14 ms·

What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the

What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. My problem with this type of license fee collection is that it bring forward a number of costs associated with it that could be removed if it went directly from taxes and that today everyone has TV so it doesn't really "tax the rich" that it probably was intended to do in the early days.

mhh__ 6y ago
I think the idea is to make it harder to fiddle with the BBC budget
- saberdancer 6y ago
  I'm sure that is part of it, but I would love to see the breakdown of the costs. When it was first introduced it made sense to have a fee, not many people had a TV so by collecting the fee, you didn't tax the people without it. But today everyone has it, so this no longer applies. Independence argument has some merit, but I would expect that there can be different methods that would provide the same level of independence.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    It's ironically gone from being a pretty progressive tax (only relatively well off people had TV's) to being a very regressive tax ("everyone" has TV's but you pay the same amount no matter how much you earn). The independence argument has largely been destroyed by the government itself - the last few governments have tightened their control of the management of the BBC considerably to a point where budget control matters much less.
  - pydry 6y ago
    Independence went with the Hutton enquiry when Parliament set up the BBC trust to replace the BBC board of governors. It gradually shifted from being an independent well staffed news organization that routinely held the government to account to an understaffed RT-like propaganda outfit and huffpost-like reprinter of press releases.
- martin_bech 6y ago
  Im sure thats true. We had it the same way in Denmark, but have now changed it, to be payed for by taxes.. this had made it very political, and the budget is now decided by whatever party is in control, and the national tv/radio is becoming more and more of a coward because of it..
- cortic 6y ago
  The idea is to make the poor and working classes pay for it, being regressive everyone pays the same, taxes are progressive, the more you earn the more you pay. Government set the licence fee and legislation around it every 5 or 6 years. The last renewal put government appointed editors into the BBC in exchange for a change in Law from 'watch live BBC channels = you have to pay' to 'watch live non-BBC channels = you have to pay'. So now, even if you are just watching BBC competitors,you have to pay the BBC.. what a great business model.
  - andrewaylett 6y ago
    It has always been the case that watching any broadcast TV as it's broadcast requires a license. Now it's also the case that you need a license to use BBC's streaming platform, iPlayer, to watch video on demand. Note that "live" isn't the qualifier -- so long as you're not watching a feed of something that's being broadcast you're OK.
i_am_proteus 6y ago
Not everyone has a TV. Most, perhaps, but not all. Source: I don't have a TV.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  Not "everyone" does, but to all intents and purposes it is a reasonable shorthand. More households in the UK pay for the TV license than pay for water.
doctorfoo 6y ago
Not true. I and others I know use a TV only as a screen for videogames and do not watch TV in any form. You explicitly do not need a license just to own a TV.
- dsego 6y ago
  Interesting, in Croatia it's specifically a fee on owning any type of radio or tv receiver. Nowadays that applies to almost anything, from TVs and car radios to PCs and smartphones.
  - bonzini 6y ago
    In Italy it doesn't apply to PCs and smartphones. It does apply to DVB-T dongles though. It used to be a separate tax, now it's collected as part of the electric bill. You have to opt out explicitly instead of "opting in" by paying; this makes it much worse for people to evade the payment, since they would be making a false statement when opting out. So many people were evading the fee, that it has since been reduced by a third or so.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  A lot of people say that but it is "not readily believable" to use a Civil Service Circumlocution. In that case why are you and those others not using a monitor.
  - thesuitonym 6y ago
    I know you're just engaging in discussion, but non-TV monitors are typically more expensive than a similar sized TV.
    - Mauricebranagh 6y ago
      And most TV's aren't very good as pc monitors.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    I've got no TV service here in the US, but a couple large TVs. I watch movies on other media occasionally, but for the most part they're used for video games. Buying an 80" monitor isn't really cost efficient.
tomxor 6y ago
I don't have a TV... But that's not the point, it's no longer relevant today as made apparent by their threatening letters that make it sound as though it's impossible to avoid paying them. What is relevant: I don't watch BBC, period. And yet every 2 years or every time I move I am threatened again for the offense of not wanting to watch the BBC. I recognize that in the UK at one point this licensing model made sense due to combination of funding broadcast equipment, and the BBC has given a huge amount of value over the years - but I honestly think the quality of their content has decreased significantly since then, especially the documentaries. The licensing model no longer makes sense in a world where they are just one of multiple payed on demand services usually delivered over the internet for which we are already directly funding. It should be opt-in not opt-out.
- denton-scratch 6y ago
  You don't have to watch the Beeb to become liable for the licence fee. You become liable if you watch any broadcast television channel.
andyjohnson0 6y ago
> Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. That would make the BBC dependent on the government for its revenue, which definitely isn't desirable. The current system, where the BBC collects its own revenue under the authority of a royal charter, is intended to help insulate it from political interference.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  That just sounds like paperwork. Legislation forcing people to pay a “TV license” and legislation forcing people to pay more tax and then transferring those tax funds to the BBC is effectively the same thing. Except the latter is more efficient.
  - caspper69 6y ago
