How much is old Auntie Beeb worth to you?

[davidg]

Greg Dyke has suggested that the license fee should be 50 quid. In Switzerland a TV and Radio license will cost you around 400 quid (a lot of the Swiss license fee goes on bidding for Film broadcast rights ahead of French and German broadcasters who transmit into the region for free! - more state TV madness).

The BBC has always argued that it needs its huge 4 billion plus budget to pay for "top talent", such as Gary Linekers whopping 2 million / year salary (work out the hourly rate on that). However are they merely backstopping salaries and pushing up costs for commercial providers? Surely in the days of YouTube there is plenty of talent that could be found and snapped up for a fraction of current costs? Does talent cost so much because the BBC only fishes in the liberal left end of the talent pool? Where would talent go if the BBC wasn't there? Ok Graham Naughton might be able to pick up a gig somewhere but probably not on the 17 million a year auntie subs him.

[StainlessSteelCat]

Happily pay for blu-rays of new series of Doctor Who, and maybe a quid or two per series on download/streaming.  Also happy to fork out for projects like Power of the Daleks being animated (both the download and DVD). But I resent the idea of contributing to the likes of Eastenders and the Voice. 

[Habeas Domus]

You should really include an option for "I currently have a licence and pay the £120 (or whatever it is now)"

otherwise you will have lots of replies which are basically saying "I'd like to pay £50 but in reality I'm happily paying more"

[Reck B]

I'd pay £120 to have it shut down

[dgul]

The BBC licence fee has a Laffer curve, but it is a complex one. 

For years the complexity was pay or evade -- while there were some people who didn't have a tv most people who didn't pay were illegally evading the fee.  Thus the £100 or whatever was set by government as a kind of 'how much pain will they put up with without moaning' -- ie, they could have charged £400 and most people would still have paid (but would have been cross)

But with the younger generations* there is an option -- it would be perfectly reasonable to live in a house and watch TV without a TV licence.  This new Laffer curve is much more aggressive.  I'd imagine that for 20-25 year olds the optimum fee is probably about £50 -- from that cohort that sort of sum would raise the most money... cheaper and you wouldn't get many more paying anyway, more expensive and they'd just not bother watching live TV or any BBC tv output. 

But they're not going to reduce the licence fee -- so over the next few years (as that price-sensitive age group grows wider) we'll see licence fee income reduce until it hits a point in about 10 years time where they just decide to get rid of it (ie, privatise large parts of the BBC).

[* I know many people here will think this way, but it is an unusual mindset for 30-70 year olds]

[whitevanman]

11 minutes ago, Reck B said:

I'd pay £120 to have it shut down

Same here. Maybe we can start a gofundme to pay the luvies to stay quiet.

[b w]

38 minutes ago, Reck B said:

I'd pay £120 to have it shut down

I would happily pay that too. Sickening organisation on so many levels

The thing that gets me is the way the liberal lefty mob bbc are so hypocritical about the bbc tax as it does affect poor people in a disproportionate way but wont hear of it being scrapped to help poor people "eat or heat" which is their usual tagline when it comes to agitating the undoing of benefit cuts etc

My mother is quite poor and routinely goes without heating in the winter but wont hear of not paying the bbc tax, £150 a year buys a fair amount of heating over the winter

 

[Frank Hovis]

41 minutes ago, dgul said:

The BBC licence fee has a Laffer curve, but it is a complex one. 

For years the complexity was pay or evade -- while there were some people who didn't have a tv most people who didn't pay were illegally evading the fee.  Thus the £100 or whatever was set by government as a kind of 'how much pain will they put up with without moaning' -- ie, they could have charged £400 and most people would still have paid (but would have been cross)

But with the younger generations* there is an option -- it would be perfectly reasonable to live in a house and watch TV without a TV licence.  This new Laffer curve is much more aggressive.  I'd imagine that for 20-25 year olds the optimum fee is probably about £50 -- from that cohort that sort of sum would raise the most money... cheaper and you wouldn't get many more paying anyway, more expensive and they'd just not bother watching live TV or any BBC tv output. 

But they're not going to reduce the licence fee -- so over the next few years (as that price-sensitive age group grows wider) we'll see licence fee income reduce until it hits a point in about 10 years time where they just decide to get rid of it (ie, privatise large parts of the BBC).

