400,000 Households Avoid Paying For A Tv Licence By Watching Bbc Programmes On Iplayer

[AThirdWay]

Then call a spade a spade. People are forced to pay for sh*t they don't want, because violent thugs say so.

If you want to defend that abuse relationship, be my guest. I will have no part in glorifying it though.

I am calling a spade a spade! This is how civilization has always worked. It doesn't need defending, in the same way as human nature doesn't need defending. It is what it is.

If you can point out a single example of a sizable civilization that has existed, or indeed is in existence now, that was/is not based on this relationship, I will concede that you are correct.

By the way, your not forced to pay for a TV license, in the same way as you don't need road tax if you don't have a car.... In simplified terms.

[Parkwell]

Not at all. It's fairly obvious that I'm saying these programs are popular with the license payer, the customer. As I've posted before, if you don't want to receive live broadcasts, you don't need a license. If you do, then a license is required by law.

You are free to campaign against this perceived tax, but judging by the results of various efforts up until now, I don't think you'll have much success.

I don't pay the license and I don't watch any TV broadcasts, and rarely watch catch up.

However, you are talking about the license fee as if it were a subscription service. It is not. I might like to occasionally put Channel 4 on but unless I pay the BBC their full fee I am not allowed to by law. I find this very strange, unfair for myself and Channel 4 who are having their business model interfered with.

If there is a case for having a forcibly funded TV station then there needs to be agreement as to what remit their programmes should cover.

[EUBanana]

I am calling a spade a spade! This is how civilization has always worked. It doesn't need defending.

A bit of a non-argument. There is a sliding scale between, say, 19th century Whiggery and Nazi Germany. It's perfectly reasonable to have no telly tax. The BBC is actually rather unique after all when you look beyond this island.

Edited June 19, 2013 by EUBanana

[Guest eight]

However, you are talking about the license fee as if it were a subscription service. It is not. I might like to occasionally put Channel 4 on but unless I pay the BBC their full fee I am not allowed to by law. I find this very strange, unfair for myself and Channel 4 who are having their business model interfered with.

Isn't there some weird system whereby Channel 4 actually get a cut of the license fee?

[EUBanana]

Isn't there some weird system whereby Channel 4 actually get a cut of the license fee?

Roughly: The BBC had some experimental pre-war broadcasts but launched its permanent service in 1946. This was and is government owned and supported by the licence fee.

In 1955, a second, advertising funded television network came into being called ITV. This was supposedly not owned by the government but had a highly complex ownership structure. Britain was divided into a large number of regions, and the local television station was franchised to a different private owner in each place. (In larger cities, different companies had the right to broadcast on different days of the week and later different times of day). Much programming was national, but a government body was set up to decide which programming was allowed to be broadcast on a national basis. Private companies’ licenses were for seven years only, after which the government held a review and could and sometimes did take their licenses away if they did not satisfy a government defined “quality” threshold. In essence, the private companies controlled the sale of advertising but did not control their own programming.

This arrangement of two channels led to a peculiar piece of British English, in which people will talk about “switching to the other side” when they mean change the channel. TV was perceived as akin to an LP record, with the BBC on one side and ITV on another.

In 1964, the BBC gained a second channel, which was funded by the licence fee just like the first.

In 1982, Channel 4 (and the Welsh version S4C) were created. This channel was and is owned by the government, but is funded by advertising. The channel had an ambit not to cater to the largest audiences but to cater to audiences that were not adequately served (as defined by the government) by existing services. In order to not upset the existing ITV companies, the ITV companies got to sell the advertising for Channel 4, and if Channel 4′s advertising revenues exceeded a certain point as defined by (you guessed it) the government, the ITV companies and not Channel 4 kept the money.

Thus Britain managed to find two largely different models by which advertising funded television networks could be created that did not compete with the BBC and which were controlled by the government.

