I'm flirting with the idea of ditching mine (legitimately: removing all live TV reception facilities from my house) when my Sky contract is up in August. I never watch TV live, I sky+ a lot, but I literally watch NOTHING that I couldn't get on the various OnDemand services plus Netflix. So I'd be getting rid of a TV licence and a Sky sub (totalling about £40 a month) and getting a Netflix sub for £7 a month. Sounds like a deal. And would also be generally fun telling the TV licencing heavies where to jam their licence.

Go for it. Wouldn't get away with that in my house due to this idea of needing to watch live sports!

When you work out that it's the main entertainment of many people, especially those with not much money, it's cheap. And if you can afford a telly you can afford a licence. It's like driving a car and saying, I've bought a car, but I don't have much money so I won't bother taxing it.

I begrudge every single penny of the TV licence, if I had my way I would scrap it tomorrow.
It is time the BBC competed in the real world in my view and was not fed from the pockets of people that find around £145 a year, every year hard to keep up with.

It is even worse that it had a criminal record element to it for not paying too.
Shocking, and for me it is time it was gone and consigned to history.

it should be scraped completely , its 2014 people pay how much now for tv per month and yet still have to pay the greedy money grabbing con merchants money on top for 2 channels. its really mental if you think about it and how many channels there is.

it doesn't help the poor old ladies who are still slopping out in prison and have ended up someones bitch because they dont pay their tv licence

speaking of the tv licence i know someone who is constantly hounded by them every week threatening letters and calls to pay the licence, even though they are already paid up in advance. they still want you to pay more in advance. 3 months left isn't good enough you must pay now for the next one and so on.
they are not well and the stress its caused its disgusting. the way they go about trying to get the money really is shocking. even if your paid up in advance they dont stop .
they shouldn't be allowed to do that to people.

Except that the two aren't really comparable; road tax is more like "road rent" as it pays for the upkeep of the roads and highways which, if you run a car, you will almost certainly be using. In fact if you're not - if you're only using your car on private land - then you DON'T need a tax disk.

The TV license is more akin to being forced to pay a £1 "milk tax" every time you go to the supermarket, whether you drink milk or not, so that everyone else can take their 2L milk bottle for free, because "most people drink milk".

I'm also unsire about your suggestion that "if you can afford a telly you can afford a license" - I could go on my local freecycling group right now and pick up 10 CRT televisions tomorrow for precisely £0.

The only people who should be paying for the BBC are the people who use the BBC and / or its broadcasting equipment. Period. If people don't want to pay a subscription charge for it - which should REALLY be less than £12 a month anyway - then there's no demand for the service and it simply shouldn't exist. And before people start bawling about Doctor Who - the intellectual rights to a show that successful would be snapped up by another network faster than you can say "fire-sale". The same goes for all successful BBC properties.

It's an outdated model. Broadcast television in general is on the way out in favour of on-demand services, and quite rightly. They're better. If the BBC was to switch to being an entirely on-demand, internet based service like Netflix tomorrow and charge a subscription fee, they would still make an absolute fortune.

Yup..said it better than I could have tbh.

I stand by my analogy. And yes, I understand if you drive your car on private land you don't need it to be taxed, but frankly that's got nothing to do with anything. Part of my Council Tax goes to street lighting and pavement upkeep. There are no street lights nor pavements where I live, but I still have to pay that part of the charge.

You currently have to have a licence if you watch the telly. That's the bottom line, despite your claim it's an outdated model. You can go and buy a cheap telly... but the fact is you will need a licence to watch it, like you need a your car taxed to drive it on the highway. Whichever way you spin it, if you watch the telly you must have a licence or you're breaking the law. I pay my licence and I resent people feeling like they should be entitled to get it for free.

I have heard of no streetlights (we have them but they are never on :/ ) but never no pavements :o

Do you live way out in the countryside or something where its all dirt paths and such? If so I sooo envy you :joker:

Doesn't the licensing go towards "upkeep"? I'm sure I read the government are forcing the BBC to use the fee to pay for upkeep of technology for the broadcast of all television. :shrug:

I'm about three miles from the nearest village and eight miles from the nearest town. It's very quiet....

Sounds like heaven.

I'd probably never watch a horror film though.

Looks like its upkeep of their own channels..http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-i...pay-for-top13/

Looking at that site, I realise 'I' do watch BBC. Well, cbeebies. But only at gavins dads house as he has no spoingebob squarepants channel :laugh:

It must've been back when analogue TV was on they had to pay for the upkeep of all the technology and equipment that broadcast the signals.

Good post Toy Soldier, valid points, I, when I updated my TV, handed on my previous one to someone who needed a new one,I would guess a lot of families do that too.
Then as you say you can pick up TV's quite cheaply too anyway.

I would be quite happy for the BBC to go subscription,then people have the choice to sign up or not.
However,I still think it ridiculous in the 21st century to have to have a licence to watch a TV in your own home.
I don't even consider the TV as a luxury, for me it is an essential item and politicians would be well lost if they didn't have the TV media to communicate to the electorate with too.

My real pet hate however is TV Licensing, the people who work there are some of the most awful people you could come across.
Time they were well and truly closed down and got rid of.

This might be quite ignorant of me, but with all the cutbacks the BBC are making do we really need both a Scots Gaelic television and radio channel, a Welsh language radio station, two different Northern Irish radio stations, and a BBC Asian network?

Well it's not a tax it's a licence and as said if people are struggling to heat or eat I personally don't blame them if they forgo this.
I'm sure the'll be those who think the poor should be in workhouses unknotting string if they can't get work rather than watching the box.

Depends, do the Welsh and Scottish contribute to the fee?

If so, why shouldn't they get the material catered for them?

Why don't they just pay for the BBC out of regular tax dollars instead of a license fee? it would be so much easier and end this stupidity. Imagine how much money they would save from not having to hire people to collect the license fees and go after people not paying it.

:suspect:

Well I imagine so but there's a radio Wales and a radio Scotland already, then they also have another two separate stations which broadcast in Welsh/Scottish Gaelic. I know the Welsh in particular are proud of their own language and everything but is that really necessary, and Scottish Gaelic is hardly ever used I believe

but people who don't have enuf money to pay for gas or food don't pay any tax anyway.

The BBC is definitely value for money, are some people on here really saying they don't ever use the BBC website to read articles and link to them on websites, watch BBC News, BBC Sport, listen to Radio 1, 2, 4, 5 Live? Watch BBC3? 1? 2? 4? CBBC/CBeebies?

I wouldn't be averse to the idea of making it subscription but I think it's a dangerous path to go down, the thought of having no state sponsored, ad-free broadcaster is harrowing. Their documentaries and live programming (you only have to look at the Olympics coverage to see this) is second to none, the thought of losing that is quite awful

I would imagine so for the people who don't speak English. :laugh: