The post you are reporting:
The UK TV license is currently £145. This is, as you all know, a legal requirement for all owners of TV receiving equipment. For this money we get in exchange a series of media consumer products such as news, drama, radio shows, etc etc. That's the science bit over with, now to the point.
When you look at the way we consume our entertainment media these days I can seriously see no reason why we should have to continue paying a TV license. It seems so irrelevant these days as to be the purest form of rip-off. Let me explain.
Virgin Media and SKY TV offer all kinds of bundles of TV entertainment packages including movie channels, documentaries, music, news, and so on. The packages vary and we can pretty much pick and choose what we want and pay (subscribe) to the entertainment products we wish to consume. We have no such choice with the BBC thanks to the license fee.
Then there's the internet, which provides various access to catch-up TV shows via 4OD and BBC iPlayer and in many ways makes a very good companion to regular TV.
So here's my theory: Given that we have such a wealth of entertainment options these days, via the web, and via a network of commercial providers, is it fair, or right at all, that we should be FORCED BY LAW to fund the BBC? Most of us have computers at work that can access iPlayer, will the TV license eventually be forced upon all PC owners too? I kid you not, many employers were seriously warned that they face the usual £1000 fine if they allowed staff to watch the World Cup on the internet at work unless they purchase a TV license. And there has been discussions about a BBC "PC License" too. What's more, more and more mobile gadgets are capable of displaying TV shows (usually via the web) so will these too trigger a license requirement?
I think the license is utterly irrelevant now and is now deeply up to its knees in "absolute bullshit rip-off" territory. The BBC should go commercial and survive on subscriptions. As a consumer product, I hate being forced to pay for a consumable item that I hardly use whether I like it or not. I enjoy the US cartoon sitcom Family Guy which shows on BBC3 (which is funded by the license fee) but I can also watch it on FOX Network or on DVD, which I pay for myself outside of the license fee. By choice!
I noticed in the news today that the BBC are publishing the names of their top earners and having some financial cut-backs. I think this is all utter folly, as the BBC is pretty much "recession proof" thanks to the ancient laws that force us all to pay for a TV license no matter what.
The UK is a laughing stock in many other countries which are not forced to own a license for TV (documentary maker Michael Moore famously hit the streets in America asking what people thought of a TV license and they all laughed when he revealed that us Brits have to buy one).
Considering the vast range of choices open to us these days, it just seems utterly out of place that one - JUST ONE - organisation can be allowed to force us all into financial submission whether we like it or not for what amounts to nothing more important than bloody TV shows. If the BBC became subscription-only then I dare say many would still follow it. I'm not sure I would personally.
We are all so used to consuming mass media these days in a huge variety of ways, and it's terrific, but thanks to the license fee, the BBC are always lurking in the background like the Big Bad Wolf ready to pounce on anyone who is breaking the licensing laws. Thanks to the license fee, we are all potential criminals for using certain websites at work!
As the media world opens up in bigger and better ways year after year, it should be time to consider abolishing the license rather than tightening it up.