Rupert Murdoch launched Sky in 1989 (and almost sent himself bankrupt doing it), but it only really became successful in about 1994-5 when it got going with television rights to the English Premier League soccer. This was the first genuine competition that the BBC had ever faced. This, ultimately, is why the establishment in Britain hate Rupert Murdoch so much. He had the audacity to compete with the BBC and to succeed. They will never forgive him this.

As a brief summary of British television since. A fifth analogue terrestrial channel (Channel 5) launched in 1995, after the relevant government bureaucracy expressed great reluctance to issue the licence (refusing to do so the first time it was theoretically put out to tender). This was the first genuinely national and privately owned terrestrial television network in the UK. The various mid 1990s ITV companies were gradually allowed more control over their own businesses and to merge with each other (and the finite life of franchises eventually went away too), a process that finished with the merger of Carlton and Granada in 2004. So as of 2004, Britain had two, privately owned, national television networks, but (for various reasons) neither of them had any money. In a normal market, you would have large, well funded commercial terrestrial television networks that could compete with other companies, but the companies in Britain were so emaciated (deliberately) by the history of regulation that the only real competitor to the BBC was Sky.

A digital terrestrial platform (OnDigital, subsequently ITV digital) was launched in 1998. This featured various channels from ITV, Sky, and other commercial providers, but it went bust in 2002, due to a combination of restrictive regulation – Sky had initially been a co-owner of the consortium, but was forced out from it on supposed competition grounds after the consortium won the licence but before it started broadcasting, and was subsequently required to provide certain programming for it without being able to profit from it in a serious way – and (to be fair) terrible management. This was subsequently replaced by Freeview, which is run and controlled by the BBC, who were refused the licence to run digital terrestrial in 1998, but were allowed to do so in 2003 due to the failure of the previous private option, which was largely caused by BBC friendly regulators.

So non-BBC television is either owned by Rupert Murdoch, owned by the government, or doesn’t have any capital. such as ITV, Channel 5, and various other organisations who broadcast on Freeview.

[Ulfar]

A bit of a non-argument. There is a sliding scale between, say, 19th century Whiggery and Nazi Germany. It's perfectly reasonable to have no telly tax. The BBC is actually rather unique after all when you look beyond this island.

Degrees of niceness doesn't get past the fact all societies so far enforce there will on others with the threat of physical punishment, whether it be actual violence or incarceration.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Ulfar

[Traktion]

I am calling a spade a spade! This is how civilization has always worked. It doesn't need defending, in the same way as human nature doesn't need defending. It is what it is.

If you can point out a single example of a sizable civilization that has existed, or indeed is in existence now, that was/is not based on this relationship, I will concede that you are correct.

By the way, your not forced to pay for a TV license, in the same way as you don't need road tax if you don't have a car.... In simplified terms.

Slavery existing up until relatively recently too. People claimed that society could not function without slaves. They were wrong.

Before democracy came about, there had tended to be monarchies. Would you have dismissed democracy then, because it didn't exist yet?

You can continue to justify putting up with a violent, abuse relationship all you like, but that doesn't make violence universally preferable. Threatening people until they obey doesn't seem like the peak of human civilisation to me.

[Traktion]

Degrees of niceness doesn't get past the fact all societies so far enforce there will on others with the threat of physical punishment, whether it be actual violence or incarceration.

There have been glimmers of alternatives (ancient Ireland, Iceland etc), but 'so far' is pretty much right.

You will always have thugs who try to take what isn't theirs. Bringing up children well (without mental/physical abuse/propaganda etc) may help to reduce that, but it is a reality that we have to contend with.

However, that doesn't mean that institutional violence should be glorified or even tolerated. If we can move towards a society where peaceful negotiation is the norm, rather than the exception, then we are heading in the right direction.

[AThirdWay]

Slavery existing up until relatively recently too. People claimed that society could not function without slaves. They were wrong.

Before democracy came about, there had tended to be monarchies. Would you have dismissed democracy then, because it didn't exist yet?

