Abolish the TV licence

I stopped watching TV at home in December 1999 (thereby neatly missing the Millennium Damp Squib). I was renting a TV at the time and that’s when the contract was up for renewal.

I was hardly watching any TV anyway by that time (apart from science and nature programmes, the odd documentary and the very occasional film – I’d reached the stage where any film shown on TV that I was interested in I already owned): I’d just got my first PC and was wasting my time very happily on that.

But the main reason that I stopped watching TV at home was because I objected to being forced to pay the BBC for watching non-BBC programmes.

The BBC makes programmes that are the envy of the world – who else could have made the David Attenborough “Life” series, just as a for-instance?

I’ve absolutely no problem with paying the BBC for watching such BBC-made programmes … but why should I pay them for not using their services?

I don’t have to pay Tesco when I shop at Sainsbury: I don’t have to pay London Underground when I take a bus. It’s only the BBC that makes you pay for not using it.

Try this scenario: you paint a picture, and get your local shops to sponsor you to display it in your front window, along with small adverts for the sponsors, so that passers-by can see it for free.

And then I come along and say, “You can’t look at this picture unless you pay me first. I’ve done nothing to create this picture; I’ve done nothing towards making it available for you to see. But unless you pay me you’re not allowed to look at it. And if you look at it without paying me I'll send the boys round to your house and you’ll be taken to court.”

In my book, that’s “demanding money with menaces”; that’s plain thuggery and bully-boy tactics. But that’s what the BBC is doing with the licence fee.

Granted, in the old days, there was only BBC broadcasting, and so the licence for all TVs was justified: but given how many non-BBC channels there are now, the licence is even more anachronistic.
(There used to be a radio licence, demanded for the above reason; it was scrapped, also for the above reason!)

If the BBC want to charge their viewers, which I have no problem with, here’s a thought on how they could do it – fairly!

Scramble their transmissions; you’d have to buy a decoder to unscramble the signal.

As we’re all going digital, now would be a good time to bring in the change: we’re all mixed up over HD and HDR and Digital Switchover anyway, another change now wouldn’t add very much more to the confusion.

That would mean that every household watching TV in the country would have to buy a decoder. But that would probably profit the manufacturers more than the BBC – and even if the BBC could profit by that, it wouldn’t be by much, since each household would only need to buy one decoder.

So …

Include a couple of electronic card slots in the decoder: people would get pre-payment cards, with the base cost of £x for one hour’s viewing. They could top up their cards as and when needed to watch as much BBC as they wanted.

This is why each decoder would need at least two slots, and each household at least two cards: if the credit on one card ran out halfway through a programme there would be a second card to carry on.

This would net the BBC a lot more money, and on a continuing basis, rather than a one-off payment for a decoder.

And people would have to use them to watch BBC programmes, and only BBC programmes. People would pay pro-rata for the amount of BBC that they chose to watch.

As now, there would be special arrangements or discounts for hospitals, care homes, schools, etc.



Advantages:

No one can cheat on it: if you want to watch BBC, you have to have a decoder and pre-payment cards.

No money spent on staffing or equipping the Licensing Bureau and TV detector vans (do they still use them?);

This kind of funding would likely bring in even more revenue than is generated by the licence fee: a lot of small drips spread evenly over twelve months is less obvious and less painful to pay out than getting soaked once a year!

You could buy a new TV, DVD player or any other piece of TV-signal-receiving equipment without shortly afterwards receiving a threatening letter from the TV Licensing Bureau that “We have been informed that you have recently purchased xxx, and must warn you that unless you have a licence you will be breaking the law … ”
Or words to that effect; it’s been years since I got one of those (I once bought a video recorder for my mum, and actually wrote to the Licensing Bureau to tell them that they would shortly “be informed” that I had bought a video recorder, but that it was for my mother so they could skip the threatening letter this time. They didn’t.);

Less paperwork for shops, since they have to report any sales so that the Licensing Bureau can duly harass purchasers with threats of the perils of not buying a licence;

More money spent on making the kinds of programme that the BBC excel at;
(or, more likely, more money wasted on bigger salaries and plusher offices for the bosses!! or on those incomprehensible “team-building” events.)