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Tories vow to scrap licence fee in five years as £2bn cuts imposed on BBC


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The Conservatives have said they will scrap the BBC licence fee at the next opportunity – if they are still in government.

Unveiling a £2bn budget cut for the public broadcaster Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said this year's funding announcement "will be the last".

The BBC's charter comes up for renewal in 2027, and Ms Dorries made clear on Sunday that she wants to use that opportunity to abolish the fee.

Instead, the UK should "discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling" television programmes, she argued.

"This licence fee announcement will be the last. The days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors, are over," she said on Sunday.

Tories vow to scrap licence fee in five years as £2bn cuts imposed on BBC | The Independent

Edited by The Silver Shroud
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It had to happen sooner or later. 

Consuming TV content should be a choice and the cost not dependent on owning a TV Ect. 

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36 minutes ago, ethereal_scout said:

I'd nationalise it. 

Pay them all civil service salaries.

Keep BBC1 BBC2 and the News.

Make it a government propaganda arm, you mean? This has been released now to deflect from the party scandal Johnson is embroiled in: when a news outlet reports corruption and scandal, silence the outlet, as the corruption is not going to stop. There will be other populist announcements, I would imagine, in the next few days.

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1 hour ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

It had to happen sooner or later. 

Consuming TV content should be a choice and the cost not dependent on owning a TV Ect. 

We have been through this before, if you don't want to watch BBC content (they fund the main BBC channels and some streaming services), you don't have to pay the licence. It can be done very simply online. You can watch BBC content bought by other streaming services like Netflix via their subscription.

Have a look, I have stopped paying for several years personally when my son had a TV but didn't watch BBC stuff:Do I need a TV Licence? - TV Licensing ™

Edited by The Silver Shroud
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49 minutes ago, The Silver Shroud said:

We have been through this before, if you don't want to watch BBC content (they fund the main BBC channels and some streaming services), you don't have to pay the licence. It can be done very simply online. You can watch BBC content bought by other streaming services like Netflix via their subscription.

Have a look, I have stopped paying for several years personally when my son had a TV but didn't watch BBC stuff:Do I need a TV Licence? - TV Licensing ™

Many who had stopped paying a fee due to age will not be as well informed as yourself and having received a TV license bill will pay it to avoid potential problems and this is what the bbc hope will happen.

Scrapping the license fee will stop bills going out and remove any doubt about the compulsory need to pay. 

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Why wait 5 years , why not scrap it tomorrow and see all the wasters on BBC ,work for a living , like us who pay their bloody wages .

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2 hours ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

Many who had stopped paying a fee due to age will not be as well informed as yourself and having received a TV license bill will pay it to avoid potential problems and this is what the bbc hope will happen.

Scrapping the license fee will stop bills going out and remove any doubt about the compulsory need to pay. 

I agree with this, LAT. I'd go further: the BBC collectors are often bullying. A lot of people don't understand or want smart TVs, they just want to watch the terrestial channels with maybe catch-up. And until fairly recently, the fee was tantamount to a licence just to own a TV- there were no other services apart from the terrestial ones.

Perhaps the BBC charter is out of date (to educate and entertain), maybe the people who watch sports aren't interested in nature documentaries and vice versa. Perhaps it is time to go.

Mind you, since TV is recognised as so important for mental health (for people to keep in touch with current affairs, assuage loneliness, keep entertained) the government should have kept their commitment to pay the fee for the over 75s, so the likes of @spud the mackem wouldn't have to worry about payment.

The announcement today is part of the ploy to deflect criticism away from the parties, and I am sure it will be effective to a certain extent.

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2 hours ago, spud the mackem said:

Why wait 5 years , why not scrap it tomorrow and see all the wasters on BBC ,work for a living , like us who pay their bloody wages .

People who produce and direct films, documentaries, and other TV output don't work for a living? They think they do.

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7 hours ago, The Silver Shroud said:

Make it a government propaganda arm, you mean? This has been released now to deflect from the party scandal Johnson is embroiled in: when a news outlet reports corruption and scandal, silence the outlet, as the corruption is not going to stop. There will be other populist announcements, I would imagine, in the next few days.