[* I know many people here will think this way, but it is an unusual mindset for 30-70 year olds]

Yes, I think you are summing up the near future fairly accurately there.

Of the three BBC programmes I liked and would watch on iPlayer only Dr Who is left, Top Gear and QI having been wrecked, and Ch4 could do that perfectly well.  So I'd close down the TV side.

 I'd pay a radio licence for the channels that don't have commercial equivalents, R4, R4ex, & prob R6 though I don't listen to it myself.

[davidg]

1 hour ago, dgul said:

The BBC licence fee has a Laffer curve, but it is a complex one. 

For years the complexity was pay or evade -- while there were some people who didn't have a tv most people who didn't pay were illegally evading the fee.  Thus the £100 or whatever was set by government as a kind of 'how much pain will they put up with without moaning' -- ie, they could have charged £400 and most people would still have paid (but would have been cross)

But with the younger generations* there is an option -- it would be perfectly reasonable to live in a house and watch TV without a TV licence.  This new Laffer curve is much more aggressive.  I'd imagine that for 20-25 year olds the optimum fee is probably about £50 -- from that cohort that sort of sum would raise the most money... cheaper and you wouldn't get many more paying anyway, more expensive and they'd just not bother watching live TV or any BBC tv output. 

But they're not going to reduce the licence fee -- so over the next few years (as that price-sensitive age group grows wider) we'll see licence fee income reduce until it hits a point in about 10 years time where they just decide to get rid of it (ie, privatise large parts of the BBC).

[* I know many people here will think this way, but it is an unusual mindset for 30-70 year olds]

Interesting point. I suppose all taxes are like that. Didn't Colbert say that "the art of taxation is plucking the goose to get the maximum number of feathers with the minimum of cries"

[DEATH]

I would pay £2 a month, seems the most popular vote so far. My father gets a free one so I watch everything for nowt when I visit him once a month. Netflix is 10x better value for money and without having to fund the out of court settlements for child rapists etc.

Have I Got News and Mock the Week annoy me more and more in their obscene anti-brexit stance and calling UKIP fascists pretty much every episode. Millionaire comedians living in a bubble. They are still pushing the end of the world scenario "if" we leave the EU. 

I still watch them though, not many current affair stuff on TV that give you a few laughs.

[MrPin]

Broadcast TV, like paper magazines, are pretty much near their final days.

[spunko2010]

It doesn't matter how much it costs, the concern is that 80% of news in this country is consumed via the BBC, a state-controlled broadcaster infested with leftists. Refusing to fund that should be a given. £0.

[spyguy]

Id say £75.

I dont watch enough. We have netflix and the kids prefer citv.

I like r4, r4x and r2  and bbc6.

Bbc news is total fcking junk. Theres no other word for it.

Dont watch primetime now.

Soapwise i watch odd emmerdsle and corrie.

Bbc4 sort as acts as a background.

Its coming to a point where i cannot justify the license.

[JoeDavola]

32 minutes ago, spunko2010 said:

It doesn't matter how much it costs, the concern is that 80% of news in this country is consumed via the BBC, a state-controlled broadcaster infested with leftists. Refusing to fund that should be a given. £0.

My thoughts too. I stopped paying this year because I didn't use the service much at all (so was no big loss to stop altogether), but mainly as a protest; not wanting give money to a bunch of luvvies to churn out mostly crap prorgrammes and propaganda news.

[MrPin]

There was a time when BBC comedy was really good. Probably around 1960. And the 70s.

I really don't like "comedy" that sounds like a PC HR lecture.

Recently, I went on a course (compulsory) about not throwing bananas at black colleagues. I never wanted to do that before, but now I do!

[spyguy]

14 minutes ago, MrPin said:

There was a time when BBC comedy was really good. Probably around 1960. And the 70s.

I really don't like "comedy" that sounds like a PC HR lecture.

Recently, I went on a course (compulsory) about not throwing bananas at black colleagues. I never wanted to do that before, but now I do!

You should run with that.

Throw cheese at french

cuckoo clocks at swiss

polar bears at eskimos

 

[Toast]

Don't have a TV licence nor a TV: when I moved back the UK, I had a think about whether to buy a TV and a licence (I'll do it properly if I do it at all). However, before I had made up my mind, I started getting the threatening letters, which read like (carefully worded) extortion. Decided at that point not to give the organization a penny.

