I’m not renewing my TV licence - any pitfalls?

[Bryn]

.. The British countryside protected by left wing Kinder Scout trespassers,

O.k, I admit I have not been over Kinder Scout for s decade or so (something I might rectify next month), but its being turned into a badly maintained rugby ground by careless trampers is also part of being British, as is the helicopter airlifting of slabs of rock to try and alleviate the tramping damage to that section of the Pennine Way.

[Beef Oven!]

maybe there's some short sightedness here Beefy? Like PG Tipps says, the documentaries etc aere all very good. What about Radio?

It’s not about the quality of the programmes (although I think that most of the stuff that gets transmitted is dross).

My reason is that I don’t watch tv. To watch tv you need a licence. I don’t need a licence, so I shan’t buy one.

[teamsaint]

It’s not about the quality of the programmes (although I think that most of the stuff that gets transmitted is dross).

My reason is that I don’t watch tv. To watch tv you need a licence. I don’t need a licence, so I shan’t buy one.

I have a sky subscription. Although I really don't like paying money to Sky, the half price deal I get ( I've never paid more than half price) means that I get enough football to justify, for me, the £20 a month.
However, in order to do this, I have to pay for a TV license for BBC programmes that I might never watch, which seems somehow wrong.

What I would like to see from the BBC, and might be prepared to pay for, is a subscription model for their archive material, which might not be broadcast again, but might be made available relatively easily, and perhaps profitably.

[gurnemanz]

I am somewhat baffled by the view that an entire medium is to be rejected because most of it is dross. Most of life is dross but I don't feel inclined to top myself. Or that only archive stuff is any good. I love radio but many programmes need the visual element to make their point.

[teamsaint]

I am somewhat baffled by the view that an entire medium is to be rejected because most of it is dross. Most of life is dross but I don't feel inclined to top myself. Or that only archive stuff is any good. I love radio but many programmes need the visual element to make their point.

I think one point about this is that, although there may be a part of something that has worth, ( some BBC programmes, some newspaper articles) that doesn't necessarily invalidate a decision to avoid that medium.
I gave up buying and reading broadsheet newspapers a very long time ago, not because there isn't material of worth, or even that I don't sometimes enjoy the activity, ( I really did enjoy them) but because I felt there were, for me, other better ways to spend my time, or to acquire information, and that the distraction of having the things around the house was too much of an unnecessary temptation.

In a way, it's about opportunity cost, in a media soaked world.

[Lat-Literal]

O.k, I admit I have not been over Kinder Scout for s decade or so (something I might rectify next month), but its being turned into a badly maintained rugby ground by careless trampers is also part of being British, as is the helicopter airlifting of slabs of rock to try and alleviate the tramping damage to that section of the Pennine Way.

I am sorry that there are problems there, Bryn. I wasn't aware of them but my point, vague, was not really about that specific place but rather the event in history and what then transpired. There is an element of "he would say that wouldn't he" about what I am going to say next. I believe the extensive network of footpaths and public access to those footpaths are wonderful things that have helped ensure many areas have not become overly developed. While it would be nearly two decades before the establishing of National Parks (I was wrong in an earlier post until I edited it - the National Parks legislation was introduced by Labour in 1949), discussions in Government on the idea of having National Parks commenced in 1936, less than four years after the Kinder Scout trespass and there is little doubt that the trespass prompted those discussions and later changes in the law. The BBC has also done its bit - Eric Robson's walks with Wainwright were key moments and led to similar programmes in commercial TV that would not have occurred otherwise.

[aeolium]

I am somewhat baffled by the view that an entire medium is to be rejected because most of it is dross. Most of life is dross but I don't feel inclined to top myself. Or that only archive stuff is any good. I love radio but many programmes need the visual element to make their point.

I agree. I think it's like art, or the internet. I would go further and say that it is only by allowing for a large diversity of material, including a whole mass of dross, that there is the possibility of very good and even outstanding output.

As to the funding, the comparison with the road tax licence doesn't hold. Roads and the rest of the transport infrastructure would not disappear if there were a significant reduction in people paying road tax. It is not a tax hypothecated for the roads and there are plenty of other sources of revenue to fund roads, such as fuel duty or indeed general taxation. But the BBC is almost wholly dependent on the TV licence revenue for its continued existence (apart from other minor sources of income such as worldwide sales of programmes, concert tickets etc). What's more, public service broadcasting is the only kind of medium committed by its service licence to provide impartial news coverage. However well one feels it performs that function, imagine a world in which there was purely partisan news coverage.

[Lat-Literal]

A picture to melt even the hardest of hearts, Lat ...

Unfortunately, I'm not sure the opinion(s) we British have of ourselves is necessarily shared by others and I think we should always be somewhat conscious of that.

I certainly think Britain can claim to have had a quite remarkable influence on world affairs in recent centuries, mostly for the good imho, though inevitably this is being steadily reduced as other, much larger nations slowly emerge from their previous wildernesses. There is (at least has been until now) an impressive political stability within the country, whatever the government, though I have to admit, my own hunch is that the British simply aren't all that interested in politics, religion, gay rights, etc.. A bit like classical music really. People like us who bang on about such things are in a very small minority which, in all honesty, is probably a good thing for the overall health of the nation !

However things have changed radically since last June. Suddenly we are not the country or the people we (or at least I) once thought we were. The future looks very uncertain. Well all futures are, of course, but this one feels very different. I admit to being unhappy at the direction in which the country now appears to be travelling and I'm therefore not quite as proud of being British as I once was. I do hope folk like me are just being needlessly pessimistic as some of our leading politicians constantly maintain.