British Civil Servants can't offer frank and fearless advice.  Who knew?

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Major changes to the UK's response to Covid, its public broadcaster, and the UK response to international maritime law are all being introduced in an attempt to keep the PM in office. It was so timely that Johnson announced at Cop26 a couple of months ago that "the UK is not remotely corrupt", otherwise the rest of the world might think we were a banana republic:

The long-called for end of the BBC licence and revamped efforts to curb migrant crossings in the Channel were also among the other 'populist moves' touted by Downing Street as part of renewed efforts to woo voters and rebel Tory MPs. 

Tense negotiations between the Government and the BBC over the cost of the annual fee until the end of 2027 have concluded, with Ms Dorries deciding to hold the licence at £159 for the next two years. 

And for the first time in history, the UK Border Force will be placed under a military chain of command in the fight against illegal people traffickers following a record-breaking year for crossings in the English Channel.

An end to restrictive Plan B Covid measures and a cull of the Prime Minister's innermost circle, including his beleaguered private secretary Martin Reynolds, are also expected

Boris Johnson to impose workplace alcohol ban in Downing Street after Partygate fallout | Daily Mail Online

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The former Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman said that while he pays the £157.50 licence fee, he does not think the BBC “can possibly survive in its present form, funded by a tax on a bit of living room furniture"

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"When you consider all the landmark radio & TV shows from Goons to Python, Not the 9 o' clock News to the Day to Day, Hancock, Dad's Army, Fast Show, League of Gentlemen, Goodness Gracious Me etc and the shows they spawned, u begin to see how vital the BBC is. And that's just comedy"

All of these would now be impossible to produce because the BBC would be too offended by the content to produce them.

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Quote

Make it a government propaganda arm, you mean?

Yes.

I can't think of anything to keep the BBC 'popular' other than one half of the country trashing their TVs perpetually because they hate it "Do you love big brother" will take on a whole different meaning once the Beeb is 100% propaganda. It'll be something of Opposition hate and Government pleasure to have an on-the-books BBC.

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29 minutes ago, ethereal_scout said:

Yes.

I can't think of anything to keep the BBC 'popular' other than one half of the country trashing their TVs perpetually because they hate it "Do you love big brother" will take on a whole different meaning once the Beeb is 100% propaganda. It'll be something of Opposition hate and Government pleasure to have an on-the-books BBC.

I don't think todays government will benefit from a self funded BBC.

It is already populated largely by left leaning Liberals who even with a charter to be unbiased have failed to be so.

With any restrictions removed, and guided only by their own group think, the new bbc will swing sharply to the left where they will pat themselves on the back for being so enlightened and reasonable. 

Attack's on right wing politics will then become an even more regular event.

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4 minutes ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

I don't think todays government will benefit from a self funded BBC.

It is already populated largely by left leaning Liberals who even with a charter to be unbiased have failed to be so.

With any restrictions removed, and guided only by their own group think, the new bbc will swing sharply to the left where they will pat themselves on the back for being so enlightened and reasonable. 

Attack's on right wing politics will then become an even more regular event.

More like Sky then.

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Read this a few days ago. Another one of their own telling it like it is :-

"But in the past few years, it became about minorities – particularly people of colour. We had always had people of colour on the panel, whenever we had found people of colour whom we wanted to have on the programme. And this had always been my overriding rule – that we should only have people on the show who could do it, who were up for it, who were the right sort of people – never mind what colour they were. Nevertheless, there was this feeling that you had to have people of colour. During the recording of the last series, I was told that there should never be an all-white panel on panel games or quizzes."

"Also, I was told that we had to have disabled representation on the panel, which rather took my breath away. What has that got to do with anything? And on radio, how do you know if someone is disabled? We had had disabled people on the programme in the past, so I asked why this policy had come about. A talent agent had complained to the BBC and specifically said that we did not have disabled people on the show. So this imposition was put on the programme. It was completely unnecessary. I just wanted people who could do the programme. There was no need to tick boxes. But this is now everywhere in the BBC."

