Noel Edmonds won't pay TV licence due to 'threatening' ads

On Sep 15, 10:46*am, "Light of Aria"
wrote:

The BBC is not "advert" free. There are adverts all over the place.


Show me the last time BBC aired a full commercial? They advertise
their own products (to help subsidise the licence fee?), they air some
programmes where there is inherent sponsorship (e.g. Nationwide
Mercury Music Prize) though the show is sponsored itself, they benefit
from the ability to purchase cheaper TV rights where sponsorship has
already contributed to the total pot (e.g. football). But they do not
run "adverts" in the way you and I both know I meant.

I wouldn't value the BBC at 12 pence per month let alone £12 per month.

The BBC is not an organisation I want to receive, fund, watch, or deal with,
thank you.- Hide quoted text -


No-one's forcing you to. But you're in the distinct minority.

Matt

In article b48bb7f8-75aa-4da1-8392-
, Larkim wrote:
It is just me, or do people that complain about the licence fee (a
perfectly justifiable, hypothecated tax on those that choose to use a
service, and which fairly taxes the majority of the situations,
leaving a very small minority over-charged to the tune of nearly £12
per month) sound like those who complain about speed cameras.

No. It's just you. At least it certainly isn't me. The TV licence has
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with speed cameras, about which I
have said nothing.

I've pointed out that a legally enforceable licence fee that only pays
for one of our myriad TV services, but which we are obliged to pay if
we want to watch any of them, is an anachronism. The argument in
support of it may have made sense when there was only one TV service
available, but circumstances are different today, and we should be
looking for something more appropriate. I don't claim to know what the
perfect answer is, but it's not helpful to refuse even to recognise
that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The fact that it is only possible to escape the legal obligation to pay
for the BBC by not watching any broadcast TV at all effectively gives
the BBC control of everybody's access to other people's broadcasts. If
you think that's "perfectly justifiable" in a modern democracy where TV
is more than just entertainment but a major source of information about
the world, then let's see your perfect justification of it.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 02:38:37 -0700, larkim wrote:
It is just me, or do people that complain about the licence fee (a
perfectly justifiable, hypothecated tax on those that choose to use a
service, and which fairly taxes the majority of the situations, leaving
a very small minority over-charged to the tune of nearly £12 per month)
sound like those who complain about speed cameras.
Most people who complain the licence fee in my experience are people who
are aggrieved that they are having to pay GBP 139,50 per annum when they
are "already" paying B$kyB over GBP 400 per annum.

They see it as an unfair uncessary additional tax burden on their $ky
viewing activities.

On Sep 15, 12:25*pm, Roderick Stewart
wrote:
In article b48bb7f8-75aa-4da1-8392-

, Larkim wrote:
It is just me, or do people that complain about the licence fee (a
perfectly justifiable, hypothecated tax on those that choose to use a
service, and which fairly taxes the majority of the situations,
leaving a very small minority over-charged to the tune of nearly £12
per month) sound like those who complain about speed cameras.

No. It's just you. At least it certainly isn't me. The TV licence has
absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with speed cameras, about which I
have said nothing.

I've pointed out that a legally enforceable licence fee that only pays
for one of our myriad TV services, but which we are obliged to pay if
we want to watch any of them, is an anachronism. The argument in
support of it may have made sense when there was only one TV service
available, but circumstances are different today, and we should be
looking for something more appropriate. I don't claim to know what the
perfect answer is, but it's not helpful to refuse even to recognise
that there is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The fact that it is only possible to escape the legal obligation to pay
for the BBC by not watching any broadcast TV at all effectively gives
the BBC control of everybody's access to other people's broadcasts. If
you think that's "perfectly justifiable" in a modern democracy where TV
is more than just entertainment but a major source of information about
the world, then let's see your perfect justification of it.

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software fromhttp://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

Interesting, I've never understood "perfectly justifiable" as meaning
something that I can justify perfectly before. But I take your point,
it can't be perfectly justified as it may not be the panacea for
funding public service broadcasting.

However, I do think that for practical purposes the arguments against
a licence fee (tax) fail. The BBCs output is watched at some point by
most individuals. It has public service broadcasting obligations that
simply wouldn't be met by bodies which were not funded by bloc central
funding streams. What those PSB obligations are will of course change
over time, and we will all have our opinions about, as not doubt we
all do about the priorities of many (public) bodies, e.g. NHS, police
forces, local councils etc etc. Central government has to set some
priorities, and in the nature of the democracy that we live in we put
certain individuals / parties in charge and give them the
responsibility for making the decisions.

The multi-channel age that we live in doesn't diminish the argument
for a licence fee either. The reason there are so many channels (at
the moment - watch out for a crash in spending on advertising) is a
combination of the relatively low cost to broadcast, the complete lack
of original material on most of the channels, the increased capacity
to broadcast / receive multi-channels and the funding from commercial
advertisers (for which we all pay through purchasing advertised
products).

There is no tax system which I can justify perfectly. All have their
flaws; income related taxes often under-estimate the amount of use of
the provided services that low income earners get the benefit of.
Flat taxes like the licence fee force some individuals to pay for
something that they don't want or won't use.

For me (and others will disagree) the licence fee is fair (effectively
a charge per household, nothing more), reasonably priced (costs about
the same as two tanks of diesel for my family car) and creates a
quality product (there are flaws, but show me something that cannot be
criticised?)

And I never said TV licences had anything to do with speed cameras,
its just that to my mind the state of mind that argues against both is
similar. If there are people that are passionately positive about one
and passionately opposed to the other then I stand corrected.