Whilst I strongly support a public health service and public broadcasting both the NHS and the BBC need reform, imv. Both are wonderful institutions, of which we are rightly proud, but that does not mean they cannot and shouldn't be touched just because we are so proud of them. There is always room for improvement and there is an unnecessary waste of resources in both ... oh dear, it's really all about a thing called management again, I'm afraid.

For example, I'm still not at all clear why we must have a man and a woman reading the news on BBCNews24 especially as they seemingly spend half the time indulging in whispered, giggly small-talk with each other. I assume it's done because the commercial channels waste their resources doing it as well. However, this is taxpayers' money we are talking about here and such needless waste should not be tolerated. When such extravagance goes on in front of our eyes one has to wonder what else goes on behind the scenes?

That is what I think about when I pay for my TV Licence. When one considers the excellent documentaries, nature programmes, intelligent discussion often provided by the BBC it may remain, on balance, good value for money but, by cutting out all the silly, costly stuff, it could and should be so much better still ?.

You make some good points.

However, I haven't historically ever felt associated with notions of British - or indeed English. European or International - pride. Indeed, there was a very short period where I was almost persuaded by a Billy Bragg style project to develop a positive sense of Englishness as an antidote to the more unfortunate aspects of the legacy of Empire, flag waving at the Last Night of the Proms, the BNP and much else. Then I realised that I liked overt nationalism even less than I liked overt patriotism which is not at all. Earlier, I bought into Europeanism but never as an alternative political device or in the adulatory ways of many today. In fact, I am astonished by the naivety in uncritical views of alternative models.

What I realize now is that the list of things that are on my current list of "What makes us British?" were often appreciated by me at "low volume" in their own right like individual pictures that had a Britishness about them rather than being interconnected as they are now in my mind as a political vision of Britain. That vision which I have put forward offers some sort of rescue against an unprecedented sense of attack from within this country and outside it including on the Continent based on negative perceptions of Britishness chosen selectively. Most of those are undeserved. From the days of the National Front, less than patriotic British people like me accepted that there were negative elements of Britain in order to be more than reasonable. Few if any in history have done national self-flagellation to the quite ludicrous extent of post 1960s British liberals. And like many "average" people interviewed on the streets yesterday in Wales and the North, I have had enough of it. The instinctive reaction has been to place what I do like in a stronger British context.

I hope that what my list shows is that Britain can be and always has been right, left and centre, pragmatic, more substantial than Blairite attempts at "Cool Britain" although that wasn't one of Blair's worst moments and at its best inclined to be inclusive of all peoples. Also, for well over one hundred years, it has unusually in international terms preferred to have an accent on defence rather than destruction. While that could also apply to some other countries in Europe - for example France, Norway and by necessity West Germany for as long as that existed, I don't think it is typical. There is respect for Britain at the United Nations and in other international bodies. And many around the world from experts in those organisations to humble folk living in remote areas of poverty and war and, before the 1990s. those in Eastern Europe have not often needed to think long and hard before identifying Britain with the BBC World Service. In perhaps too unconscious a way, the BBC even now retains a similar symbolic cohesive role across Britain. In many respects, it is more about Britain than the Royal Family although as I have pointed out the latter can be seen as positive and even progressive if people are inclined not to be on the offensive.

[Beef Oven!]

I am somewhat baffled by the view that an entire medium is to be rejected because most of it is dross. Most of life is dross but I don't feel inclined to top myself. Or that only archive stuff is any good. I love radio but many programmes need the visual element to make their point.

I’m not rejecting the medium because most of it is dross. I’m not even rejecting the medium. I don’t watch the medium. If you watch the medium you need a licence. I don’t need a licence. I can’t help it if I don’t watch telly (whether it’s good telly or bad telly is neither here nor there)

[french frank]

I’m not rejecting the medium because most of it is dross. I’m not even rejecting the medium. I don’t watch the medium. If you watch the medium you need a licence. I don’t need a licence. I can’t help it if I don’t watch telly (whether it’s good telly or bad telly is neither here nor there)

BeefO, on this I see your point .

Watching television does not seem like an interesting way to spend any time - a case, if you like, of Where Ignorance is Bliss, but there you are. The BBC has something like £4bn per year in income. It really isn't a life or death matter if a relatively small percentage of the population decides, perfectly legitimately, to opt out. It isn't even as if we're still using the BBC-provided messageboards

[Serial_Apologist]

I consider the marvellous invention the internet, for all its undoubted faults, to be the only place one can get a balanced view on just about everything and then the individual can make up his or her own mind ?.

I didn't realise you believed in evidence-based truth.

[vinteuil]

.

... well, I use radio 3.

For administrative convenience there is no longer a 'radio licence' ; radio receives its funding from the television licence.

If you don't pay for a television licence you are not paying for BBC radio.

If you want BBC radio to continue it needs to be funded.

[Beef Oven!]

.

... well, I use radio 3.

For administrative convenience there is no longer a 'radio licence' ; radio receives its funding from the television licence.

If you don't pay for a television licence you are not paying for BBC radio.

If you want BBC radio to continue it needs to be funded.

As ff says, the BBC gets £4 billion per annum. They won’t miss my £145.

[vinteuil]

As ff says, the BBC gets £4 billion per annum. They won’t miss my £145.

... a curious moral argument.

[Beef Oven!]

... a curious moral argument.

It’s not a moral argument. What have morals got to do with this?

You say for BBC radio to continue, it must be funded (implying some kind of risk) and I’m pointing out that it is well-funded and will continue to be funded. What is your concern?