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/01/14/the-bbc-is-systemically-woke/

Edited by itsnotoutthere
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GB News will be playing the national anthem daily. That is because they are patriotic. Like our present government, who are so patriotic, they have made personal apologies to the Queen twice in the last two years- once when Johnson illegally prorogued Parliament and lied to the Queen, and once when they had an all-night party when Prince Phillip was being buried. You can't be more patriotic than offering personal apologies to HRM for your un-patriotic and selfish behaviour. Well, you could, but - let's not go down there.

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The view of the Independent on Nadine Dorries , which is quite amusing:

Other people, normal people, have the base mental capacity that is required to be troubled by such trifling things as observable reality. But if nothing can go in, then absolutely anything can come out. That is her greatest strength.

Sensible Tory after sensible Tory got up to tell her what she was announcing was mad. Damian Green said the licence fee works well, and if you’re planning to scrap it, you need to say what your alternative plan is. Sir Peter Bottomley said the same, as did Jeremy Wright.

Dorries told them that 2028 was a long way away. She was just “starting a debate”. And it is pointless to point out that if you’ve already decided the outcome – scrapping the licence fee – then you’re not really starting a debate, you’re announcing that the debate is already finished.

But as this is a notion that the secretary of state for culture cannot process, she cannot be harmed by it. She transcends her own stupidity. She free-wheels above it, slipped, as she is, from the surly bonds of the most basic understanding of absolutely anything at all.

Boris Johnson has broken the glass on the box marked ‘BBC culture war’ | The Independent

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THE BBC lost 700,000 licence fee payers last year new figures released today indicate.

Thousands of households scrapped paying for the national broadcaster over the course of the pandemic. The data was revealed as part of the TV Licensing annual review for 2020-2021. It indicates that as of March 31 2021, there were 24.8 million Britons coughing up for the licence fee each year. The year before 25.5 million paid for the service.

The drop is a far steeper rate of decline than over the course of the previous year when about 200,000 chose not to renew the licence.

The figures are likely to spark alarm for BBC bosses, who have already admitted the need not to become complacent in the face of increased competition from subscription services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Director-general Tim Davie admitted to MPs in March that the corporation would see its finances significantly hit if there was a continued drop in those paying the fee.

He told the Public Accounts Committee: "We are watching the number like hawks.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1459147/bbc-tv-licence-fee-how-many-people-pay-drop-bbc-annual-report

Edited by itsnotoutthere
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1 hour ago, itsnotoutthere said:

THE BBC lost 700,000 licence fee payers last year new figures released today indicate.

Thousands of households scrapped paying for the national broadcaster over the course of the pandemic. The data was revealed as part of the TV Licensing annual review for 2020-2021. It indicates that as of March 31 2021, there were 24.8 million Britons coughing up for the licence fee each year. The year before 25.5 million paid for the service.

The drop is a far steeper rate of decline than over the course of the previous year when about 200,000 chose not to renew the licence.

The figures are likely to spark alarm for BBC bosses, who have already admitted the need not to become complacent in the face of increased competition from subscription services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Director-general Tim Davie admitted to MPs in March that the corporation would see its finances significantly hit if there was a continued drop in those paying the fee.

He told the Public Accounts Committee: "We are watching the number like hawks.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1459147/bbc-tv-licence-fee-how-many-people-pay-drop-bbc-annual-report

Thus proving there is no need to change the model - people already choose not to pay it if they don't want to watch BBC content or live TV.

Also handily giving lie to your oft quoted claim that it's illegal to own a TV and not pay.

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BBC - Media Bias/Fact Check (mediabiasfactcheck.com)

The BBC is not perfect. No media outlet is. It is judged to have

(1) a slightly left leaning bias

(2) a high level of factual reporting

(3) a high credibility rating

It is not owned by some self-serving billionaire or shareholders, is not financed by commercial interests, and is free of political influence. 

According to this FactCheck site the BBC is right leaning on issues of business, immigration and religion. Its audience is consistently or mostly liberal, 26% mixed, and 13% consistently or mostly conservative. This indicates that a more liberal audience prefers BBC News. It always sources its information and uses minimal loaded words in headlines, so no clickbait. If it fails a fact check, the BBC issues a correction.

If it's not broken, don't fix it.

