Will you keep your TV licence ?

We’ll be keeping ours, it’s good value.

Rocketop my post saying I wouldn’t cheat was not aimed at you but Nana8 s suggestion of getting a VPN !

Thank you for all your points of view. Some in favour of keeping, some against. I was a bit alarmed some suggested they would see it as cheating, getting something for nothing. I must make clear that was not what I meant, I didn't mean stop paying the fee but still keep watching. I meant either watch and pay or don't pay and don't watch.
For my own part, yes 50p a day to watch all kinds of things sounds good but like someone else says if you don't watch 'Much' Tv then you're paying for something you don't use. My own choice would be pay to view , so if a new series was coming on I could pay for the month and then dip out again. I genuinely don't mind paying for what I use.
The other thing that irks me is the HUGE wage the BBC pays out to it's 'Stars' ..Claudia Winkleman for example.I would prefer that more money was spent on new and interesting programmes than massive wages, but I know the argument would be that thy have to get 'Stars' to keep people watching.

If the argument is about BBC funding then the only answer is that it too becomes a commercial channel where for every 60 minute syou will see or hear 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of adverts - which I wouldn’t want to see or hear. Listen to Classic FM or and hour of live ITV3 or Channel 4 and see how annoying that soon becomes.

Actually that's not the only answer. The BBC could be funded straight from government, it doesn't have to resort to advertisement funding. You are aware that people do indeed watch the channels that are supported by advertising revenue, so annoying as it may be people are prepared to put up with it?

We will keep ours, the rise is tiny. I watch BBC iPlayer all the time, there are numerous series, documentaries and music programmes that I watch completely free of advertisements. I recently rewatched War And Peace and Sense And Sensibility and am currently watching Silent Witness, there are 29 series of that available. I like to watch Politics Live every day and if I am out at midday I can watch it later in the day.

These TV Licence discussions come up almost weekly and we write the same arguments.

The cost even with the small increase coming will be less than 50p a day - 50p a day to be able to switch on the radio, TV or some other receiving device 24/7 and be informed or entertained by whichever live TV channel you prefer.

Same as standing charges for electricity, gas and water. Martin Lewis campaigns for abolishing standing charges on energy which he says are a poll tax and he’s right. But the argument against abolition is that the cost per unit would have to rise.

If the argument is about BBC funding then the only answer is that it too becomes a commercial channel where for every 60 minute syou will see or hear 40 minutes of content and 20 minutes of adverts - which I wouldn’t want to see or hear. Listen to Classic FM or and hour of live ITV3 or Channel 4 and see how annoying that soon becomes.

Standard Netflix currently costs £156 a year for the standard ad-free package. They usually announce a price increase in February. Last year they added £2 per month which if they do the same this year would put it at £180, for just one streaming channel with limited content - same as what the licence fee will rise to.

Yes I ll continue paying my licence It stopped being free the year I should have started my freeby 😳
I can’t feel happy with myself cheating and can’t justify Netflix prime or virgin etc just for one person so that’s how it is
I pay each September and get it off my back

I don’t require a tv licence anymore.
I don’t watch territorial tv. I watch YouTube, Prime and catch up (occasionally) but not iPlayer. All legal without purchasing a tv licence. Which I’ve done for apx 3 years.
I don’t feel I’m missing much

Should add DH doesn't mind paying the full licence fee.

argymargy

Yes, I will keep it. I would happily pay double/treble to keep the BBC and the local/national/global services it provides.

Maybe that's the answer, pay what it's worth to you. You can pay treble the current cost and I'll pay £20, everyone's happy!

Yes, I will keep it. I would happily pay double/treble to keep the BBC and the local/national/global services it provides.

No. Got rid of ours years ago.
Don’t watch live, or recorded tv.
Just pay for Netflix & watch DVDs on a weekend.

Yes

We have a licence.
I think it’s overly priced, but then they have to pay out all those huge sums to people like Gary Lineker.
We try to pay ours in a lump sum, but I was relieved to find that there is no extra cost for paying it monthly, unlike the extra £5 a year if I wanted to pay quarterly.

If you want to compare it to VED, then maybe there should be different bands like VED, which isn't a flat 'one size fits all' fee'. Somebody who watches hours of TV every day gets a lot more value than somebody else who watches only very occasionally.

