kbsub

anybody listen to Jame Whale last night on Talk Sport ? He was talking to Johnathan Miller from http://www.tvlicensing.biz/
Apparantley if you dont have a TV licence and they send the bods round , dont let em in , dont let em see or hear the TV , and there is nothing they can do about it and if enough people dont buy one we might get rid of this illegal poll tax , thats what they did in New Zealand
Sounds like a good idea to me , just another tax we shoudn't have to pay

Tiggs

except most people watch/listen to the BBC so are happy to pay it.

kbsub

They only watch it because they dont have a choice or cant afford Sky
" happy to pay it " yeah right

Jerome

Come to North America and see how many adverts there are. You might then appreciate the BBC more. You will also appreciate just how good the BBC actually is. I was always against the licence fee until I moved to Canada. If I ever moved back to the UK, I would pay the licence fee gladly.

Tiggs

i think you'll find plenty of people have sky and still watch/listen to the BBC....and are happy to pay a licence for it. Me for one.

kbsub

my whole point is that you dont have a choice , you have to pay it , you dont have to pay for any other channel

Jerome

You do pay for other channels. Sky channels are not free - normally a subscription fee is payed each month. If you don't actually hand over any money, that's because the adverts are funding that channel.

I do see your point - I used to feel exactly the same way. In fact I avoided the licence fee for over 10 years because I was so against it. I have now changed my mind and would be happy to pay the licence fee.

kbsub

did you realise the BBC take £3 billion of us every year in licence fees , its a bit like the NHS , a big bottomless tax pit !

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

As far as adverts are concerned, when did the change from 3 adverts in an hour programme, to 4 in the smae programme, come in?

I'm getting REALLY p*ssed off with starting a programme that's scheduled for a 9pm start at 9.04, and the first adverts at 9.10, the last ones at 9.47, and the fekkin thing ends at 9.55 for MORE ads!!!

Also, is it just me, or are the ads longer on cable/sky channels, than they are on the free to view channels?

Alcazar

ProperCharlie

personally, I wouldn't mind paying the licence fee just for bbc radio (which is slightly ironic as you don't have to buy a licence if you only have a radio).

Which is better value - £121 a year for all bbc services or £500 odd for sky sports? I pay both but if I wanted to cut back, sky would be getting the boot. There's only about 2 or 3 games every month that I really want to watch in any case, so that's around £20 per game.

Tiggs

i have had two ops on the NHS in the last 2 years and thousands of pounds of follow up treatment, my wife has had 3 kids on the NHS and the only cost was a bit extra for a private room while she was there.......i would estimate ££££'s of cost.

i also listened to R1 this morning......so im pretty happy.

Tiggs

sky + = solved!

kbsub

I will count you out of the revoution then !

OllyK

If you have a TV only to watch DVD's you STILL have to pay for a TV License even if you never watch the BBC and don't want to. You have no choice to opt out. With Sky you only pay if you want the channels.

kbsub

here is a better one ............ if you have a TV thats not plugged in and put away in a cupboard you still have to pay for the licence !!
its a fecking rip off ...... and we stand for it !

TurboKitty

I don't mind paying the licence fee, even though I think the quality of BBC TV is shocking. However, what I do mind is that since I bought a DVD player a couple of months ago, I've had *three* letters, two of which were in a threatening tone, from the TV licensing people saying I've bought a DVD player and there's no licence held in my name at my address. Correct, because the licence is in my boyfriend's name.

Please, they request, fill in the attached form if the licence is held by someone else. Well screw that. There's no way I am doing their job for them. We have a licence, so that is our part of the deal over, as far as I am concerned. If they want to come round and check the licence, fine, but if they don't have a system that allows them to check whether a licence is held at a given address, rather than by a specific individual at a given address, that's not my problem. Yeah, it'd be really easy for them if I sent back all the details they need regarding our TV licence, but I'd like to see them get off their ***** and do their own work, for a change.

Apart from anything else, I bought a DVD player, not a TV, so they only assuming we have a TV. As it happens, we do, but as the DVD player was a birthday present for someone else, they could well be hassling me for no reason.

Tiggs

is your Tv in a cupbord then?

Tiggs

thus costing them extra money....so why do that? why not just send back the form?

your B/F pays his but thousands dont...do you care about that? your B/F is paying up so others dont have to. If you dont care then fine but if you think its not on then why not do your bit. The TV licence people arent mcdonalds or Ford...they arent doing it to make millions...just send back the form and stop wasting peoples time.

T

OllyK

Tiggs - do you know who runs the TVL?

TurboKitty

As I said, we've done our part in paying for a TV licence and I don't see why I should have to waste my time filling out a stupid form because they can't do their job properly and know that our address has a licence. It's not me wasting their time, because it's their job; it's them trying to waste mine.

And no, I don't really care about the thousands who don't pay. It's not right, I agree. It puts up the price for everyone who does buy a licence, I agree. But I have finally learned that getting wound up about the injustices in the world, and worrying about what everyone else does or does not do is only detrimental to me.

kbsub

the TV license should be voluntary like Sky , if you dont like adverts you pay for a BBC licence , you should have a choice , its an illegal poll tax
and no TIGGS my TV is not in the cupboard but might as well be for all the crap they put out these's days !!

Tiggs

cool...then dont worry about the odd letter from them.

Tiggs

so you dont watch BBC or listen to Radio 1? ever?

corradoboy

You could always get a monitor, or plasma display (not TV). As long as it is not able to receive you don't need a license, so you can have a DVD player, X BOX, PS2 or even a video player. As long as none of the items has a tuner/receiver you don't have to pay.

I don't mind paying, but I have to admit, apart from TopGear there isn't much on the beeb I like, but it beats Ch4 and it's never ending monotonous infatuation with bl00dy Friends

kbsub

dont have SKY so i have no choice , but if i didnt have to pay the £110 a year to the BBC that could go towards a SKY subscription , an **** the BBC

Pastor

I have no problems with paying the licence fee myself. However when I was a student my flatmate had a novel solution to the problem of our not being able to pay for the licence. He kept the TV in his bedroom and swore that if they ever came round he would "take measures" to deal with it.
Sure enough a few months later they came round, asked the question

"Do you have a TV?"

I froze not knowing what to do but thankfully Damien had the answer.

"it's broken- come and have a look"

The TV was then hurled downstairs where it landed in a broken heap. Job done they left and the following weekend we went to the car boot fair and bought another one for £15. They never returned.

angrynorth

I watch/listen to the BBC but I agree the license fee should not be compulsory if you own a TV. The pressure and scare tactics they put on our already indebted student population to cough up £100 per year, is out of order and that alone is reason to make it non compulsory.

The BBC is also corrupt to the core and bloated beyond belief. It doesn't need half the budget it takes.

kbsub

they reckoned on the radio (talk sport that is )if you have broadband you need a license , work that one out

TurboKitty

This is part of my point, I bought a DVD player, which is not a signal receiving device. For all they know it could be hooked up to a monitor and I may not own a TV. I think it's a cheek just assuming someone buying a DVD player has a TV and repeatedly harrassing them on the off-chance.

I simply don't believe that they are unable to use their computer system to check whether a licence is held at a particular address. They just can't be bothered because it's easier to mass-mail letters to every person who buys AV equipment, and then ask them to prove they are in compliance with the law.

Mungo

You could have filled in the form in the time it took you to type that...