will free to air BBC survive past the next election

[Dave2002]

Pabmusic's area here - or Mr Rumpole's. But a criminal offence will involve the police, I suppose, whereas a civil offence is between two parties, the 'wronged' party having the responsibility to gain redress.

Partial answer I think. The problem with the "wronged party" gaining redress is that I am aware of several cases where this has happened, but the "redress" hasn't actually materialised - the wrongdoer simply ignores the courts, disappears or declares himself/herself or his/her business bankrupt. Being rich or influentual, or indeed even involved with the legal system, does not appear to make much difference regarding one's ability to get satisfaction - or maybe one has to be extremely rich, or know extremely influential friends in order to get anything sensible out of our legal system.

A phrase from Dickens springs to mind, on occasion, too.

[french frank]

but the "redress" hasn't actually materialised

But it doesn't anyway. I don't think the fine (if paid) goes to the BBC. If not paid, the 'criminal' may go to jail, which still doesn't help the BBC.

With so many people feeling that stumping up 'for the BBC' isn't fair because they don't watch BBC programmes, and perhaps are paying a subscription for what they do watch, the licence seems (to me) no longer a valid method of funding PSB.

[Richard Tarleton]

With so many people feeling that stumping up 'for the BBC' isn't fair because they don't watch BBC programmes, and perhaps are paying a subscription for what they do watch, the licence seems (to me) no longer a valid method of funding PSB.

This has probably been asked and answered already, but what exactly is public service broadcasting? Nowadays the BBC makes loads of purely commercial stuff that presumably covers its costs and makes money (through foreign sales, franchising of formats etc...) and which serves no discernible public purpose (Strictly, The Voice, Top Gear...). and I'd happily pay a subscription for a BBC package tailored to what interests me, just as I do for satellite (I'm able not to pay for any sports coverage, film channels other than free ones...). I think the license has had its day.

[Dave2002]

But it doesn't anyway. I don't think the fine (if paid) goes to the BBC. If not paid, the 'criminal' may go to jail, which still doesn't help the BBC.

With so many people feeling that stumping up 'for the BBC' isn't fair because they don't watch BBC programmes, and perhaps are paying a subscription for what they do watch, the licence seems (to me) no longer a valid method of funding PSB.

In "so-called" civil cases the courts do order payments between the parties, so in that sense there is no fine. As I've said, often the payments don't actually happen, and even if courts order the parties back for further hearings, these are often ignored, or if they are not, then the presumed miscreant still ignores any orders to pay, or "defers" payment (indefinitely), or pays a very small part of what was stipulated, with a "promise to pay" later on. Effectively useless, though the lawyers still demand their fees.

You are right that in criminal cases fines or other forms of action will be taken, but in this country precious little form of redress returns to the victim. I think the situation is different in Ireland, following some really high levels of criminal activity which resulted in changes to the laws there.

[french frank]

This has probably been asked and answered already, but what exactly is public service broadcasting?

It's certainly been widely asked - and answered in a number of different ways!

What was made clear by the government at the time of the last licence settlement was that PSB should not be restricted to the 'worthy' (whatever that is), that it was important to recognise that popular entertainment was of immense value to millions and providing it was therefore legitimately to be considered 'a public service'. But when it gets down to the nitty gritty, who's to say whether EastEnders, say, or The Voice, Strictly Come Dancing or hour upon hour of popular music on the radio is public service broadcasting? Or what proportion of revenue should be spent on it?

Most people define it as what they enjoy and value - which can therefore include anything because there will be people somewhere who enjoy and value anything the BBC does. Who's to say that Top Gear doesn't educate someone? Or Wimbledon?

'Entertainment' is a powerful drug.

Dave - I'm not sure whether my last answer was clear: I meant that the fact that non-payment of the licence fee is a criminal offence does not currently ensure that the BBC gets its money. IT's true that decriminalising it would result in wider evasion, as long as people were persuaded they could get away with it and that this wasn't 'theft', that the 'theft' was by the robber BBC.

I cannot see that the licence can continue to be viable.

[Dave2002]

Dave - I'm not sure whether my last answer was clear: I meant that the fact that non-payment of the licence fee is a criminal offence does not currently ensure that the BBC gets its money. IT's true that decriminalising it would result in wider evasion, as long as people were persuaded they could get away with it and that this wasn't 'theft', that the 'theft' was by the robber BBC.

I cannot see that the licence can continue to be viable.

I still don't have a major problem with the licence fee. I don't know enough about the funding, but at least some of the funding is used for infrastructure. This may be inertia on my part, but I can think of worse things to "spend" my money on. I did ask a while back why we could not simply have the BBC funded directly out of taxation, but we seemed to home in on a notion that the BBC would not be independent of government in that case.

[french frank]

I did ask a while back why we could not simply have the BBC funded directly out of taxation, but we seemed to home in on a notion that the BBC would not be independent of government in that case.

We did discuss this in connection with the Parliamentary Inquiry and in the end the FoR3 submission listed the downside of the licence (regressive tax, cost of policing the system, social disadvantages). I think I read the figures that although women make up 3% of the jail population, they are 30% of those jailed for not paying their fines for not having a licence (because they are the ones in many households with the responsibility to pay).