It would be an interesting experiment to take a group of diverse people to represent a sample of UK service users.

Apply a notional PAYG system for all of the services used that are currently paid for as either a flat fee e.g. the TV Licence or based on banding e.g. VED or council tax.

A cost per programme watched or hours of viewing or listening, a charge per journey or hours on the road, a charge for every day a child goes to school, every bin emptied, every bus journey (if you have a free pass), every walk in the park (or indeed on a pavement or footpath) every book borrowed from the library etc etc.

Pay per mile is coming for EVs and PHEVs so it’s not so outrageous.

I wonder what the result would be?

I rarely watch tv but I listen to the radio a lot. For most people watching tv is the norm and radio is just the addon so to have it thrown in free is a bonus.

I feel uncomfortable getting something for nothing an I am more than happy to buy a tv licence in order to make a contribution to the cost of the radio programmes I listen to

I'll keep mine. I do think that the licence fee will be replaced at some point with a subscription service, which again I would pay for as long as it doesn't start having adverts.

Of course I’ll pay it. I listen to R6, BBC Sounds and watch iplayer all the time. Most of the programmes on the other channels are old BBC programmes.

Rosie51

nanna8 a VPN would only assist in breaking the law, it is not a lawful way to avoid the licence fee.

Fair enough if you do watch it. Do you have to get a licence to watch itv as well? Could you just not watch it and rely on Netflix etc? Genuinely wondering…

Graphite

You need to think differently about what the licence is.

The licence fee is a tax on broadcast reception, not just for the BBC to fund public service broadcasting but also covering the infrastructure used by commercial channels.

Think of it like Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), commonly known as road tax. You many stick to A and B roads and never drive on a motorway or use public transport (which VED goes towards) but you still have to have a licence.

86% goes to the BBC, so this 'it covers infrastructure' etc should be put in perspective.

nanna8 a VPN would only assist in breaking the law, it is not a lawful way to avoid the licence fee.

Get a VPN

I am a BBC fan, am quite happy to pay 50 pence a day for four!

Galaxy

Yes we understand the system which is why I continue to pay and just hope they change the system soon. I would think the increasing number of people not paying will eventually lead to a shift.

We, too, continue to pay because we know what the system is.

I think it is a daft system because it has become so very outdated; licences for things like radios and dogs were abolished a long time ago, I assume because the cost of policing them far outweighed any benefit that might have accrued from collecting them.

The fact that very few people are prosecuted for not paying the TV licence tells me that it is futile of government to make having one a legal requirement if the sanction for not having one is not going to be consistently applied.

I very much value that we have a good and extensive (it encompasses radio, too, don't forget) public broadcasting system which doesn't carry advertising and is, theoretically, free from political bias. I think it is an essential 'public good'. like education, justice, health services etc. which should be paid for by the state without the pretence that it is funded by our licence fees.

Just as with any other of the state provided services the money put into the BBC will circulate in the economy, not only by payment of wages and salaries but by helping to sustain the private enterprises which depend on it, both directly and indirectly.

Incidentally, the mention of VED reminds me that in the days before motorised vehicles, horse drawn transport was subject to some sort of taxation... It wasn't a novel concept for motor vehicles.

Graphite

You need to think differently about what the licence is.

The licence fee is a tax on broadcast reception, not just for the BBC to fund public service broadcasting but also covering the infrastructure used by commercial channels.

Think of it like Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), commonly known as road tax. You many stick to A and B roads and never drive on a motorway or use public transport (which VED goes towards) but you still have to have a licence.

Do they not charge commercial channels for their use of the infrastructure?

If you want to compare it to VED, then maybe there should be different bands like VED, which isn't a flat 'one size fits all' fee'. Somebody who watches hours of TV every day gets a lot more value than somebody else who watches only very occasionally.

Here's a theoretical that I know would never be introduced but what if you had to have a licence in order to receive Royal Mail postal deliveries, and that was a flat 'one size fits all' to pay for the infrastructure etc? Would the person who gets 10 letters a year be as happy as the one who receives multiple offerings every day? Would that be fair and excellent value for all?

To answer the OP's question, yes I will keep my TV licence even though I very much disagree with the system. I watch virtually no live TV (sport being the exception), recording what little I do want to watch. Days can go by without my watching anything, most of which isn't BBC content.