UK Considers Making Netflix Users Pay License Fee to Fund BBC (investing.com) 123
The UK is considering making households who only use streaming services such as Netflix and Disney pay the BBC license fee, as part of plans to modernize the way it funds the public-service broadcaster. Bloomberg: Extending the fee to streaming applications is on a menu of options being discussed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office, the Treasury and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing internal government deliberations. Alternatives under discussion include allowing the British Broadcasting Corp. to use advertising, imposing a specific tax on streaming services, and asking those who listen to BBC radio to pay a fee.
The government is the early stages of examining how to overhaul the funding of Britain's public broadcaster when its current 11-year charter ends on Dec. 31, 2027. Ministers are looking to either retain and alter the current television license fee model or scrap it and instead fund the BBC through alternative models such as taxation or subscription. That's because viewing habits have changed as users gravitate toward on-demand services. [...] The license fee dates back to 1946, when consumers watched programs at the time of broadcast. It currently costs households who watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer $210.6 a year, an amount that usually rises annually with inflation. Even if they don't watch BBC programs, households are required to hold a TV license to view or stream programs live on sites including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. However it's not needed by those who only watch on-demand, non-BBC content.
The government is the early stages of examining how to overhaul the funding of Britain's public broadcaster when its current 11-year charter ends on Dec. 31, 2027. Ministers are looking to either retain and alter the current television license fee model or scrap it and instead fund the BBC through alternative models such as taxation or subscription. That's because viewing habits have changed as users gravitate toward on-demand services. [...] The license fee dates back to 1946, when consumers watched programs at the time of broadcast. It currently costs households who watch live TV or use BBC iPlayer $210.6 a year, an amount that usually rises annually with inflation. Even if they don't watch BBC programs, households are required to hold a TV license to view or stream programs live on sites including YouTube and Amazon Prime Video. However it's not needed by those who only watch on-demand, non-BBC content.
BBC is a coercive organization (Score:4, Insightful)
dont be 'merkin (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:BBC is a coercive organization (Score:5, Insightful)
They claim to be impartial, yet get funded through "fascist" techniques.
What exactly do you imagine "fascism" means?
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They claim to be impartial, yet get funded through "fascist" techniques.
What exactly do you imagine "fascism" means?
I'm gathering from the way he used the word it means "something I don't like".
I've watched a lot of BBC TV and I'd say they are the least nationalistic, least prone to violence and least authoritarian of the major UK broadcasters.
If anything the BBC is pro democracy, liberalism and equality which are traits that fascists are dead against.
The most fascist thing the BBC has done is give undue amounts of air time to the UK's main fascist, Nigel Farage... but even that was done under the auspices of "l
TV license detector vans (Score:3)
I always found these to be amusing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
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Hale and Pace - TV detector is amusing too https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:BBC is a coercive organization (Score:5, Informative)
They can't "get" you if you have a YouTube account. They would need to prove you watch live TV on YouTube, and you are under no obligation to help them do it.
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The BBC is a high quality broadcasting service precisely because it is funded by the taxpayer, not by advertising or sponsorship. As for the rest of your scattershot lunacy I wonder if you moan about ITN's or CNN's coverage of Hamas. After all, they're news outlets. Or why you single out the BBC when there are many TV celebrities across other channels (and not just in the UK) caught doing things they shouldn't.
I'm sure that will go over great (Score:5, Insightful)
What do I need to do to have a corporation that everyone is forced to pay money to whether they want to or not? Seems like a sweet deal.
Re:I'm sure that will go over great (Score:4, Insightful)
What do I need to do to have a corporation that everyone is forced to pay money to whether they want to or not?
Become a Crown corporation that accepts a public mission.
Re: I'm sure that will go over great (Score:5, Insightful)
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Funding cuts are part of the problem, forcing the BBC to become more commercially oriented and less willing to invest in niche programming. Even the stuff that does get made is ruined by it, e.g. their nature documentaries are now 45 minutes of commercial slop and 15 minutes of filler, to account for export sales to channels that run ads.
