Why the BBC isn’t a huge rip-off
With BBC director general Mark Thompson taking the fight to Sky (Digital Spy), arguing against News Corp’s intended takeover of Sky, debates are again erupting about the nature of the BBC itself. Again, people who happily spend £70+ per month on Sky are bitching about the rip-off licence fee, so let’s, briefly, imagine an EXCITING PRESS RELEASE from NewTVCo.
NewTVCo has a stupid name, but it’s just announced an audacious attack on the UK TV market. It’s going to provide four mainstream TV stations that will be ad-free, and unlike Sky it’s going to spend a huge wodge of cash commissioning local shows, rather than dipping into a diminishing pool of decent (or even half-decent) US shows. It’s going to provide —by default—major sporting events, top-quality drama, children’s programming, reasonably impartial news, sci-fi, comedy, and more. In addition to this, it’ll roll out an inevitable rolling news channel and a couple of stations to glue wee kids to the screen.
But there’s more! In a pincer movement, NewTVCo also has radio ambitions, and is to provide over half-a-dozen ad-free stations. Some will be mainstream, one will concentrate on indie music, another will be more highbrow. Everyone will be catered for (ad-free, remember) and a bunch of local stations will also be set-up to provide local news coverage.
But there’s still more! Online’s important, and so NewTVCo is going to turn NewTVCo.co.uk into a first-rate website. Again, it’s going to be ad-free, and it’ll provide some of the best news coverage around, along with background and communities for popular shows.
Of course, this won’t all come for free, but it’s going to be staggeringly cheap: £145.50 per year, to be precise, or about 40p per day. (By comparison, News Corp’s Times website charges £2 per week to access thetimes.co.uk and thesundaytimes.co.uk.)
Sounds good, right? You’d bite someone’s arm off for that kind of a deal, yeah? Well, then stop bloody well bitching about the BBC, because it’s already doing all of the above.
There are three catagories…….
people who CAN’T pay ….. and complain. (£145 is a LOT of cash for some )
people who WON’T pay…. and complain. ( some have VALID reasons )
people who do pay…and complain. ( Valid reason : they don’t watch BBC ever )
So .. When Single Mothers get taken to court for not being able to pay TVL fee……..
They get fined & have to pay ALL outstanding TVL debt to the court.
If they can’t afford to pay the court…..
They GO TO JAIL..
Telling people to “”stop bloody well bitchen”” shows your lack of sympathy towards people who CAN’T pay.
It costs US more to inprison someone. Yet that’s what we do.
TVL deny anyone goes to prison for not paying.
BULL , They go to prison because the court takes on the debt.
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WE pay for shows (via bbc licence).
Yet , the shows are ONLY available for a short while.
eg.. Horizon… It costs HUNDREDS of pounds to get 1 show from 1980 for eg.
eg2. top gear is sold on…. NEVER available to the people who Bought the show in the first place.
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The BBC should be forced to open the archives to ALL TVL payers.
The BBC should NOT be allowed to promte ANY comercial product. ( eg. Film reviews , Talk shows where “”guests”” are only there to advertise )
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The BBC Belongs TO US. They should NOT dictate to US. NOR send us to prison.
I’m not saying the BBC is perfect. Licence fee idiots are often over-zealous, having a go at people without TVs, let alone those trying to get away with not paying. If I had my way, the BBC licence fee would be scrapped, but the same money would be recouped via taxation. However, given that Brits are increasingly becoming Americans, I suspect that would be even less popular than the current system.
On shows only being available for a limited time, one of the reasons for that is the BBC being smacked whenever it tries to open its archives, with claims it’s being too dominant and anti-competitive. I recall iPlayer being rather more than just ‘the last week of TV’ when it was originally mooted, but other media providers moaned and whined.