Wealthier households should have to pay more for the BBC, Richard Sharp has suggested in his first interview since standing down as chairman of the broadcaster.
Mr Sharp said the licence fee could be replaced by a tax on broadband bills or a household levy based on the value of the property as the current system of a flat fee is “regressive”.
Let’s just abolish the fee. Turn it into a private sector subscription instead.
And a bit of advice – if you;re going to start talking about how the basis of the fee should be changed then that suggestion of mine is going to be made. Stasis can be prefereable to the wrong answer….
Why did he never suggest this while he was chairman, I wonder…?
Nothing to do with the de facto optional nature of the license fee? If it was a tax, wouldn’t that imply it belonged to government? And what if you don’t want to watch the traitorous BBC?
I would willingly sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC.
Every government is just going to freeze it and it’ll fizzle out with inflation. So it will still serve the old people who aren’t set up for the internet and as they gradually die, it’ll shrink.
The disruptive shift with TV is partly about on-demand, but it’s also about globalised TV. The idea of national TV companies makes no sense when it’s on the internet. You might as well serve a global audience. Make a show, put it on for everyone. It’s why Netflix can spend so much more than the BBC.
Personally, I just find nothing I care about watching, except The Chase. Every channel seems to be mountains of shit now.
Why women as a matter of interest?
If the current £159 licence fee is replaced with a means tested levy, the risk for the BBC is that higher rate payers will opt out and revenues will fall.
These old people without internet, do they still exist? I don’t personally know anyone over 75, but everyone I know close to that age is perfectly capable of watching YouTube and Netflix.
The bigger difference is along gender lines. Older men will retire to the study and watch YouTube for hours. Older women will watch broadcast or streaming TV; either on the sofa or in the background.
One reason that I stopped watching live TV was because I started only viewing Talking Pictures or the Horror Channel and it was rotting what is left of my brain.
Words fail me.
Well, polite ones anyway.
I took my sons on a tour of the Television Centre many years ago to see how the magic of television was produced. Meeting some of the employees put me off for life. Mrs Grist still loves Strictly though. Even she is getting a bit fed up with some of the guests; I suspect the first black, legless (not drunk, but lurching around on stumps) transgender will be the last straw…
“These old people without internet, do they still exist? I don’t personally know anyone over 75, but everyone I know close to that age is perfectly capable of watching YouTube and Netflix.”
Yes, my mother for one, and my late father up until when he died 2 years ago. I also know of friends of hers who are a similar age (mid 80s plus) who don’t have any IT beyond a brick mobile phone.
“the licence fee is ‘regressive’ and particularly hurts lower-income families and women”
Don’t elderly women own a disproportionate amount of national wealth? So a means tested licence fee would hit them harder.
No. Fuck off and when he’s done that, he can fuck off some more. I elected not to pay for the BBC, I do not expect to be mugged via my broadband bill to pay for an organisation that hates me, my fellow countrymen and our history and culture. So, fuck off and keep fucking off until there are no more fucks to fuck.
It is licence to receive TV/Radio broadcasts of any origin. It is not a licence to receive BBC emissions, so it already is a levy on other broadcasters and (live) streaming services.
@longrider
I think you should make your position clearer ..
+100quinzilliongooglplexes%
ha ha ha haaa. And how often will the value of the house be reviewed to base the fee on? Once in 1992 and never again?
It’s going to switch over to the bbc and to a lesser extent itv and c4 being directly funded by government to do away with the optics of the poor and elderly (women most affected) being taken to court. You can bet the house on that.
GB news will not benefit from this taxpayer-funded support.
I agree with Jim. Had someone here recently who wanted to watch TV. So I handed him the remote, the web box remote & the wireless keypad & left him to get on with it. Got told later he couldn’t get any channels at all. Channels? You’re not going to find ’em on my TV. There isn’t an aerial connected to it. Don’t even think there is one here. And this is a guy ten years younger than me owned an internet company. Turned up here with an old 2.5G phone & couldn’t understand why it didn’t work.
There are just some people, if something is just mildly difficult to learn or understand, they won’t do it. They expect everything to be handed to them on a plate without needing to make any effort. You could say that’s a facet of modern culture. Might be the only thing lets the BBC survive.
I paid for 3 months of TV licence about 5 years ago. 8 caught up 9n doctor who and Sherlock and then had nothing to watch so I cancelled. More and more people are realising that they don’t need to watch TV as it’s broadcast and there’s nothing worth watching on BBC.
Let the licence payer decide it Dickie. Obvs, the licence payer would have to elect a board of trustees who would then decide on what the scope is and how to fund it. You know, give us some representation for our taxation.
My vote would go to the candidate wanting to abolish breakfast and daytime TV (schools excepted) and sports and soaps and knock 1/3 off.
Also make it easier for anyone who says it’s worth it at twice the price, or that it’s worth it for TMS alone to buy two licences or more.
So, fuck off and keep fucking off until there are no more fucks to fuck.
I understand the sentiment Longrider.
But surely it should be to keep fucking off until there are no more offs to fuck…?
@Starfish: Ya think?
@Chernyy Drakon: Touché.
My parents, now deceased, never had internet. My wife’s parents, now in their eighties, didn’t have it until my sister in law bought her mum a tablet in order to stay in touch during the lockdown. They don’t have broadband, I assume that it uses the phone network. Otherwise I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have internet access.