 

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And yet the “cultural liberal bias” of the corporation that Andrew Marr once owned-up to has become ever-more noticeable in recent years. Its output is shaped overwhelmingly by youngish graduates in big cities, especially London, and unsurprisingly reflects their prejudices.

Individual journalists may, as the BBC supposes, be able to leave what they identify as their own peculiar political views at the door. But when those views are shared by almost every colleague they encounter a groupthink is bound to take hold.

For example, for years before the Brexit referendum, those arguing Britain should leave the European Union were depicted as fringe extremists. I remember fondly the countenances of all the BBC journalists I saw on June 24, 2016 while wandering around Westminster in the aftermath of the referendum result – more long faces than you would find at a Newmarket stables.

More recently, the racially-divisive BLM agenda has been wholly incorporated into coverage: From those “largely peaceful” riots in which we were told a police woman had “knocked herself off her horse”, to the notion that it was necessarily racist to oppose footballers importing the knee-taking gesture from America.

On almost every major political issue, from mass immigration to penal policy, a BBC bias is easily discernible; usually underpinned by a soft-left, metropolitan, globalist outlook. The mindset of social and cultural conservatism is almost entirely absent. You cannot expect to compel, by force of the criminal law, millions of people to pay for a broadcaster that systematically insults and marginalises their beliefs and values, especially not in a market that has been blown wide open by streaming and catch-up services.

https://thecritic.co.uk/bye-bye-bbc/

Edited by itsnotoutthere
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15 minutes ago, itsnotoutthere said:

And yet the “cultural liberal bias” of the corporation that Andrew Marr once owned-up to has become ever-more noticeable in recent years. Its output is shaped overwhelmingly by youngish graduates in big cities, especially London, and unsurprisingly reflects their prejudices.

Individual journalists may, as the BBC supposes, be able to leave what they identify as their own peculiar political views at the door. But when those views are shared by almost every colleague they encounter a groupthink is bound to take hold.

For example, for years before the Brexit referendum, those arguing Britain should leave the European Union were depicted as fringe extremists. I remember fondly the countenances of all the BBC journalists I saw on June 24, 2016 while wandering around Westminster in the aftermath of the referendum result – more long faces than you would find at a Newmarket stables.

More recently, the racially-divisive BLM agenda has been wholly incorporated into coverage: From those “largely peaceful” riots in which we were told a police woman had “knocked herself off her horse”, to the notion that it was necessarily racist to oppose footballers importing the knee-taking gesture from America.

On almost every major political issue, from mass immigration to penal policy, a BBC bias is easily discernible; usually underpinned by a soft-left, metropolitan, globalist outlook. The mindset of social and cultural conservatism is almost entirely absent. You cannot expect to compel, by force of the criminal law, millions of people to pay for a broadcaster that systematically insults and marginalises their beliefs and values, especially not in a market that has been blown wide open by streaming and catch-up services.

https://thecritic.co.uk/bye-bye-bbc/

When Brexit was announced the BBC decided that it was best to stay in Europe so they ran a Fear campaign ,telling the Public all kinds of doom and gloom if we left instead of backing Brexit as a BRITISH Broadcasting Company should have done . We notably had Andrew Marr forecasting Doom at every opportunity and also Piers Morgan ,but the British public (who aren't stupid ) wised up to their antics and laughed at their pathetic attempts . 

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THE announcement by Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries that the days of the BBC television licence are over has been greeted with both glee and horror. That reactions depend largely on which side of the political fence one sits rather tells its own story: metropolitan liberals are aghast while it’s celebration time in working-class areas and the shires. The Twitterati have responded by recycling the usual memes: ‘At just 43p a day, the TV licence is great value’. A number have started to compile lists of great BBC programmes, largely hits of yesteryear such as Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army. For ordinary folks, however, it’s all about liberation from the corporation’s incessant woke ideology.

Herein lies an insoluble contradiction at the heart of the pro-licence fee lobby. The BBC, they claim, is loved and valued by the UK from Land’s End to John O’Groats. If that were true, switching to a subscription model would hardly affect its income stream; it might even increase it. To the vast majority of BBC consumers, whether it’s via licence, subscription or other means, the way they pay for the service is immaterial. The licence issue is a red herring.

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/end-of-the-bbc-licence-fudge-or-fix/

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