You can continue to justify putting up with a violent, abuse relationship all you like, but that doesn't make violence universally preferable. Threatening people until they obey doesn't seem like the peak of human civilisation to me.

So, you can't give us a single example then? That takes me back to my reply to your post "It is amusing that you think that without some people threatening others, civilisation will collapse. In fact, it's funny that you think that forcing people to do stuff is civilised in the first place".

Up until now, and for the forseeable future, enforcing acceptable behaviour by threats is the very bedrock of civilisation. It is naive of you to think otherwise. It doesn't need justification, it is simply a fact. We can strive to achieve a society where there is no need to enforce it's tenets, and the examples you give could indicate we're getting there, but we're not there yet. Unfortunately, I doubt you or I will see it.....

[AThirdWay]

I don't pay the license and I don't watch any TV broadcasts, and rarely watch catch up.

However, you are talking about the license fee as if it were a subscription service. It is not. I might like to occasionally put Channel 4 on but unless I pay the BBC their full fee I am not allowed to by law. I find this very strange, unfair for myself and Channel 4 who are having their business model interfered with.

If there is a case for having a forcibly funded TV station then there needs to be agreement as to what remit their programmes should cover.

We seem to be going round in circles..... You agree it's the law, I would agree that the progress of technology means that as a business model it is out of date. There's bound to be some middle ground there.

However I cannot agree that any remit, other than a degree of impartiality, should be agreed upon. By whom? You? Me? Government? The media business? A watchdog? That is a dangerous path, and one that supports the way that the BBC is funded and run, as far as I'm concerned.

[Parkwell]

They could impartially charge £500 per year and show nothing but re-runs of The Flying Doctors. It would be law, no problem then.

[Traktion]

So, you can't give us a single example then? That takes me back to my reply to your post "It is amusing that you think that without some people threatening others, civilisation will collapse. In fact, it's funny that you think that forcing people to do stuff is civilised in the first place".

Up until now, and for the forseeable future, enforcing acceptable behaviour by threats is the very bedrock of civilisation. It is naive of you to think otherwise. It doesn't need justification, it is simply a fact. We can strive to achieve a society where there is no need to enforce it's tenets, and the examples you give could indicate we're getting there, but we're not there yet. Unfortunately, I doubt you or I will see it.....

It's amusing that people consider violence as a pre-requisite for peaceful cooperation - what most would consider the civilised behaviour, that civilisation is derived from. Indeed, people fear the collapse of civilisation, because they fear even more violence will occur. I'm not sure it is a popular notion that civilisation is synonymous with aggression.

To suggest that because something hasn't happened in the past, means that it won't happen in the future, is naive. 100 years ago, there had never been computers, internet, space travel etc.

If I was to argue in 1900 that you needed to show me previous internets, computers and space travel, not only would you not even understand the concepts being discussed, but would also say it was utterly implausible. Yet, 100 or so years later, we have powerful computers in our pockets, all part of the Internet and space travel becoming accessible to rich folk.

I'm happy to argue relative merits of different systems, but saying that something hasn't happened before, doesn't mean something can't happen in the future.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Traktion

[Traktion]

TBH, this debate about TV Licences seems to boil down to this: Some people want to influence what others watch, because they think it will do the latter some good.

I can't see any other rational arguments for making subscription voluntary, especially if nothing else was changed (impartiality by law, no adverts etc). I don't think that is the best way to improve the situation, but it is core to the argument for the TV Licence.

[AThirdWay]

It's amusing that people consider violence as a pre-requisite for peaceful cooperation - what most would consider the civilised behaviour, that civilisation is derived from. Indeed, people fear the collapse of civilisation, because they fear even more violence will occur. I'm not sure it is a popular notion that civilisation is synonymous with aggression.

To suggest that because something hasn't happened in the past, means that it won't happen in the future, is naive. 100 years ago, there had never been computers, internet, space travel etc.