The Tories finished them off. Newsnight used to do investigations and proper journalism, now it's just chatting to people tangentially related to the stories of the day.
It
It's just a tax (Score:5, Interesting)
The licence fee has always confused people, but it's just a tax.
Re:It's just a tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. It would be better to reduce the number of taxes and increase those left to cover the actual costs of British services. You then cut the costs of monitoring and collecting.
However, if this was done, the BBC Charter would need protecting in law to prevent what the Tories did, which was to renege on the charter and redo it to benefit them. The charter should not be for the government to rewrite at will, it should be a contract that neither side can legally violate or ignore.
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Like so many things in British politics, it was a gentlemen's agreement, a convention. Once the Tories realized that they could just ignore convention and do whatever they wanted to, we suddenly found ourselves in need of a constitution.
I think they got the idea from the US Republicans who are basically operating the same way, e.g. simply refusing to even hold hearings for Democratic SCOTUS nominations.
Re: It's just a tax (Score:2)
And if it was just included in normal taxation schemes (income/sales/etc), it would save the government substantial money in collection and enforcement.
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It's a license but one that works in the opposite way most expect. We're used, in all countries, to the idea that if we broadcast on public frequencies, we need to pay for it. But the TV license (originally) basically switches things around so the receiver pays that license fee.
There's a problem lately that the scope has been expanded beyond that airwaves license to cover any means of getting television shows, starting with cable, and that's the precedent things like requiring Netflix users pay for the lice
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The licence fee has always confused people, but it's just a tax.
Uh, let’s not call it that, shall we?
Last fucking thing we need is to have the likes of Larry Ellison or Bill Gates running around thinking they’ve got Tax Collector authority. That arrogance runs deep enough giving them license to license.
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Instead of taxing Netflix, it would make sense at that point to turn it into a general tax and do away with the license fees. If the funding is to be provided regardless, then it massively simplifies things.
general tax (Score:3)
Thats what they did in NZ, the NZ_On_Air funding comes from general taxation.
Of course the BBC should be getting some revenue from BritBox, AcornTV, and BBC Select channels (Amazon Prime add-ons) - I don't know wheter they are though.
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Yep, and a tax on Netflix would probably push a lot of Netflix subscribers over the edge. Many have already balked at the never-ending subscription increases and having a BBC-tax lumped on top would be the final straw for a lot.
Surely Netflix could file suit that this was an unreasonable anti-Netflix move by the UK government?
Re:It's just a tax (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a tax yes, but the people who pay the tax are the ones who use the service.
If you didn't have a TV, you never paid the tax because you couldn't use the service.
It could be made into a general tax that everyone pays, whether you own a TV or not, which may raise more money since the enforcement is much simpler and you no longer need to enforce it independently, but I'm sure there will be pockets who will complain they now have to pay for stuff they don't want, didn't need and never had.
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It's a tax yes, but the people who pay the tax are the ones who use the service.
That hasn't been true since the internet was created. I use the BBC service. I read BBC news. I watch shows that were developed by the BBC, and yet I've never contributed to the BBC funding because I don't live in the UK.
The idea of a BBC being funded through TV licenses flies in the face of every other service the BBC provides beyond the TV, news, radio, funding for shows released on non broadcast media, etc.
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The licence fee has always confused people, but it's just a tax.
Not quite.
The main feature of the TV license is that it's a source of revenue for the BBC that cannot be directly influenced or interfered with by Westminster.
This means the government of the day cannot threaten to withhold funds to force change the BBC's editorial policy. This is what separates a public broadcaster like the BBC from a state broadcaster like Russia Today.
Now I like the BBC, it performs it's mission to educate, inform and entertain quite well but I'm also open to criticism as it's
Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:1, Flamebait)
I'm not in the UK, so I don't know what's on Netflix in that region - but I suspect it's not on Netflix.