As for the BBC, the really obvious thing to do would be to make it subscription only but that would sink the gravy boat so they will never do that. Putting a levy onto internet use to fund the BBC would just be theft.
@ TMB
Why did they call them “soap operas”? Because it’s overwhelmingly women who watch daytime TV. Also if men want to watch soccer on the box instead of in the Stands, they can go down the pub. A single man doesn’t need a TV.
The universal TV licence is, in most cases (not in mine: the TV is my wife’s and she pays the licence fee) another concealed subsidy of women by men. Of course it’s regressive: so is the price of a loaf of bread; as men work longer hours and earn more money a flat rate “regressive” tax/charge impacts women more harshly that a “progressive” tax/charge that increases in line with income and is unrelated to usage.
Stoneyground
I bought my mum a tablet ( she has stopped using it now, she only wanted it for the Lottery and they introduced an age restriction on the app ). But it connected in her house via BT WiFi, which comes with my BT broadband and is situated in her local Starbucks.
BoM4
“Make a show, put it on for everyone. It’s why Netflix can spend so much more than the BBC.
Personally, I just find nothing I care about watching, except The Chase. Every channel seems to be mountains of shit now.”
There are a few great world classics, capable of being enjoyed by all humans. Shakespeare,maybe, Mozart, Michelangelo, Tolstoy perhaps. But it seems that art works best when it is tied in to a particular culture. I don’t think people really get French New Wave films unless they are French, or Ealing Comedies unless they are Brits. Film for everyone is film for no-one.
What gets me, is that the BBC runs just about as many commercials as ITV (though thankfully not during the programmes themselves) except that, instead of bringing in revenue, they just advertise the BBC and its offshoots, which rather cripples any emerging competition.
Also, if the Beeb is the envy of the world, why can’t they make enough money flogging their programmes across the world?
“don’t think people really get French New Wave films ”
I don’t know Sam, surely they speak the universal language of ” with any luck Catherine Deneuve or Jeanne Moreau will get their kit off.”
Never conflate the general with the personal, john77. I’ve known just as many blokes as woman will have a TV on whenever they’re in the house. Wake up to go to bed, some of them. And from a sample observed that’s so large I’m confident it’s general. Way they were brought up, I’spose.
Personally, I haven’t watched broadcast TV since the mid ’80s. Didn’t even own a TV until a bought a few for this apartment, to be considerate. I’ve never bought a TV licence in my life. Never known how to. Left home very young & they were beyond my means for years & never developed the habit. I regard video like a book. To be picked up & put down when it suits me. I don’t think I could watch anything right the way through. I haven’t got that attention span. But I must be a rare minority.
I believe “soap opera” comes from the sponsors of domestic drama series in the US. Laundry soap. Different advertising format to the UK. It would be the “So & so detergent washes whiter show”. Not interspersed ads. Like the famous “King Biscuit Hour” on radio, known to music aficionados of a certain era.
@ bis
I wasn’t, merely putting in a caveat as my circumstances are unusual.
I am quite confident that TV-watching is significantly more common among women even though there is a small minority of male couch potatoes with beer bellies. If you ever watch British commercial TV you will realise that most advertisements are aimed at women (IMHO, most programmes are aimed at women so I don’t watch many of them) and this only makes sense if most watchers are women since the average male income is higher.
Rather foolish of you to think that any change in the BBC Telly Tax will allow an opt out. They have an opt out at the moment and far too many are taking it, which is the root cause of the BBC’s problem.
As for purely subscription, this is the fairest mechanism of all, but would probably only generate a couple of hundred million, not the 5 billion of the current BBC Telly Tax, so not a solution that the BBC would endorse.
As suggested by others, I suspect the Beeb will grind on in it’s current form for a while longer because there is no solution to the BBC Telly Tax that wouldn’t make matters worst for the BBC, for Telly Tax payers and/or for the government.
I think you’ll find that most TV adverts are targeted at women because women do the most spending, John.
If TV revenues from the license fee keeps falling & nothing’s done preserve revenue, eventually there will be a feedback effect. May even have started. Less revenue will mean it can’t make the sort of programmes people will watch. Less paying viewers reduces license fee revenue. But that’s also going to effect the other broadcasters in exactly the same way. They lose advertising revenue. And that may bite them quicker because there’s less fat on them.
Problem with the license fee for the BBC is that payers are not just paying for the BBC but the entire spectrum. The BBC actually depends on the commercial channels continuing to provide a good service to make the license attractive enough to buy. It probably couldn’t do it on its own.
We don’t want the BBC to make the sort of programmes people will watch.
We want them to make the sort of programmes that wouldn’t otherwise get made using subscription or commercial models.
The licence fee payers should elect the Board of Trustees and let them decide.
Bongo, that doesn’t make sense. What’s the point of making programmes people don’t want? That’s BBC5
If by that, you mean programmes would attract very small audiences, WTF would you want compulsory payment to fund that? Sounds like an Arts Council project.
@Longrider
Michael Schumacher learned English originally at school, and then some more from team members in western Oxfordshire when he drove for Benetton.
At some point someone annoyed him, and his response concluded “…and if that’s your attitude, then off you jolly well fuck!”