    Despite your feelings on the issue, the difference is quite stark. Relying on allocations in yearly budgets, subject to the political whims of lawmakers, is clearly a different animal altogether.
    - afarrell 6y ago
      This is the reason why court fees and PACER fees exist in the US.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      Why can’t the law be written so that the allocation can’t be changed (as easily)? Even right now, the politicians can choose to enact legislation to modify or remove the tv license fee.
      - SllX 6y ago
        During renegotiation, sure Parliament can opt not to renew. But for the duration of the charter, the BBC has an uninterrupted period of collections beyond the fiscal year of the government, which cannot be raided to fund the new social program of the day.
seanalltogether 6y ago
I've brought this argument forward many times since I moved to the UK, and everyone I've talked to hates the idea of turning the fee into a general tax. It's a weird refusal that I genuinely can't understand as someone not born here. Everyone seems happy enough with the idea of paying tax for public libraries or parks or other social institutions they may never use because it benefits society, but bring up the tv license and it's like arguing with a brick wall.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  They don't trust the government
- CodeGlitch 6y ago
  Have you seen how much BBC bosses and stars are paid? Far higher than other public servants, so yes I would be against making it compulsory https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/bbc_rich_list_2020_37_5m_bumper_bill_for_bbc_bosses https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/bbc_rich_list_2020_37_5m_b...
  - xxpor 6y ago
    £148k? That really seems like not that much for any sort of executive.
    - Dma54rhs 6y ago
      That sounds something a super privileged Silicon Valley codebro would say. It's almost embarrassing.
  - Mindwipe 6y ago
    > Have you seen how much BBC bosses and stars are paid? Far higher than other public servants, so yes I would be against making it compulsory It's not far higher than other public servants, and the Taxpayers Alliance are liars and fantasists. It's like how they continually misrepresent the Prime Minster's salary as being in the low £100ks. It isn't. The Prime Minster's complete remuneration package is worth well over a million pounds a year.
4ndr3vv 6y ago
I'm not sure it was meant to be a tax on the rich; It was initially introduced in 1923 to cover radio broadcasts, and widened to become the television license in 1946. Also, the appeal of this funding model makes it independent of Governmental cuts and the politicisation of programming.
Chris2048 6y ago
I don't have a TV, nor do I need one. Would I get a rebate?
- vaduz 6y ago
  You can apply for exemption [0] - needs to be reconfirmed every 2 years and sometimes more often if TVL/Capita thinks there 'might' have been changes you did not report (e.g. you subscribed to a service that participates in their reporting scheme - NowTV is one of the providers that reports their customers). You pay nothing if you qualify for one of the four exemption bases. Note: if the exemption lapses without a new one in place (or a license purchase), they will actually send goons to 'investigate' after a short period. [0] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/telling-us-you-dont-need-a-tv-licence https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...
  - thebrid 6y ago
    The official word from TV Licensing is quite misleading (which admittedly is in their interest). You do not require any exemption nor to correspond with them at all. Their "officers" are private individuals employed by a private company who have no special rights to enter your property. Absent a search warrant, it is almost certainly a mistake to allow them to enter your property.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    I hear the application counts as a kind of contract - plus it requires disclosing information to them.
  - andrewaylett 6y ago
    Note that it's not a _legal_ exemption -- there's no requirement in law to register that you _don't_ have a TV, but they'd prefer you did so they can target their harassment more effectively. I've given up telling them -- it's less effort to drop their letters in the bin, and appears no less effective at stopping new ones arriving. That was after being "visited" a few years back and the goon trying the classic "if you've nothing to hide".
carschno 6y ago
No, the idea never was to "tax the rich". The license fees as present in many European countries are not taxes because the broadcasters are independent from the governments, including full control over what they do with _their_ budget. The idea is that the governments cannot (threaten to) cut their budgets to enforce pro-government reporting on public broadcasters.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Silhouette 6y ago
I agree that the licence fee is an anachronism and the BBC should have alternative funding instead, perhaps a ring-fenced budget paid from general taxation, but not because everyone has a TV. Some people don't watch broadcast TV, and the BBC and its agents have been infamous for getting heavy-handed and harassing those who choose not to and who perfectly legitimately and legally do not have a TV licence. This is backed by a controversial law that criminalises the failure to have a licence if you do need one, which under any normal circumstances would only be a minor civil matter. Meanwhile, today the BBC is very much a multimedia institution, but the licence fee remains tied specifically to broadcast television, a historical anomaly that could be fixed. A different funding model that broke that link and removed the need for a separate licence fee could fix all of the problems with licence evasion and heavy-handed enforcement that have been a black mark on the BBC's history, as well as providing a fairer system where the public service is funded from public funds rather than singling out a particular group.
nmeofthestate 6y ago
The license fee is fairer than a tax, because if you don't watch terrestrial television you don't have to fund it. For example, if you just watch Netflix, you don't need to pay for a license fee. If the license fee were replaced with a tax I would end up paying more than the cost of a license fee for something I don't use - not keen.
- saberdancer 6y ago
  This depends on the country. In some countries you pay the license if you own a car or a computer.
  - nmeofthestate 6y ago
    Yep. I was talking about the country in the article.