If the BBC isn't on Netflix, what the fuck business does it have demanding fees for users of a service that doesn't have BBC on it? What's next? Fees for users of websites that talk about Dr Who episodes too??
I know the fee is for funding for BBC's programming, and it's collected from people that have TVs/screens of some sort, but to start collecting it from users of 'anything' just because they live in
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not in the UK, so I don't know
Among other things you don't know that the legislation here says that if you want ANY live TV, even a foreign channel via satellite, you must have a TV licence.
It's a bit shit, especially because they needed to call it a licence, suggesting that you're getting something directly in return. It would be right to call it a tax to support provision of specific tv, arts, radio and other media.
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It would be right to call it a tax to support provision of specific tv, arts, radio and other media.
Yes, definitively a 'tax', but I'm sure they'll weasel out and call it a 'levy' instead eventually.
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In practice though you don't have to pay it. Their enforcement relies entirely on them either observing you watching live TV through a window, or on ticking you into giving them access to your equipment so they can gather evidence.
You can either ignore them, or tell them you don't need a TV licence. Radio is free, you don't need to pay for that. I don't watch live TV so I don't bother with one anymore. It's just not worth it since they neutered Newsnight, and their documentaries are crap now. The free bits,
licence (Score:2)
Why do you think licence suggests you get something in return?
A few things in the the UK that require a licence
driving a motor vehicle on public roads
firearm and shotgun certificates
owning a dog(only required in Northern Ireland since 1988 when England, Wales and Scotland abolished it)
selling alcohol
Essentially they all allow you to do something, in the case of a TV licence it allows you to watch or record live TV in the UK.
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No BBC is not on netflix, but if you're in the UK (or using a UK based VPN) you can stream content from the bbc iplayer service for free. The assumption is made that if you're in the uk you have a tv license and thus already paid for the bbc content.
They would be better doing away with this assumption, making iplayer a subscription service and opening it up globally. That way you can choose to view their content or not, and wouldn't be discriminated against for being in a different country.
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They would be better doing away with this assumption, making iplayer a subscription service and opening it up globally.
Please explain why ITVX is not available globally, since it uses an ad-or-subscription model.
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Same reason BBC hasn't done it. It's more lucrative to license shows individually to other providers. Or when they license content produced by others, they don't have to get global distribution rights.
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No BBC is not on netflix,
Search BBC on Netflix and you'll find a shitload of BBC content.
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:3)
I'm not in the UK, so I don't know what's on Netflix in that region - but I suspect it's not on Netflix.
There are BBC programmes on Netflix, both BBC-funded and BBC-made. Mostly back catalogue stuff.
If the BBC isn't on Netflix, what the fuck business does it have demanding fees for users of a service that doesn't have BBC on it?
It's the law. If you watch programmes "as they are transmitted" you have to pay the license fee. That could be BBC, ITV, Sky or whatever. And soon it could be Netflix, because they now show live* sporting events. I suspect this is what the article is actually about. As usual, one person on a committee floating idea X is reported as "Government planning X". Given the quality of the source website this seems likely.
So the BBC wants to double-dip then (Score:3)
There are BBC programmes on Netflix, both BBC-funded and BBC-made. Mostly back catalogue stuff.
So the BBC wants to double-dip: once from getting license fee from Netflix for having its content, and now once more from users of Netflix, which are already paying for Netflix's license fee.
Asshole, the lot of them.
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So the BBC wants to double-dip:
Nope.
once from getting license fee from Netflix for having its content,
Netflix doesn't pay the license fee (i.e. the TV license that the public pay), they pay to license BBC content just as they do Universal, Paramount, HBO, CBS, etc.
and now once more from users of Netflix, which are already paying for Netflix's license fee.
See previous paragraph. This is no different to paying for satellite or cable TV subscriptions on top of the mandatory TV license fee.
