BBC: your tax dollars at work

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

What is mind boggling is your outright refusal to research the issue you are debating or even to fully read the replies given to you.

notice the bit when I said it is not mandatory? Or the bit when I said it was decriminalised? Or the bit when I said I do not endorse the BBC?

I have not had a tv licence for years and not once have they dragged me away to an internment camp for crimes against the state.

You just fill in a form onlline saying you dont watch tv and dont need a licence and that is the end of it.

Also it is not just one channel there are loads of them and dozens of radio stations, granted they are not particularly honest and yes they are government orientated but then all tv channels are owned by someone and geared towards a particular adgenda so whats to worry?

No one makes you watch it.

It is 2017 not 1984 over here.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
The BBC is one channel yet it seems to me if you wish to have a TV in your house and watch any form of live television regardless of whether it's the BBC or not then you need to pay the license or risk breaking the law. How you can possibly attempt to defend such nonsense is mind boggling.

The BBC's broadcast output consists of four TV channels, seven national radio stations, 40 local radio stations, innumerable websites and podcasts, a 24/7 rolling news service, the World Service, and probably quite a few other things I've forgotten.

The licence fee works out at just north of £3.00 per week. If you can't get the value equivalent of £3 a week out of the BBC, you're making a serious effort to avoid it.

As for whether the TV licence is 'nonsense', well this is the UK where you can cross the road anywhere you like and not get booked for 'jaywalking'. We do things differently here, that's all there is to it.

a reply to: audubon

I have no licence yet still get good value for free as I listen to the radio, mainly documentaries and drama's on radio 4 extra.

I also sometimes watch the documentaries on bb4 tv on catchup and that is all good and legal as long as I use catch up but who wants to be told when to watch something anyways in this age of technology.

a reply to: nonspecific

You just fill in a form onlline saying you dont watch tv and dont need a licence and that is the end of it.

Oh so you just lie about and it's all good.... lmao.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

So much wrong with what you wrote.

We use pounds (£) not dollars ($).
Tax money doesn't go to the BBC.
The BBC isn't government.

And that's just the ones I noticed at a quick browse.

Here's a little bit of advice for if/when you make another thread. Reasearch. It goes a long way.

a reply to: audubon

As for whether the TV licence is 'nonsense', well this is the UK where you can cross the road anywhere you like and not get booked for 'jaywalking'. We do things differently here, that's all there is to it.

Yeah you'll just be recorded by a few dozen cameras as you cross. Jaywalking is a law in many nations including several nations in the Commonwealth Realm such as the AU where I live. It is pretty dumb but not entirely illogical, and I don't think cops really care about enforcing it unless you cross at a very dangerous point.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

what is wrong with you?

Really?

I do not have a tv or the ability to watch live tv as it is broadcast therefore I do not need a tv licence.

You have no idea as to what you are arguing about have you?

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

The TV license is due to the fact that the BBC has no advertising at all, as part of it's efforts to remain as neutral as possible, it has remained this way without adverts since it began.

You don't have to have a TV license if you don't want to watch live TV, so it's not really a tax.

It costs about £150/year off the top of my head, so it hardly breaks the bank. If you can't afford that, you probably have bigger problems that won't be fixed by sitting in front of JK all morning.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Yeah you'll just be recorded by a few dozen cameras as you cross.

Ummm... so?

a reply to: nonspecific

So you're saying you would require a TV license if you did want to own a TV and watch it as any normal person would?

originally posted by: audubon
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Yeah you'll just be recorded by a few dozen cameras as you cross.

Ummm... so?

Nothing, if you think it's fine then it's fine...

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: 200Plus

IAre we thinking that it is for people in the UK who cannot speak proper English or that it is part of the world service news for people in a country where pidgin English is spoken by the majority of the population?

No, I'm thinking "who reads in pidgin"?

I am from a ghetto in Detroit. When around people on the street, I speak "street". Likewise, when I am speaking with a banker, college professor, or my parents, I use proper English (American English at least).