Matt

In article dbae03c2-c94a-42fc-8db9-
, Larkim wrote:
However, I do think that for practical purposes the arguments against
a licence fee (tax) fail. The BBCs output is watched at some point by
most individuals.

That's the only argument in favour of the licence that makes any sense to
me. An extension of it would be to say that the nature of the public
service the BBC offers is such that the whole of society benefits either
directly or indirectly whether or not they actually watch the programmes.
There are however two important flaws-

1. It assumes that the BBC still *does* provide a public service, though
the reality is that this now only applies to a dwindling proportion of
the output of one broadcaster amongst a steadily increasing number of
them. Most of the BBC's television output is indistinguishable from that
of the main commercial channels, which makes it difficult to argue that
we derive any extra benefit from them.

2. An argument that *everybody* benefits is effectively an argument that
*everybody* should pay, but the licence only requires the ones with
television sets to pay.

The result is a payment system that doesn't properly acknowledge the BBC
as either a real public service that the public should pay for, which is
what it is supposed to be, or just another TV channel like all the
others, which is what it increasingly looks like. It's a messy situation
that is neither one thing nor the other, and which only exists for the
weakest of reasons - it's been that way for such a long time that nobody
wants to meddle with it, even though the TV licence was invented in a
historical past that was very different from today.

It has public service broadcasting obligations that
simply wouldn't be met by bodies which were not funded by bloc central
funding streams.

If only it would meet those obligations properly, and show itself to be
meeting them. What the BBC does well it still does extremely well, but it
should either leave the commercial material to the commercial channels
and provide a public service using public money collected from
*everybody* (without the ridiculous paper exercise of issuing licences),
or produce material of the same type as the other channels and pay for it
in the same way. Bravo for the Proms and BBC4, but is there anything more
absurd than producing a soap opera without the need to sell soap?

Rod.
--
Virtual Access V6.3 free usenet/email software from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtual-access/

You need a licence. You've needed a TV licence since 1968.

Inevitably this thread has drifted into a discussion on weather the
licence fee is justified or not, but nowhere my post that you have replied
to, do I express a preference one way or the other. The OP and
my contribution was about the enforcement tactics.

You've needed a TV licence since 1946,

1968 was the year separate B&W (£5) and inc colour (£10)
were introduced you could still get a steam radio only one for
£1 5s 0d.

--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:46:21 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:
but is there anything more absurd than producing a soap opera without
the need to sell soap?
The problem is that the BBC has fallen into the trap of the ratings game.

The BBC produces dross for the masses because it believes that is the only
way of attracting large audiences, Granalton having proved the
effectiveness of this technique on ITV-1.

Without those large audiences, certain political groups would claim that
because the BBC has only small audiences that it is no longer relevant to
society. Recall that Madame T wanted BBC Radio 3 to become a subscription
service because its audience was so small.

Furthermore, the production of soap operas without the need to sell soap
is further justified by the income from reselling those soap operas to the
commercial part owned BBC networks supported by advertising viz UKTV,
and from DVD sales and from sales to overseas television stations,
Eastenders being a well established show on many US public stations in the
larger markets.

I do not support this approach, but that's the way it is ... (sadly).

Graham wrote:
You need a licence. You've needed a TV licence since 1968.

Inevitably this thread has drifted into a discussion on weather the
licence fee is justified or not, but nowhere my post that you have replied
to, do I express a preference one way or the other. The OP and
my contribution was about the enforcement tactics.

My son has no TV. (better things to do - like the arts centre 100yds
from his flat). The TV licencing people send him all sorts of
threatening letters.

Their tactics are definitely OTT.

Andy

"Andy Champ" wrote in message
...
Graham wrote:
You need a licence. You've needed a TV licence since 1968.

Inevitably this thread has drifted into a discussion on weather the
licence fee is justified or not, but nowhere my post that you have
replied
to, do I express a preference one way or the other. The OP and
my contribution was about the enforcement tactics.

My son has no TV. (better things to do - like the arts centre 100yds from
his flat). The TV licencing people send him all sorts of threatening
letters.

Their tactics are definitely OTT.

Andy

I know of many people who for cultural reasons have no
interest in viewing television broadcasts and only use
their sets for viewing DVD/tape.
They still have to supply their name and address when
they purchase the set so the secret police can harass them.
Some of them even obtain a licence even though their is
no requirement so to do.


--
Graham.

%Profound_observation%

Andy Champ wrote:
Graham wrote:
You need a licence. You've needed a TV licence since 1968.

Inevitably this thread has drifted into a discussion on weather the
licence fee is justified or not, but nowhere my post that you have
replied
to, do I express a preference one way or the other. The OP and
my contribution was about the enforcement tactics.

My son has no TV. (better things to do - like the arts centre 100yds
from his flat). The TV licencing people send him all sorts of
threatening letters.

Their tactics are definitely OTT.

Andy

When my brother died, he had a vaid TVL but, of course, when it expired
(soon afterwards), TVLA were advised why the licence was not being renewed.

This started a barrage of mail from TVLA which was repeatedly sent back,
clearly marked 'Addressee dececeased, premises unoccupied' and many,
many variants. This seemed to cause the barrage to increase - "NOTICE OF
IMPENDING LEGAL ACTION" - is a popular tactic! For personal reasons, I
have not yet disposed of my brother's property and TVLA continue to
bombard it with all sorts of threatening mail. I long since gave up
returning them as they clearly took no notice and are obviously
interested only in wasting MY TVL fee on unnecessary postage costs.

Terry