When Netflix first started they were literally a video rental company. When they moved to streaming that's still effectively what they were: you choose a title and then you watch it. Now however, they are branc
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While this was definitely true, I get the feeling that fewer and fewer people continue to accept it.
There have been two significant regressions over the last couple of decades:
1. "balance" no longer means ensuring that contrary, but possibly sound, viewpoints get an airing, it means "equal airtime for everyone regardless of how batshit insane their ideas are".
2. Farrage on everything. Back in 2018 he matched Ken Clarke (former Chancellor of the Exchequer) fo
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:2)
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:2)
A lot of people in the USA rely on Auntie to give them the news of what's going on in their own country, given how biased a number of main news sources are in America.
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:2)
If you are the one recording them, yes. However once you've recorded it, there's nothing stopping you (save copyright law) from you loaning out that copy to other interested people.
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To create demand? Once someone is paying for BBC, that person might decide to say "Hey Netflix, since I'm paying for BBC anyway, give it to me" and then the next thing you know, BBC is on Netflix.
As for coercive, yep. But the people seem ok with it, as astonishing that is to us Americans. Have any MPs been running on (and winning with) a "repeal the BBC tax" platform?
BBC is appa
Re: Is the BBC even on Netflix? (Score:2)
Have any MPs been running on (and winning with) a "repeal the BBC tax" platform?
Just the usual swivel-eyed loons in Tory safe seats.
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If the BBC isn't on Netflix,
There is a hell of a lot of BBC content on Netflix from drama and comedy series to documentary series like Our Planet.
Fund it from taxes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Fund it from taxes (Score:3)
Re: Fund it from taxes (Score:3)
Sweden didn't have a problem making the license into a tax (everyone with an income pays the tax instead of one license per household)
Re: Fund it from taxes (Score:3)
Re: Fund it from taxes (Score:2)
How about this... (Score:2)
You create this website that has the capacity of showing you the BBC transmission, but you can only watch it if you pay a mensal fee for it, and for those without internet, you could also have this device that can stream it directly to a television (as long this fee is paid as well).
Then this is the crazy part: you stop transmitting it over the air.
This way, you will assure that only those who pay the fee can watch the television channel, and you can even crazier and come up with some sort of scheme where t
Re: How about this... (Score:2)
What? Like On digital and later ITV Digital? That was a massive success now, wasn't it? (Sarcasm tag)
Yeah? (Score:2)
Basically, a media tax to support production of something that isn't entirely profit,-driven.
If you have a decent government, it's not a bad idea. Unfortunately it is subject to political takeover if not done properly. Here in Canada, the CBC gets accused of bias all the time, and right wing politicians always want to shut it down.
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The BBC's problems run much deeper. Their own executives admit they're wholly corrupt and institutionally antisemitic [archive.li] .
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And aggressively LGBTQ. Not like "we exist and are part of the world and shouldn't be marginalized" but the stuff the right is always claiming, a lot of "if you're not pansexual you're a bad person" crap.
Between that and giving up on Received Pronunciation I'm finding less and less use for the BBC.
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Between that and giving up on Received Pronunciation I'm finding less and less use for the BBC.
Clearly not British. Outside of the Royals and their circle of hangers on nobody uses Received Pronunciation in the UK anymore other than for meme content creating on Tiktok.
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maybe they can try the pbs pledge drive model! (Score:3)
maybe they can try the pbs pledge drive model!
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I think people have enough tote bags...
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The new thing is donating your jalopy. Sorry PBS & BBC, but you are NOT getting my jalopy. New cars are too darned expensive.
Neither is Kars-for-Kids. However, I'll consider Kids-for-Kars: I donate my bratty kid and get a nice used car in exchange. (Yes, I admit, kid took after me.)
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Kars-for-Kids isn't really a charity for the kids anyway. It's a religious organization masquerading as a children's charity in order to draw upon the sympathy of the Helen Lovejoy brigade to line their church's pockets. Charity navigator gives them only two stars, mostly because of their dodgy their financials.
