changing encryption methods.

How much taxpayer money is wasted on the accounting, the enforcement, and the scary-sounding letters? Wouldn’t it be better if the government just gave taxpayer money to the BBC directly?

You mean "how much money is given to people to do those things"? Because the money doesn't magically disappear in the pockets of "big beeb", all those tasks are performed by people who get paid for that, drawing an income and then spending the money they earned by economically participating in society.

There is no money being wasted. Although it might certainly be a case of paper being wasted.

The UK government/BBC is happy to give £91m/year to Crapita to administer the TV License [0], and there are a bunch of other contractors [1]. Almost 100 million pounds wasted that could be spent on programming, but instead go to private businesses. Instead, the UK government could just directly fund the BBC out of taxes. Even if it might require a small increase of the tax rate, they could save on the enforcement and tracking.

[0] https://www.capita.com/news/capita-announces-five-year-exten...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

> Almost 100 million pounds wasted that could be spent on programming

That's kinda assuming that everybody would continue to pay the license fee if the enforcement was stopped.

I have no clue how much revenue the TV licenses generate, or whether 100 million for administration and enforcement is a reasonable number. It feels unlikely to me?

Google google google:

  In 2021, there were 24.8 million households in England
  The TV licence fee is currently £159 a year

So there'd be 4,000 million or so in revenue if every household paid for the license (more including the rest of the UK). I _guess_ maybe 2.5% isn't a unreasoable number for administration and enforcementment? It's better that, say, Apple taking 30%...

They're saying it would be cheaper to just have the government, which already has a whole apparatus for calculating, collecting, and enforcing tax, fund the BBC directly. So there would be no TV license.

removing red tape is for business, not consumers!

My jurisdiction finally got rid of annual/biannual car registration fees and stickers. Was a rather pointless process other than collecting money.

Was hoping they'd raise gas taxes by 0.1cents/litre or something, but I guess they buried it in with other taxes.

Unfortunately, we still require driver's license renewals every 5 years for CAD$90. And they don't bother taking a picture with every renewal because that was too much bureaucracy for them. I think it's only once I'm 80 they'll haul me in for a cognitive test.

All the money being spent on enforcement is being wasted, if the alternative is just to raise general taxes by the same amount and fund it from that.

So yes, of course there is absolutely money being wasted in this comparison.

Perhaps we should also have a mandatory fee paid to the thumb twiddling association? They too will be happy to be employed after all.

This a thousand times over. And don’t forget the 8 entirely advert-free radio stations featuring music, live sport and current affairs too.

That's probably an argument in favour of having it a fee instead of buried in taxes, so people raise hell if they suggest adverts.

Meanwhile the Canadian CBC is buried in taxes and has as many ads as any other station.

fwiw I think the BBC has become way too captured by culturally dysgenic rich kids (who else can afford to work for almost nothing in London) and is terrified of being seen as elitist (so won't really educate)

It would be easy to say they don't make anything like Kenneth Clarke programs anymore but even late Blair era documentaries seem to be fading away. Nature stuff is still good though but that's just cinematography.

This will probably kill it.

I used to think this, but it's no longer true. BBC radio is pretty good value. CBBC is valuable in having an ad-free service for children. But the rest of terrestrial BBC is .. tired. It's not really changed since the advent of streaming services and youtube, which have eaten its audience from younger ages.

And BBC politics is awful. Question Time is full of planted audience members. BBC journos give softball interviews to their friends in the Conservative party.

Personally I'd split the BBC into National Archive (all the material before 2000) and BBC Ongoing, and make the latter into a normal private company which sells streaming subscriptions. And abolish the absurdity of the TV license and its often oppressive enforcement against the very poor.

Unfortunately this is no longer true. The quality of the journalism is in serious doubt. One such example: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-myth-of-the-stolen-c...

In addition many articles focus on individuals which offer a skewed perspective. I stopped using the bbc news app after noticing I was only occasionally enjoying the long reads, and even then I don’t want woke politics snuck in