mhh__ 6y ago

I think the idea is to make it harder to fiddle with the BBC budget

saberdancer 6y ago
I'm sure that is part of it, but I would love to see the breakdown of the costs. When it was first introduced it made sense to have a fee, not many people had a TV so by collecting the fee, you didn't tax the people without it. But today everyone has it, so this no longer applies. Independence argument has some merit, but I would expect that there can be different methods that would provide the same level of independence.
- vidarh 6y ago
  It's ironically gone from being a pretty progressive tax (only relatively well off people had TV's) to being a very regressive tax ("everyone" has TV's but you pay the same amount no matter how much you earn). The independence argument has largely been destroyed by the government itself - the last few governments have tightened their control of the management of the BBC considerably to a point where budget control matters much less.
- pydry 6y ago
  Independence went with the Hutton enquiry when Parliament set up the BBC trust to replace the BBC board of governors. It gradually shifted from being an independent well staffed news organization that routinely held the government to account to an understaffed RT-like propaganda outfit and huffpost-like reprinter of press releases.
martin_bech 6y ago
Im sure thats true. We had it the same way in Denmark, but have now changed it, to be payed for by taxes.. this had made it very political, and the budget is now decided by whatever party is in control, and the national tv/radio is becoming more and more of a coward because of it..
cortic 6y ago
The idea is to make the poor and working classes pay for it, being regressive everyone pays the same, taxes are progressive, the more you earn the more you pay. Government set the licence fee and legislation around it every 5 or 6 years. The last renewal put government appointed editors into the BBC in exchange for a change in Law from 'watch live BBC channels = you have to pay' to 'watch live non-BBC channels = you have to pay'. So now, even if you are just watching BBC competitors,you have to pay the BBC.. what a great business model.
- andrewaylett 6y ago
  It has always been the case that watching any broadcast TV as it's broadcast requires a license. Now it's also the case that you need a license to use BBC's streaming platform, iPlayer, to watch video on demand. Note that "live" isn't the qualifier -- so long as you're not watching a feed of something that's being broadcast you're OK.

i_am_proteus 6y ago

Not everyone has a TV. Most, perhaps, but not all. Source: I don't have a TV.