Hey BBC (Score:2)
Why not? (Score:2, Funny)
Why not ask everyone else on Earth who doesn't watch BBC to pay for it too?
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I live in America, but if BBC did than and would provide standard format files (e.g. mp4, mkv), I might say Yes!
Pirate TV provides something that is currently not for sale at any price. Change that, and you change everything. Alas, nobody's thought of truly opening for business yet.
Maybe actually COMPETE? (Score:3, Interesting)
Crazy idea, I know, but how about the BBC run ads and actually compete in the free market?
They won't need fees or taxes.
Re:Maybe actually COMPETE? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ads suck.
Making it a Subscription service better.
The BBC is renowned for its high quality programming. Advertisers would insert their tentacles into the BBC which could degrade the quality of the programming.
Advertising agendas would be promoted due to the power of the purse. Certain programming such as investigative reporting would suffer.
Re:Maybe actually COMPETE? (Score:4, Insightful)
National broadcasters like the BBC tend to be a lot better if they are independently funded, and therefore not required to look at the commercial value of everything they produce. If you take that away, a lot of unprofitable programming will go with it. Programming that is valuable to society and to many individuals, but not commercially viable.
FWIW Japan has a similar system where you need to pay a licence fee if you own a TV, which funds NHK. NHK is mostly excellent. It's a good model.
Re: Maybe actually COMPETE? (Score:3)
The likes of David Attenborough probably wouldn't exist in a commercial model, nor would more experimental programmes like Monty Python's Flying Circus ever get off the ground.
Speaking of Sir David, he was involved in the rollout of colour television in the UK. Heâ(TM)s the reason tennis balls are yellow.
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There are plenty of free channels to compete with.
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Crazy idea, I know, but how about the BBC run ads and actually compete in the free market?
They won't need fees or taxes.
Solving the wrong problem. Government funded media shouldn't need to run ads, they should just exist with appropriate funding. Just pay for it out of taxes like a normal government would. Not every god damn thing needs free market profit motive driven enshitification.
Re: Maybe actually COMPETE? (Score:2)
Ummm.... Have you heard of a company called UK TV? They started out years ago offering a paid TV channel called UK Gold. Most of their channels are branded U& ... these days, eg U&Dave, U&Yesterday, U&Gold, and U ..
Who owns UKTV? After a few years of "musical chairs".... UKTV is now owned by.... The BBC.
So yes, the BBC does do commerical TV. It's just not BBC branded.
Don't tax the new thing to fund the old thing (Score:2)
Never ever do this. It just prolongs the death of the old thing, and costs everyone more.
If they do this, other services will be included (Score:2)
Service like:
Youtube
Nebula
Disney+
So I guess it means doing something other than watching TV.
Will they tax Internet providers too?
If so, maybe its time to start checking out books from the library again.
etc..
Other countries add the TV license fee to your electricity bill.
Maybe it's better to have the BBC encrypt, and just make the users who use subscribe and pay for it as a service.
BBC Funding is really Strange (Score:2)
As an American, I've always viewed the BBC as an interesting anomaly. It is very different than how things happen over here. And I thought it very interesting that it isn't just a straight tax. It's a license fee you can kinda-sorta opt out of, which is a very progressive way to handle a tax... but it doesn't seem a very practical one. As made obvious by their struggle to remain relevant and secure funding. Which is why this move seems very strange and smacks of desperation.
Presumably they could just
Re: BBC Funding is really Strange (Score:2)
But to tie it to subscription fees to private companies completely outside the country makes no sense to me. Is there a British perspective where this makes sense? Or is it as strange to you as it seems to me?
We do have Netflix in the UK, you know. It makes sense when you realise that Netflix are now broadcasting events live, which falls under the TV licensing act.