If I was to argue in 1900 that you needed to show me previous internets, computers and space travel, not only would you not even understand the concepts being discussed, but would also say it was utterly implausible. Yet, 100 or so years later, we have powerful computers in our pockets, all part of the Internet and space travel becoming accessible to rich folk.

I'm happy to argue relative merits of different systems, but saying that something hasn't happened before, doesn't mean something can't happen in the future.

I don't consider violence a prerequisite for civilisation. There is no need to consider it. Up until now, it is a prerequisite. You have no argument against that point. At no time have I posted that a civilisation not supported by the threat of violence will not exist. In my last reply I agreed that we may be moving towards that. However, you have no evidence to suggest it is inevitable, I can provide much to show it is unlikely, certainly in our time.

Advances in technology do not compare to advances in society I'm afraid. It could be argued that advances in technology drive advances in society, but technology is a simple thing. It either exists, or it doesn't. It either works, or it doesn't.

Human society and interaction is far more complex.

[AThirdWay]

They could impartially charge £500 per year and show nothing but re-runs of The Flying Doctors. It would be law, no problem then.

Of course there would be a problem. Mass civil disobedience. That's why they don't do it. That's why scheduling is tailored to a majority audience.

That's why the majority comply and pay the licence fee.

Those who object are in the minority.

Majority rule don'cha know?

[Traktion]

I don't consider violence a prerequisite for civilisation. There is no need to consider it. Up until now, it is a prerequisite. You have no argument against that point. At no time have I posted that a civilisation not supported by the threat of violence will not exist. In my last reply I agreed that we may be moving towards that. However, you have no evidence to suggest it is inevitable, I can provide much to show it is unlikely, certainly in our time.

Advances in technology do not compare to advances in society I'm afraid. It could be argued that advances in technology drive advances in society, but technology is a simple thing. It either exists, or it doesn't. It either works, or it doesn't.

Human society and interaction is far more complex.

Your evidence only shows that it hasn't happened in the past. That isn't proof that it won't happen in the future.

I did not suggest civilisation unsupported by the threat of violence was inevitable either. I asserted that removing institutional violence did not imply the collapse of civilisation; instead I suggested it would be more civilised if people didn't consider violence a way to get what they wanted.

Human society has advanced. It has (largely) moved on from dictators/monarchies, towards democracy for example. Slavery has (largely) become socially unacceptable, when it was once common. It has become socially unacceptable to hit children in school (relatively recently), as well as in the home (recently). These are all advances in society - I'm not sure why you are so quick to dismiss such advances, in comparison to technological advances?

[Traktion]

Of course there would be a problem. Mass civil disobedience. That's why they don't do it. That's why scheduling is tailored to a majority audience.

That's why the majority comply and pay the licence fee.

Those who object are in the minority.

Majority rule don'cha know?

Mob rule, more like!

Would you not consider it preferable to leave individuals to choose freely what telly they watch, rather than using violence to attempt to influence what telly they watch?

[AThirdWay]

Would you not consider it preferable to leave individuals to choose freely what telly they watch, rather than using violence to attempt to influence what telly they watch?

You may be surprised to read that I agree with this part, to a certain extent!

The problem that needs addressing, before we can contemplate changing the method of funding for the BBC, is the bias that exists in most forms of privately owned media. Yes the BBC has an agenda, the treatment of the SNP MP on QT was evidence enough of this, but that agenda is less intrusive in the BBC than is is in most channels in the US, for example. I'd rather have the beeb's agenda than Murdochs.....

[AThirdWay]

Your evidence only shows that it hasn't happened in the past. That isn't proof that it won't happen in the future.

I did not suggest civilisation unsupported by the threat of violence was inevitable either. I asserted that removing institutional violence did not imply the collapse of civilisation; instead I suggested it would be more civilised if people didn't consider violence a way to get what they wanted.