Mindwipe 6y ago
Not "everyone" does, but to all intents and purposes it is a reasonable shorthand. More households in the UK pay for the TV license than pay for water.

doctorfoo 6y ago

Not true. I and others I know use a TV only as a screen for videogames and do not watch TV in any form. You explicitly do not need a license just to own a TV.

dsego 6y ago
Interesting, in Croatia it's specifically a fee on owning any type of radio or tv receiver. Nowadays that applies to almost anything, from TVs and car radios to PCs and smartphones.
- bonzini 6y ago
  In Italy it doesn't apply to PCs and smartphones. It does apply to DVB-T dongles though. It used to be a separate tax, now it's collected as part of the electric bill. You have to opt out explicitly instead of "opting in" by paying; this makes it much worse for people to evade the payment, since they would be making a false statement when opting out. So many people were evading the fee, that it has since been reduced by a third or so.
Mauricebranagh 6y ago
A lot of people say that but it is "not readily believable" to use a Civil Service Circumlocution. In that case why are you and those others not using a monitor.
- thesuitonym 6y ago
  I know you're just engaging in discussion, but non-TV monitors are typically more expensive than a similar sized TV.
  - Mauricebranagh 6y ago
    And most TV's aren't very good as pc monitors.
- mlyle 6y ago
  I've got no TV service here in the US, but a couple large TVs. I watch movies on other media occasionally, but for the most part they're used for video games. Buying an 80" monitor isn't really cost efficient.

tomxor 6y ago

I don't have a TV... But that's not the point, it's no longer relevant today as made apparent by their threatening letters that make it sound as though it's impossible to avoid paying them. What is relevant: I don't watch BBC, period. And yet every 2 years or every time I move I am threatened again for the offense of not wanting to watch the BBC. I recognize that in the UK at one point this licensing model made sense due to combination of funding broadcast equipment, and the BBC has given a huge amount of value over the years - but I honestly think the quality of their content has decreased significantly since then, especially the documentaries. The licensing model no longer makes sense in a world where they are just one of multiple payed on demand services usually delivered over the internet for which we are already directly funding. It should be opt-in not opt-out.

denton-scratch 6y ago
You don't have to watch the Beeb to become liable for the licence fee. You become liable if you watch any broadcast television channel.

andyjohnson0 6y ago

> Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. That would make the BBC dependent on the government for its revenue, which definitely isn't desirable. The current system, where the BBC collects its own revenue under the authority of a royal charter, is intended to help insulate it from political interference.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
That just sounds like paperwork. Legislation forcing people to pay a “TV license” and legislation forcing people to pay more tax and then transferring those tax funds to the BBC is effectively the same thing. Except the latter is more efficient.
- caspper69 6y ago
  Despite your feelings on the issue, the difference is quite stark. Relying on allocations in yearly budgets, subject to the political whims of lawmakers, is clearly a different animal altogether.
  - afarrell 6y ago
    This is the reason why court fees and PACER fees exist in the US.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    Why can’t the law be written so that the allocation can’t be changed (as easily)? Even right now, the politicians can choose to enact legislation to modify or remove the tv license fee.
    - SllX 6y ago
      During renegotiation, sure Parliament can opt not to renew. But for the duration of the charter, the BBC has an uninterrupted period of collections beyond the fiscal year of the government, which cannot be raided to fund the new social program of the day.

