Its not required to "look at a screen". its required to watch broadcast TV and use the BBc's online TV services. You can watch as much as you like on Youtube or Netflix or whatever without paying it.
it was very good value for money when half of all TV output (and the better half) was from the BBC and ad free.
Careful here because there is live TV on Youtube and a valid licence is required to watch that. There are also live shows on Netflix, which may count as "live TV programmes" so requiring a licence.
Watching non-live BBC programmes in the UK legally requires a license fee. The same is not true of Netflix.
Agreed but this is not what I commented on (no goalpost moved...)
https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ33
The example given by TV licensing is Sky News. it has to be part of a "television programme"
For streaming it's easy to manage.
In Turkey and Israel you need a licence for radios as well.
That's a pretty good ratio no? Plenty of services survive with lower ratios than that. Do they really expect every household to pay? Or is the issue they have much bigger spending plans than they make from it.
(what that stat actually means is that the missing 14% are pensioners who are exempt)
You can argue that this conception has to change, and that's fine. But the BBC was established by the UK government, with stated intentions and goals, and it currently isn't and never has been seen as a "pay-to-watch" sort of thing.
This does mean Doctor Who getting split in half, but that's not the worst that's happened to him/her.
They spend a lot of money (billions) on making and delivering content, but that's still not much compared to other large for-profit media companies[2].
The TV License has been the model since World War II[3], and the entire mass media landscape has completely changed since then.
The proposals to replace the TV License with ads or subscriptions are enshittification. The BBC is not a for-profit media company and should not be treated like one. It is a soft-power organization (cynically: propaganda arm) for the British government. There isn't anything inherently wrong with spreading your government's/culture's messages, especially when it's as obvious as the BBC, but it should not be expected to make money. How much is it worth that Britain stays relevant throughout the Anglosphere and beyond? Or that British points of view are available everywhere with a shortwave radio or VPN?
So fund it like it's defense spending. Maybe if the next leader of a foreign country has a fondness for Del Boy or Red Dwarf, negotiations will go a little more smoothly.
As an American, I think I'd prefer having an official propaganda arm like the BBC instead of whatever quiet public-private partnerships (cynically: backroom deals) we have instead. I'd hate it, but it'd be good to have something concrete to direct my criticism at, instead of constantly wondering if NPR is really presenting unbiased facts or the movie about our Navy jet fighters being the best, most freedom-loving planes flown by handsome rascals is just a good time.
1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/bbc-annual-plan-...
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Fox#
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...
I could say that I don't watch Swiss tv but then the tv series Tschugger came out and made a few years of payments worth it. Otherwise it's just watching endless Jass (Swiss card game) tournaments.
But it struck me how few serious, general, global news outlets there are left in the world that aren't tied to some major interest. Fox News, CNN, WSJ... So much stuff is owned by Murdoch or by some other mogul. The Guardian is pretty good IMO but does not even pretend not to have a lefty skew.
I was thinking about the spiral of death that happens to so many media outlets where serious news doesn't pay the bills anymore, so they either have to rent themselves out to some deep pocket, or chase clicks for ads, losing veracity in the process.
BBC is one of the few organisations left that's somewhat immune to that. I won't claim all their stuff is unbiased, but they're just as likely to publish something left- as right-biased. So now I'm rooting for them and hope they make it. Apparently it is the second most trusted news source in the US, right after the Weather Channel. So truly a global phenomenon: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52272-trust-in-media-2025-...
They do everything in their power to distract from the real issue - that the landscape of television has changed beyond recognition since the tax was brought in.
It's completely clear to everybody that the TV licence is an outdated model that makes no sense in today's world of competing commercial streaming services, but they're desperate to control the narrative to avoid losing their income stream. Which is understandable I suppose, from their narrow point of view. But for the country's point of view, we need a politician with balls, to step up and reform the system. But I'm not sure those even exist anymore.
It also isn't clear to me that the TV license is an outdated model in entirety. The notion that a country would levy a fee on more or less any instance of an activity in order to fund a non-commercial institution related to that activity doesn't seem strange to me at all. What is true is that the nature of the activity and the enforceability of the fee have both changed, and that therefore something probably does need to be done.
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/august/mi5...
MI5 (Military Intelligence, Section 5) is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency.
ChocolateGod•1h ago
Put it behind a subscription and give me a choice whether the BBC deserves its revenue, my current opinion falls firmly on no.
felixgallo•1h ago
pjc50•1h ago
I have a lot of love for the BBC and its history, but the license fee is very difficult to justify.
crtasm•36m ago
pan69•27m ago
> watch or record programmes as they're being shown live on any TV channel
> The rules apply to any device on which a programme is viewed, including a TV, desktop or laptop computer, mobile phone, tablet, games console or set-top box.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9k27yy839o
PaulDavisThe1st•24m ago
Now of course, you can disagree about the value proposition, and you can disagree about the choice on how to fund it. But that's the justification, and it's not hard.
nailer•1h ago
dgxyz•1h ago
I don't pay for a license because the programming is crap now though.
mrexcess•1h ago
Can you add some specifics to this claim? I'm unaware of the BBC having reported "Hamas-sourced" substantial misinformation as fact. I'm sure some errors and retractions have been done - especially given that BBC like all Western media continues to be forbidden to operate freely in Gaza.
dgxyz•1h ago
This lead to two of my female Jewish friends getting spat on and having their hair pulled on the tube and called murdering zionists.
This happens a lot with the BBC in the rush to publish. It is not an excusable situation. There are real consequences. The decline is parallel to the rise in social media and moving the news teams out of London and attention dynamics.
You can find a list of problems in the corrections and clarifications here - work through 2023 to 2025: https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarificat...
pjc50•51m ago
Do you think this is specifically and only due to that specific, single story, or do you think it might be a cumulative effect due to all the rest of what's been happening? Not that this excuses or justifies random attacks on other people simply because they happen to be Jewish, that's how the cycle of reprisal happens.
dgxyz•26m ago
You know the stupid shit thing though? My friendship group has an Iranian, a Palestinian, a Saudi, two Jews and a bunch of English people in it, a German and I'm literally descended from a nazi and everyone is quite happy and gets on fine.
Divisive narratives hurt everyone.
constantius•24m ago
dgxyz•20m ago
See my other post in the thread for some further extrapolation of the side effects, but this was quoted over and over again by social media using the BBC's reputation to legitimise it.
mrexcess•1h ago
I'm a US-ian and have no particular dog in this hunt, but could you relate any instances where this led to the British public being significantly misinformed about a major event?
Everything I've seen, including recent statements from the Israeli government, indicate that the Gaza Health Ministry (often referred to by Israel-sympathetic press as part of Hamas, rather than part of the government of Gaza which Hamas currently dominates) death toll statistics from the Gaza war were largely accurate.
Is there a case of BBC reporting "Hamas-sourced" information in a way that was notably harmful to the British public's truthful understanding of the conflict?
IG_Semmelweiss•1h ago
Some private companies make it so hard these days (Adobe & NYT being the kings of subcription dark patterns), I am curious how the process goes with a govt entity like the BBC ?
dgxyz•1h ago
PaulDavisThe1st•28m ago
Currently, by not using a television.
beardyw•26m ago
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...
CommanderData•1h ago
Their behaviour is largely what led to me siding with the Palestinians plight some years ago, the use of words on Israel's side VS Palestinians was enough to lead me down a rabbit hole and I have never seen the BBC the same since.
It is literally state news with amazing bits of other content.