We did moot (stopping slightly short of 'recommending' ) general taxation. In answer to the objection about independence, just look at what happened last time: licence fee frozen, BBC to take over costs of the World Service from the government (and other services). Together with the shift to general taxation - a vastly cheaper, and fairer, system - there could be an independent committee which made the recommendations on how much the BBC should get.

[Ariosto]

The problem for the BBC is that it has lost public trust and the government (who would like to destroy it anyway) gets lots of complaints.

Ask people what they think of the BBC and they complain about the millions squandered on pay off's for the boys at the top, biassed news reporting, rubbish programmes, tens of millions wasted on computer systems that do not work, unnecessary moves to places like Salford, political bias, and the list goes on and on. (And there is Savil too).

I think the BBC will be broken up if the Cons win the next general election and sold off in chunks to the highest bidders, and then there will be zero public broadcasting.

[aeolium]

I did ask a while back why we could not simply have the BBC funded directly out of taxation, but we seemed to home in on a notion that the BBC would not be independent of government in that case.

I can't see why it would be less independent than it is now, which is not fully independent. The government currently sets the licence fee rate, and has recently effectively imposed (or "negotiated") a real-terms 20% licence fee cut in the settlement leading up to 2016. And it's not difficult to think of examples in which pressure has been exerted on the BBC politically - over the Iraq war and with the Hutton inquiry for instance. I think for some time now the BBC has been insufficiently critical of the working of government and government policy (and I mean government irrespective of the party in charge) because of a kind of unspoken pressure. That would not go away if the licence fee were replaced by taxation, but it would force the relationship between government and the BBC to be much more transparent and perhaps the government of the day would be wary of being seen to be attacking the BBC's editorial independence.

On the other hand, I have recently become more doubtful of the value of funding the BBC in its present form through taxation as a public service broadcaster because of the obvious lack of consensus over what constitutes public service broadcasting, and perhaps an increasing unwillingness on the part of the public to recognise it as distinctive from other forms of broadcasting ("why should I pay this tax for the BBC?") The BBC hasn't helped this by failing to be clear itself as to what constitutes PSB. But if there is no consensus, and if people are not willing to fund PSB in the way that they would another public service like the health service or libraries, then perhaps the only alternative for the BBC is to go for subscription packages - with possibly a smaller core provision funded publicly. I think like ff that the licence fee will not survive many more years and pressure will be mounting to review it in 2016 whoever is in government.

[Dave2002]

Perhaps the BBC should voluntarily stop broadcasting for a week or two to see if anyone notices.

[aeolium]

Here is a comment from the Guardian's media editor (who also presents the Media Show on R4):

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/23/review-bbc-licence-fee-evasion

It does seem absolutely ridiculous that some of the licence fee is being used for broadband rollout, as if that were something to do with the BBC (it probably helps some of its rivals in broadcasting, e.g. BT, more).

[Dave2002]

From the Guardian article

Bridgen and his colleagues have the bit between their teeth, claiming among other things that "old ladies" are being "detained by the state" for non-payment.

Someone's not got things right here - those "old ladies", if they truly exist, are clearly not old enough to get licence fee exemption.

[french frank]

Here is a comment from the Guardian's media editor (who also presents the Media Show on R4):

http://www.theguardian.com/media/201...ce-fee-evasion

These were figures for 2012, released by the Ministry of Justice, so I'm not sure that Hewlett is right in saying that such statistics aren't available. They're certainly not available from the BBC, since the offence is non-payment of the court fine (up to £1,000), not non-payment of the licence fee (£145.50). It is therefore 'nothing to do with the BBC'.

But on the BBC's 'independence', as aeolium mentioned, this is the killer:

" ... the BBC was forced to accept that henceforth the licence fee would also fund the Welsh-language broadcaster S4C, the World Service (previously funded by the Foreign Office), the Caversham monitoring service, local TV infrastructure, plus provide several hundred million pounds for broadband rollout. Which meant, in a nutshell, savings elsewhere of £700m–plus a year."

And they were to fund it on a ten-year 'pay-freeze'. The BBC goes cap in hand to the government for its funding now: what's the difference of funding from general taxation?

[aeolium]

These were figures for 2012, released by the Ministry of Justice, so I'm not sure that Hewlett is right in saying that such statistics aren't available. They're certainly not available from the BBC, since the offence is non-payment of the court fine (up to £1,000), not non-payment of the licence fee (£145.50). It is therefore 'nothing to do with the BBC'.

I thought Hewlett was referring to the lack of detailed statistics relating to those who were imprisoned for the non-payment, and I haven't found those anywhere (though they must be available from court records somewhere). I'm not sure that imprisonment for non-payment of the court fine is 'nothing to do with the BBC' as the fine was for not paying the licence fee. Those who are imprisoned for not paying, either because of lack of funds or out of principle, are doing so ultimately because of the licence fee. It's like saying that in the case of those who were imprisoned for not paying the poll tax, it was nothing to do with the poll tax.

[aeolium]

And this news makes it extremely likely that the non-payment of licence fees will be decriminalised at some point in the next year or so.