I did, however, vote for "£50" in the poll above, because if the BBC were stripped down to a less arrogant and entitled outfit, and stopped the protection racket, then this is what I would be willing to pay for the nostalgia (and whatever watchable shows they might have produced in the last 10 years). It would first have to become a very different beast, though.

[stormymonday_2011]

4 hours ago, davidg said:

Greg Dyke has suggested that the license fee should be 50 quid. In Switzerland a TV and Radio license will cost you around 400 quid (a lot of the Swiss license fee goes on bidding for Film broadcast rights ahead of French and German broadcasters who transmit into the region for free! - more state TV madness).

The BBC has always argued that it needs its huge 4 billion plus budget to pay for "top talent", such as Gary Linekers whopping 2 million / year salary (work out the hourly rate on that). However are they merely backstopping salaries and pushing up costs for commercial providers? Surely in the days of YouTube there is plenty of talent that could be found and snapped up for a fraction of current costs? Does talent cost so much because the BBC only fishes in the liberal left end of the talent pool? Where would talent go if the BBC wasn't there? Ok Graham Naughton might be able to pick up a gig somewhere but probably not on the 17 million a year auntie subs him.

Back in the 1960s the BBC was genuinely full of young innovative talent who on occasions challenged the boundaries of what TV could do. Now most of the presenters are clapped out has been celebs, time servers and establishment lick spittles. I have not seen an original programming idea on it for years.  Most of the shows are just retreads of old formats or repeats of classic dramas that have been done as well if not better in the past. Its current affairs and news coverage is both partial and poor which is a guaranteed turn off as far as I am concerned. The current US election would be a god send to a competent documentary maker with a detached, quizical, sceptical eye. In the 1960s the BBC excelled in covering them with more than a degree of insight and humour. Now for reasons that completely escapes me it seems to think it is part of the Clinton campaign team. I really dont understand the point as British people dont vote in US elections and the BBC is not an important enough source of news in America to make any difference.

The corporation is bloated, boring and long past its sell by date. It has lost all relevance and therefore most of the reason for its existence. The fact its back catalogue is infinitely better and more valuable than its current output really says it all.

[The XYY Man]

30 minutes ago, spyguy said:

You should run with that.

Throw cheese at french

cuckoo clocks at swiss

polar bears at eskimos

 

Shandy at Southerners.

 

XYY

 

 

[ThePiltdownMan]

I've never paid it in my life and don't think I will, as much out of principle as lack of interest in it's content. I resent the way it is funded by menace and it's left wing agenda. It would be like forcing a left wing SJW feminist person to buy copies of the Sun or Daily Express every day. From the 90s to about 10 years ago I used to listen to Radio 4 but the preachy moralising got to the point where it was just infuriating. That said they still do some good stuff, I enjoyed Luther, Peaky Blinders and Line of Duty was not bad.

[spyguy]

4 minutes ago, The XYY Man said:

Shandy at Southerners.

 

XYY

 

 

Monkeys at poolies.

Ive sat thru diversity training.

Bit like the warning on coffee being hot. Just an ass covering process - But we told them not to form a KKK branch.

[lulu]

I would be happy to pay but only if the BBC return to doing what they used to be good at.

Things just seemed to be being dumbed down too much. documentaries seeming aimed at children, obscenely bias news and politics coverage, sport is now almost non existent, and what counts for comedy is embarrassing.

There have been good dramas recently (happy valley, war and peace,last tanto in Halifax for example) but not enough of them to sustain much interest.

As I understand it the BBC used to take risks, produce one-off plays and drama giving actors and writers a chance to flourish, (they had the technical staff and studio space available, I believe most of this is put out to contract now?) This seems to be non existent now so I spend more time watching old bbc content on YouTube.

I do genuinely want to know where the budget goes now compared to 30 years ago. Norton and linekars salaries are ridiculous but are nothing compared to the total bbc budget. 

[RentingForever]

19 minutes ago, lulu said:

I do genuinely want to know where the budget goes now compared to 30 years ago. Norton and linekars salaries are ridiculous but are nothing compared to the total bbc budget. 

Pensions, probably.