I can read a newspaper and tell people around me what it says instantly. Because I know how to read English and I can speak the language used around me.

Who (or at least how many) speak only in pidgin, regardless of setting, and are also able to read the language they are emulating? Pidgin, in and of itself, is a result low educational level. At least in the language spoken. i.e A person can be a civil engineer and still speak pidgin English, simply because he/she is not fluent/required to know English.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I have explained this already.

Also the number of people who watch live tv in the UK is on the decline in a big way with the power of the internet so calling it normal is questionable at best and in a few years will not be normal at all.

More and more people I know are opting out of the tv licence and choose to have online services like netflix or similar.

TV is dying.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
Nothing, if you think it's fine then it's fine...

I have no opinion on the matter, it's just irrelevant so I don't see why you brought it up. It looks like an attempt to distract from the paucity of your original arguments about the BBC. But I'm sure that couldn't possibly be the case.

a reply to: 200Plus

No idea, maybe people who live in a country where they have a language but also a pidgin English maybe but I am guessing here?

I know a few folks from South Africa who speak fluent English but their parents back home in rural areas speak Africaans(spelling) and also a pidgen English of sorts that is enough to get by.

What the BBC does isn't of the left. They tell us it is, but it is the government's official broadcaster. They tell us what the government (Mostly the EU) want us to listen to.

Hell, if they were left, socialist even, they'd never have edited the Orgreave footage to make the miners look like the ones who started that fight, nor done Thatchers other dirty work in helping to break that strike.

They are full of the globalist rubbish the Bilderbergers want ramming down our throat, they aren't left.

a reply to: nonspecific


I could fully understand the BBC using spoken pidgin for video and/or broadcasts in areas dominated by the dialect. It makes sense to get ideas across to a market.


I guess my sticking point is the written articles in pidgin. I have to doubt these areas even have a rudimentary understanding of written English, pidgin or not.

originally posted by: SprocketUK


They are full of the globalist rubbish the Bilderbergers want ramming down our throat, they aren't left.

Just like all the other broadcasting corperations out there then.

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I have explained this already.

Now I've been reeducated by someone from the UK, lets look at the facts shall we:

In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, any household watching or recording live television transmissions as they are being broadcast (terrestrial, satellite, cable, or internet) is required to hold a television licence. Businesses, hospitals, schools and a range of other organisations are also required to hold television licences to watch and record live TV broadcasts.[1] A television licence is also required to receive on-demand programme services provided by the BBC, on the iPlayer catch-up service.

The Government’s White Paper of May 2016 announced that the licence fee will rise with inflation for the first five years of the Charter period, from 1 April 2017.

Reclassification as a tax

In January 2016, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) changed the classification of the Licence Fee from a service charge to a tax. [13] Explaining the change the ONS said: “in line with the definition of a tax, the licence fee is a compulsory payment which is not paid solely for access to BBC services… A licence is required to receive ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, satellite, cable”. A briefing paper from the House of Commons Library described the Licence Fee as a hypothecated tax (i.e. one raised for a particular defined purpose).[14]

Television licensing in the United Kingdom

So not only does the government determine the license fee, it is compulsory and was officially classified as a tax by the government in 2016. When tax payers are funding a service I do not consider that service entirely separate from the government, just like I don't consider RT separate from the Russian government because they get directly funded by tax payers, however I also recognize that RT has some independence. Even the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) I would not consider totally separate from the government even though they don't get funded by the government to my knowledge, although I haven't checked. However they are clearly aligned with certain parties in the government just like CNN in the US is aligned with certain parties and has a certain political ideology. Giving them direct funding from the government, or worse, making a mandatory tax to pay for ABC or CNN would simply not be tolerated.

originally posted by: audubon

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
Nothing, if you think it's fine then it's fine...

I have no opinion on the matter, it's just irrelevant so I don't see why you brought it up. It looks like an attempt to distract from the paucity of your original arguments about the BBC. But I'm sure that couldn't possibly be the case.

Oh it's certainly relevant to the discussion of a socialist nanny state, surely that is obvious.