BBC Licence Fee

maltrab

maltrab

Administrator
Staff member
After doing some searching today on Google, there seems to be many petitions calling for the Licence fee to be scrapped, there seems to be several reasons for this,some Political,some for the poor programming content and endless repeats,some state it is an unfair tax,some even ask why can the bulk of Europe watch it for free yet UK residents have no option but to pay,even if they do not watch or rarely watch it.

Personally I think it is high time it was reviewed and it should either go commercial or subscription,so you pay if you want to watch it,so I wonder what the other forum members think, and can our overseas members tell us how they pay for their TV, do the have to pay a Licence and how is it paid and how much do they pay each year
 
In Germany you have to pay about 18 Euros a month if you have a TV, radio or computer that is able to receive TV or radio programs. This fee is called GEZ-Gebühr and exists for decades. This is compulsory, even if you only have a TV that isn´t plugged in and gathers dust in the cellar. As long as you have such a device, you have to pay. But that´s it. It is - as far as I know - only for a few stations, most of them get their money by showing lots of adverts. But I´m no expert on that matter, I´m not an excessive watcher, in fact I haven´t switched it on for a year! During the last few months I did it again, but not much.
 
There is no radio and television licence fee in The Netherlands, up till 1988 there were such fees, so not only for television but also for radio. The fee was divided in fee A and fee B: A had to be paid by people in possession of a TV apparatus, and fee B by those who possessed a radio. The fee had to be paid just once in a household, family. So whatever the number of sets.

The law that covered these fees, was revised in 1988. A new law, called "De Mediawet" (media law), was installed. This law stipulated what everyone including e.g. the region or province where one lives should pay. And on July 1st 1997 the service that regulated everything was transformed, converted into, an independant institution.

Everything is now government funded (hope that's the right expression). Apart from that, we have the system of broadcasting corporations, no one is obliged to become a member of those corporations, the largest are: NOS (neutral), KRO (roman catholic), NCRCV (protestant), VPRO (also protestant but of another denomination), TROS (neutral). The number of members determinate how much hours each of them is allocated to fill with programmes of their denomination. Each one of these corporations, apart from NOS, publishes its own weekly magazine in which all programmes of all denominations, plus all programmes of e.g. Belgium, Germany, the UK (BBC) are mentioned, so everyone can look for his/her favourite programmes of other countries. My favourite programmes are practically only BBC programmes!

One becomes a member of any of the aforementioned corporations by subscribing to their weekly magazines, so we have a subscription to the VPRO weekly, not because of the fact that VPRO are a christian organization, but because of the reviews of films that they publish, and because we are now so used to that weekly that it is easiest for us. We did try another one in the past, just for a short period, we didnot like it at all!

NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting) which means Dutch Broadcasting Corporation, is called N.P.O. since 2007, this means Nederlandse Publieke Omroep, so Dutch Public Broadcasting (Co.)

Without Google and Wikipedia I could not have written this contribution! So thanks to both.

Marianne Smits-Jansen
Roeremond, The Netherlands
email: ma.smits@hetnet.nl
 
In the US, we basically have a monthly fee that we pay to the company that provides the service, whether its Cable or Satellite.

Currently Cable (which for us is Time-Warner Cable) is about $40 or $50 a month and it seems like it keeps rising. Couple years ago it wasn't this high. Satellite is about $40.

Now with both of these, you will pay extra for pay-per-view events like UFC or WWE events or the like. Also with recent movies that get put on "On-Demand" you pay for those.

With Cable, you can get the new Digital or technology, but I forget if it's an extra price to get a box that supports that technology. Most likely it is.

If it was my choice, I'd go with Satellite. They have more channels, even local ones. Only one problem here is Satellite doesn't get a local news channel that is popular here. I'm not a fan of Cable at the moment with the price rising.
 
I see on the news today our new Government the Condems have suggested they cut the Licence fee for the BBC, they claim this is due to over paid management and high wastage, I would go along with this but what about the rubbish and endless repeats they are putting on
 
The threat of Licence fee cuts has been hanging over the BBC for a year or so, with the prospect of some sort of Conservative government eager to appease Rupert Murdoch.

Arguably, this has paid a part in Last of the Summer Wine's demise. Under the more secure financial circumstances the BBC operated under in recent years, borderline recommission decisions have always ended in a positive outcome. Now, with a new Government, the outcome has been negative for Summer Wine.

Of course, they won't come out and say that, but I'm sure this financial uncertainty has paid a major part.
 
Sorry, but I cannot agree. The BBC have wanted rid of Summer Wine for a while.

As for the borderline decisions coming out with a positive outcome, I don't think that is right either, they have only been interested in lining their own fat pockets while the quality of programmes has declined rapidly in the last 5 years.
 
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