seanalltogether 6y ago

I've brought this argument forward many times since I moved to the UK, and everyone I've talked to hates the idea of turning the fee into a general tax. It's a weird refusal that I genuinely can't understand as someone not born here. Everyone seems happy enough with the idea of paying tax for public libraries or parks or other social institutions they may never use because it benefits society, but bring up the tv license and it's like arguing with a brick wall.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
They don't trust the government
CodeGlitch 6y ago
Have you seen how much BBC bosses and stars are paid? Far higher than other public servants, so yes I would be against making it compulsory https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/bbc_rich_list_2020_37_5m_bumper_bill_for_bbc_bosses https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/bbc_rich_list_2020_37_5m_b...
- xxpor 6y ago
  £148k? That really seems like not that much for any sort of executive.
  - Dma54rhs 6y ago
    That sounds something a super privileged Silicon Valley codebro would say. It's almost embarrassing.
- Mindwipe 6y ago
  > Have you seen how much BBC bosses and stars are paid? Far higher than other public servants, so yes I would be against making it compulsory It's not far higher than other public servants, and the Taxpayers Alliance are liars and fantasists. It's like how they continually misrepresent the Prime Minster's salary as being in the low £100ks. It isn't. The Prime Minster's complete remuneration package is worth well over a million pounds a year.

4ndr3vv 6y ago

I'm not sure it was meant to be a tax on the rich; It was initially introduced in 1923 to cover radio broadcasts, and widened to become the television license in 1946. Also, the appeal of this funding model makes it independent of Governmental cuts and the politicisation of programming.

Chris2048 6y ago

I don't have a TV, nor do I need one. Would I get a rebate?

vaduz 6y ago
You can apply for exemption [0] - needs to be reconfirmed every 2 years and sometimes more often if TVL/Capita thinks there 'might' have been changes you did not report (e.g. you subscribed to a service that participates in their reporting scheme - NowTV is one of the providers that reports their customers). You pay nothing if you qualify for one of the four exemption bases. Note: if the exemption lapses without a new one in place (or a license purchase), they will actually send goons to 'investigate' after a short period. [0] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/telling-us-you-dont-need-a-tv-licence https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...
- thebrid 6y ago
  The official word from TV Licensing is quite misleading (which admittedly is in their interest). You do not require any exemption nor to correspond with them at all. Their "officers" are private individuals employed by a private company who have no special rights to enter your property. Absent a search warrant, it is almost certainly a mistake to allow them to enter your property.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  I hear the application counts as a kind of contract - plus it requires disclosing information to them.
- andrewaylett 6y ago
  Note that it's not a _legal_ exemption -- there's no requirement in law to register that you _don't_ have a TV, but they'd prefer you did so they can target their harassment more effectively. I've given up telling them -- it's less effort to drop their letters in the bin, and appears no less effective at stopping new ones arriving. That was after being "visited" a few years back and the goon trying the classic "if you've nothing to hide".

carschno 6y ago

No, the idea never was to "tax the rich". The license fees as present in many European countries are not taxes because the broadcasters are independent from the governments, including full control over what they do with _their_ budget. The idea is that the governments cannot (threaten to) cut their budgets to enforce pro-government reporting on public broadcasters.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Silhouette 6y ago

I agree that the licence fee is an anachronism and the BBC should have alternative funding instead, perhaps a ring-fenced budget paid from general taxation, but not because everyone has a TV. Some people don't watch broadcast TV, and the BBC and its agents have been infamous for getting heavy-handed and harassing those who choose not to and who perfectly legitimately and legally do not have a TV licence. This is backed by a controversial law that criminalises the failure to have a licence if you do need one, which under any normal circumstances would only be a minor civil matter. Meanwhile, today the BBC is very much a multimedia institution, but the licence fee remains tied specifically to broadcast television, a historical anomaly that could be fixed. A different funding model that broke that link and removed the need for a separate licence fee could fix all of the problems with licence evasion and heavy-handed enforcement that have been a black mark on the BBC's history, as well as providing a fairer system where the public service is funded from public funds rather than singling out a particular group.

nmeofthestate 6y ago

The license fee is fairer than a tax, because if you don't watch terrestrial television you don't have to fund it. For example, if you just watch Netflix, you don't need to pay for a license fee. If the license fee were replaced with a tax I would end up paying more than the cost of a license fee for something I don't use - not keen.

saberdancer 6y ago
This depends on the country. In some countries you pay the license if you own a car or a computer.
- nmeofthestate 6y ago
  Yep. I was talking about the country in the article.