It is strange though; like many things in the UK TV licensing is based on rules that were devised long ago when they actually made perfect sense. There were much fewer televisions around, there was no such thing as home recording, much less streaming and there were no commercial broadcasters. The sensible thing now would be to make it part of general t
Re: BBC Funding is really Strange (Score:2)
The funding makes sense for the times for when the BBC started, and started making a lot less sense at the turn of the millennium. The licence fee is an outdated way of funding public service media.
I'd advocate for a public service media fee, levied on Internet service bills, streaming media subscription bills, and Internet device purchases. Maybe even impose a fee on Internet companies who make it possible for people to livestream.... after all a livestream fits the definition of a live TV programme, som
Glad to know that we're not the only one..... (Score:2)
Just make it a tax on all citizens (Score:2)
This is overly complicated.
It made sense when it was a fee paid by those who use the service (a TV license fee), but once you start charging the fees to those who use competing services... it would be simpler to just tax everyone in the UK a small amount (you pay income taxes already, so not a big change to add it to the annual tax collection amount) and allocate the revenue to support the BBC. Everyone has to pay for it, everyone gets to use it.
No! (Score:3)
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How about the BBC standing on their own two feet for a change and moving to a subscription model for people who actually want to watch their drivel, and not forcing the entire populate to fund their nonsense.
Because the last thing those of us who watch the BBC want is for it to become another commercial station full of reality dross and brain dead dramas.
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Look, I am fully against this "TV tax" bullshit; however, your comment is NOT viable for the purposes that the BBC was created for. If they were to compete in the common market as a regular player, they would be subject to forces that would alter the goals of the BBC. In order to keep the goals "pure" they need to be directly funded.
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Oh no someone disagrees with the BBC. What you're really saying is you want the funding cut off and for the BBC to turn to a for profit service which will default to providing shock content and tabloid news in the aims to raise revenue and will likely align more with your world view.
Not everything needs to be for profit rubbish.
Change it to a digital services tax (Score:2)
Make it a tax that very hard to avoid. The net result is the same revenues are collected, and it probably costs less per person because there are a lot of freeloaders not paying a TV licence.
Probably easiest way is a household tax, e.g. make local councils collect the tax with their other taxes, but it could also be partly funded with a levy against wireless, cable, satellite broadband.
The nature of who receives funding from the tax also needs to be examined. The BBC is a public service, but there are likel
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Canada's public broadcaster CBC and Australia's public broadcaster ABC should do this too!
CBC's financing [wikipedia.org] is mostly from the government (ie. taxes), and ABC's funding [wikipedia.org] is similar (besides both having commercial/content licensing funding).
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How about you stop watching if you dislike the programming so badly?
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He's being extorted to pay for an institutionally antisemitic [archive.li] and wholly corrupt racket.
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The Jewish Chronicle?
Up next Al Jazeera reports on pro Palestine news.
Criticizing Israel in any way gets you labeled an anti semite.
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Criticizing Israel in any way gets you labeled an anti semite.
The world's foremost experts have studied over 10,000 letters and messages sent to Jewish institutions throughout europe. Literally the only people who rely on this canard are antisemites who want to preemptively poison the well. [jpost.com]
Bashing 14 year old girls with broken glass bottles in the face is not "criticizing Israel". Neither is screaming your love of Hitler outside a synagogue that you've already tried to burn down multiple times. Neither is chanting "gas the Jews" on October 9th while celebrating the la
Re: The DEI BBC is pure woke hatred DEFUND NOW (Score:2)
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Wow, sounds like Eastenders has changed A LOT.
Re: It's like taxing fentanyl (Score:3)
I agree that you are a snob (it's ok, I am too). But would you force people to watch content they aren't interested in?
Re: It's like taxing fentanyl (Score:5, Insightful)
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You never needed a TV licence if you had a computer monitor and used it as such. The criteria was if you had a tuner either in the monitor or something connected to the monitor, like a DVB box.
In reality the inspectors just looked for houses with aerials or into windows to see TVs playing or houses who paid previously but weren't now. That was how they enforced it.