Human society has advanced. It has (largely) moved on from dictators/monarchies, towards democracy for example. Slavery has (largely) become socially unacceptable, when it was once common. It has become socially unacceptable to hit children in school (relatively recently), as well as in the home (recently). These are all advances in society - I'm not sure why you are so quick to dismiss such advances, in comparison to technological advances?

Agreed, I can't prove something will not happen in the future. That would be impossible, chaos theory and all that....

If we accept that rule of law is institutional violence, then there are numerous examples from the past to suggest that civilisation will collapse when the rule of law is removed (Pax Romana springs to mind). I would agree that it would be more civilised if people didn't consider violence a way to get what they wanted, but history shows us that's not how human nature works.

Up until now civilisation is depended upon threats of violence. There is nothing to suggest this will not be the case for a very long time to come.

By the way, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong!

[Parkwell]

The problem that needs addressing, before we can contemplate changing the method of funding for the BBC, is the bias that exists in most forms of privately owned media. Yes the BBC has an agenda, the treatment of the SNP MP on QT was evidence enough of this, but that agenda is less intrusive in the BBC than is is in most channels in the US, for example. I'd rather have the beeb's agenda than Murdochs.....

I would rather let people decide for themselves, teach them to be open minded critical thinkers. The vast majority of media is private and has the potential to be harmful but it becomes a matter of free speech and freedom of the press. The BBC has a small market share in comparison to all media so it's effect shouldn't be over estimated. I'd say it's done enough already and should go private itself.

[AThirdWay]

I would rather let people decide for themselves, teach them to be open minded critical thinkers.

Well that's it then, we're stuck with the TV licence

[Dorkins]

I would rather let people decide for themselves, teach them to be open minded critical thinkers.

People are free to buy any newspaper they want, has that taught them to be open minded critical thinkers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

[Traktion]

Agreed, I can't prove something will not happen in the future. That would be impossible, chaos theory and all that....

If we accept that rule of law is institutional violence, then there are numerous examples from the past to suggest that civilisation will collapse when the rule of law is removed (Pax Romana springs to mind). I would agree that it would be more civilised if people didn't consider violence a way to get what they wanted, but history shows us that's not how human nature works.

Up until now civilisation is depended upon threats of violence. There is nothing to suggest this will not be the case for a very long time to come.

By the way, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong!

Care has to be taken here not to mix in laws which attempt to compensate people for losses against them (essentially, much of the spirit of the non-aggression principle), with centralised taxation and spending.

I don't believe that you even need taxation to fund* courts (arbitrators) or policing (security), but if we accept that minarchist position, it is all about resisting aggression from others (theft, murder, rape, fraud etc). I agree that we need a mechanism to discourage people using aggression to take what they want, but I don't believe taxation is the only way to fund it and that violence is the only way to implement it.

Contrast this with 'democratic' legislation that just compels you to do something at the request of the state. Whether this is paying tax for services or being ordered to do jury service, this isn't about compensating individuals against their losses, it is about demanding they do that (at best) the majority dictates. This is just aggression being used by some, in order to take from others.

If we start with the low hanging fruit first, removing things like the TV Licence is a good place to start. It is violence for the sake of violence and we can reject it without on those grounds with little consequence. We could then concentrate on the debate about how to make a broadcast company fair, unbiased, representative etc.

[*As I said above, I don't think you need state arbitration, security etc either, but that is a bigger debate.]

[EUBanana]

People are free to buy any newspaper they want, has that taught them to be open minded critical thinkers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

I wonder how many BBC2 documentaries the average Sun reader watches.

[Parkwell]

Well that's it then, we're stuck with the TV licence

Indeed

People are free to buy any newspaper they want, has that taught them to be open minded critical thinkers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_Kingdom_by_circulation

That didn't come out right. I meant it would be time and money better spent in education to encourage critical thinking. Rather than using an enforced TV channel that they probably won't watch anyway.