Originally Posted by Bunny
I seem to be missing your point. Why are changes in technology relevant to how the BBC is funded?
The rationale used was inductive. The radio licence needed ot be reformed after radios became portable. At the very least this proves that changes in technology can cause changes to the licensing regime.
Now TV's are very portable, much of the BBC's content is delivered on-line changes to reflect this have already been floated.
Well it is certainly true that you used to need a licence for radio: and certainly that was revoked when radios became portable. But I am not sure it was because they became portable. Was it not rather the spread of television. If you had a television you got a combined licence: so people were no longer buying the radio licence in large numbers. I do not know what the costs of producing and administering radio licences was but I suspect that was at least part of the reason for the change.
I can see that there is a problem: apparently you need not have a licence if you only watch television programmes after they have been broadcast, and this is easily done on computer. If it is true that people are likely to get rid of their tv's in favour of this or some other method of accessing what they want to watch then, indeed, the funding will have to be done some other way.
I do not know to what extent this is happening so it may be that this is a real problem
The bulk of the arguments against a licence fee do not rest on this, however. The ones I have seen tend to found on unfair competition and unfair mandatory charges on people who say they "never" use, watch or listen to BBC output. Some also say that government control of the media is a bad thing in itself (though I have only heard Americans use that argument, I confess)
As was mentioned upthread there are some who argue in favour of a much reduced BBC, but still funded by licence. I think that is a disastrous idea. If it is really true that the licence is doomed because people will not have tv's in the future then I hope it will be paid for out of general or hypothecated taxation: it is a question of who is to be master. I prefer that there is a source of news etc which is not wholly dependent on the corporate sector for its survival. The BBC is far from perfect but I think it does a good job and I have some confidence in its independence and impartiality.
I know at least two people who have given up their TV and licence in favour of a computer and lovefilm subscription. Only one of them regularly uses iPlayer the other of course is gritting her teeth against the possibility that she might have to pay a license for her PC.
Seems to me restricting on-line content to licence payers is the better option.
It's a matter of enforcement. A TV licence fee works if there is a set in your house. If however you watch it over the internet, on your mobile phone or even on small portable receivers, then it's far more difficult to enforce.
As I said earlier, the same thing happened when small portable transistor radios arrived. Prior to those, a radio was much bigger and required a licence. With the advent of transistor radios, the BBC tried to enforce a radio licence fee for a time but eventually gave up. My point is that it seems to me that history is repeating itself.
I don't remembering it being that way, but I accept my memory could be at fault. I recall there being a step wise shift in the way the licence fee was administered in an attempt to resist any real change. I don't believe however, the change in the way it was administered would have occurred if radios had continued to be large and bulky things plugged into the mains.
Can TV ever be as portable as radio though? I can ride the bus, train, walk, drive a car, all while listening to radio. For me personally. watching TV would only be feasible on the train, as only that would be a steady enough journey to avoid eyestrain and headaches.
My iPod is pretty portable. I can record/down load TV programs and watch them later on my little iPod, particularly on air flights and it seems to work for me perfectly well. Irrespective of what one individual may or may not find practical, the technology for highly mobile TV is here.
I totally agree, but they don't seem to be too good at that either. I don't know if anyone here noticed but the BBC watchdog show was having a go at sony for defective hardware (PS3) and it turned out that their reporter was a Microsoft employee, MS makes the XBOX360 (infamous for high failure rates), which competes with the PS3. The piece was mocked by people in the gaming industry.
So I doubt the BBC can actually inform or educate anyone.
Although the Attenborough stuff is still pretty nice.
For all it's faults the BBC is the best way of getting any sort of intelligent programming. I have a Sky dish but I find that I rarely watch any output from channels other than the terrestial stations and their digital "little brothers" (BBC 4, ITV3, etc) and even those I do occasionally watch are running repeats of old BBC programmes!
Does anybody watch Sky 1, 2 or 3? As far as I can see the only thing worth watching on those channels is The Simpsons.
Remember that the licence fee also funds BBC Radio. Would any commercial body wish to bankroll a station with the remit of Radio4?
The BBC has to be worth keeping just for the fact that there are no bloody adverts!
While I accept the point made by "newatheist" about Watchdog and the PS3 (I'm very happy with my PS3 and use it to watch BBC iPlayer programmes almost every day), the same prog exposed Adrian Pengelly only weeks ago.
Of course such a large organisation is going to make mistakes, programmes I don't like, etc.
I'm broadly in agreement with the comments of "panama" and "farmersboy" above. And Floppit's support for the BBC news website.
The technology for highly mobile TV has been around for a long time. There were portable TVs, not much bigger than an iPod, around when I was in primary school. I may not be the oldest person here, but the 80s weren't all that recent. They never caught on for one simple reason - no-one actually wants to watch TV on a screen that small. They're a bit more popular now since the TV is generally an additional function on some other device rather than a separate gadget, but that doesn't change the fact that more people just don't like it. Unlike phones, music players and so on, TVs have been steadily getting bigger, not smaller.
Until we get little projectors built into our sunglasses so we don't have to squint at a tiny little screen (not long, hopefully), I doubt mobile TVs will be much more than a fairly small niche market.
That said, I can't see any real reason for keeping the license fee. How many people are there that actually don't have a TV at all, or don't watch BBC content online? Very few, and probably mostly older people. A license made sense when a significant number of people didn't have TVs. Now that pretty much everyone does, why not just pay for it with regular taxes?
Full funding of the BBC by the Treasury can only be considered alongside a change to the BBC's charter, to stop the corporation from needlessly competing with the commercial channels in the mass-market entertainment genres that are all ready well served: "reality", soaps, lifestyle and game shows.
Without that change then I demand my right as a consumer not to subscribe to a service that doesn't deliver what I want. I've been without a TV licence, and hence broadcast TV of any sort, for 7 years now and there is very little I feel I miss out on. Lovefilm and youtube satisfy me.
The government already subsidises education and the arts. I have no problem with them also directly funding education and arts public service broadcasting, but why should my taxes pay for mind-rotting tripe designed only to steal viewers from ITV?
I don't think you can compare the two. HD TVs are selling well, and will continue to do so, precisely because they are large and provide an excellent picture. It's going to be a long time before most households don't have equipment which requires a licence fee.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks