TV Licenses / Taxes in the UK

[Bob The Skutter]

I remember the day I moved from my parents to my own house something like 12 years ago. The door was open, we were moving my stuff in and an inspector showed up at the door. He said "It's obvious to a blind man you're just moving in but do you have a TV licence?" I said "Yes, I arranged it last week and I'm waiting for it to arrive in the post." and he proceeded to ask if he could use my phone to phone a free phone number and check that it had been set up. I told him no, I don't have a phone yet, so he pulled out a mobile and phoned. Seemed as if I'd astounded him when they confirmed I had set it up and toddled off without as much as a "I'm sorry to have bothered you while you're moving in."

I'm happy enough to pay for the licence fee but I'm finding it increasingly annoying that they've made cuts to BBC Three and Four on the drama front and even comedy on BBC Four, when 1% extra from BBC One would have covered those cuts.

 

[MacLeod]

Well when the BBC had to make costs of ~20% was it. (My idea was for them to reduce the number of episodes of Eastenders by 20% as part of the cost savings)

 

[Starkers]

Sounds like a plan, there'd still be a lot of Eastenders for the fans...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Would be 3 episodes a week instead of 4 or something like that wouldn't it? But BBC One's 1% extra would be close to £100m they've taken £5m from BBC Four and crippled drama, history and comedy, £10m from BBC Three and crippled Drama and factual which were the 2 places it stood out as good.

 

[Mr Silver]

I agree that Joe must be watching a different BBC than the rest of us because the trailers are nothing compared to the entirely tedious adverts on commercial tv.

It drives me fucking nuts sometimes! I rarely watch ITV, but it's collection of demographically aimed adverts, usually infuriate me to hell and back.

Channel 4 isn't so bad, unless I'm watching a movie or a compelling drama. Don't get me started on Sky, (I don't own Sky, but I've watched Sky channels like Sky 1 on many occasions) it's steadily morphing into American cable, averaging adverts every 6 minutes during some TV shows.

 

[MacLeod]

^agreed, they can have my tv licence when they prise it from my cold dead fingers!

I'd hate to lose the BBC, just watching ITV for half an hour should convince anyone of that fact. And the ads the BBC show are purely between programmes, and are just advertising other shows (or advertisin.g how to pay the licence fee) and there's never more than a couple

What is this ITV of which you speak? Is it some sort of TV station?

Can't remember the last thing I watched on ITV1.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^ITV are deciding to rebrand again and lose the 1 from the name.

Downton, I believe, was the last ITV show I watched. I watched a couple of Bond's on ITV 2 though.

 

[MacLeod]

I've watched a few episodes of things like Sherlock Holmes, Poirot and A Touch of Frost on ITV3.

But in terms of modern programming nothing springs to mind.

 

[Mary Ann]

Same here. ITV3 is watchable. ITV1 barely shows anything worth watching (even their local news is rubbish), and ITV2 is a complete waste of space.

And let's not even discuss Channel 5...

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Primeval, Downton, tried watching Eternal Law but gave up one or two episodes in, before those though the last things I remember watching were Moving Wallpaper and Afterlife.

I see Armando Iannucci has made a speech bemoaning how the shows are getting made. Not necessarily blaming the BBC but saying that the people commissioning shows hold too much power over the creative decision, and the BBC should make international shows in its own way then go out and sell them hard and get as much money back from abroad as possible.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Same here. ITV3 is watchable. ITV1 barely shows anything worth watching (even their local news is rubbish), and ITV2 is a complete waste of space.

And let's not even discuss Channel 5...

Channel 5 has some decent imports on their digital channels. Burn Notice, Walking Dead, Archer, right now they're showing Sarah Connor Chronicles. Though I was reading today that for the first time ever the digital channels combined have outspent C4 and 5 on original British content. Channel 5 only spending £90m on content. Between BBC Three and Four they were, until recently, spending more than half that.

 

[MacLeod]

Let's face it unless you are into Soaps, Reality TV there isn't much to wacth on ITV1. If I watch the News it's normally on The Beeb same for sports if it's BBC vs ITV my first port of call is the BBC.

 

[JoeZhang]

It is BBC and netflix for me (plus a couple more quid so I can access netflix from the US and other places).

 

[Relayer1]

What is this ITV of which you speak? Is it some sort of TV station?

No, not really...

 

[Mr Silver]

(plus a couple more quid so I can access netflix from the US and other places).

How does that work exactly? Is it something anybody can do? I ask mainly because the choice of good movies (there are a decent amount, but there's a lot of crap too) is becoming scarce.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

(plus a couple more quid so I can access netflix from the US and other places).

How does that work exactly? Is it something anybody can do? I ask mainly because the choice of good movies (there are a decent amount, but there's a lot of crap too) is becoming scarce.

Basically it's a proxy server that tells Netflix you're in the US, so you are sent to their US page rather than their UK page. Anyone can do it, for a while there there was a free one that worked. Not sure it still does and it's not quite legal but it does work for anyone.

 

[Ro_Laren]

Remember the license fee covers not just

BBC One
BBC Two
BBC Three
BBC Four
BBC Parliament
CBBC
Cbeebies

But also pays for

Radio 1
Radio 2
Radio 3
Radio 4
Radio 5
Radio 5 Live
+ All the local Radio Stations

And the actual cost is about 40p per day

Hmmm.... so your licensing fee also keeps BBC's radio stations afloat? Thanks! I'm living in Russia and can't access any of my favorite US radio stations on-line. I've started to listen to Radio 1 on-line just so that I can hear songs in English! I like music from the UK!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Remember the license fee covers not just

BBC One
BBC Two
BBC Three
BBC Four
BBC Parliament
CBBC
Cbeebies

But also pays for

Radio 1
Radio 2
Radio 3
Radio 4
Radio 5
Radio 5 Live
+ All the local Radio Stations

And the actual cost is about 40p per day

Hmmm.... so your licensing fee also keeps BBC's radio stations afloat? Thanks! I'm living in Russia and can't access any of my favorite US radio stations on-line. I've started to listen to Radio 1 on-line just so that I can hear songs in English! I like music from the UK!

Yep, the Licence Fee covers the radio stations, the web site and various other things. The BBC also make money from BBC Worldwide.

BBC Radio have various music stations, not only the national and local but digital ones too. Check out 6 Music for more alternative music and 1 Xtra for more Urban music.

 

[Starkers]

Primeval, Downton, tried watching Eternal Law but gave up one or two episodes in, before those though the last things I remember watching were Moving Wallpaper and Afterlife.

I see Armando Iannucci has made a speech bemoaning how the shows are getting made. Not necessarily blaming the BBC but saying that the people commissioning shows hold too much power over the creative decision, and the BBC should make international shows in its own way then go out and sell them hard and get as much money back from abroad as possible.

Primeval and before that Marchlands are probably the only things I've watched on ITV in years, aside from the occasional Harry Hill maybe. The sad thing is that at times when you watch the channel you can almost feel the braincells dribbling out of your ears, which is a shame as ITV used to be cool.

 

[Deckerd]

I've never watched it but I don't think Downton is lowest common denominator.