TV Licensing
June 24th, 2006 by spk
I received a survey the other day asking about my views on the BBC and how would I feel if they raised the license fee considerably to pay for new public services.
We also hear of threats to employers who allow their employees to watch live TV streamed over the Internet, because they must have a license to do so.
Here is my problem with all this: It is already established that if one owns a TV just to watch DVDs and non live programmes, one must have a licence. Why? Because even though no live television is verifiably being watched, the user is capable of watching live TV. Circumstantial evidence is considered sufficient here, despite the fact that non payment of the fee is criminal and potentially punishable by a term in gaol.
So where are we now? If live programmes can be received over the Internet, then all Internet connected computers are capable of receiving live programmes, so presumably the TV license must now be required to own a computer!
That is unworkable (and similar advances in technology in the past were the death knell of radio licences).
The TV licence is an anachronism. It is a relic, and an unjust one at that. It criminalises the least fortunate in our population, denies public services to the most needy, and treats non watchers as potential criminals who must be monitored and controlled, rather than honest people who have turned down that technology.
This is nothing against the BBC. The BBC is a fine and well respected institution, and we should indeed continue funding public service broadcasting for the benefit of all. But it is the way we do it that is at issue.
By my calculation, 2% of the licence fee is immediately lost to the cost of enforcement of the same (this based on figures from Capita group, but it may well be more than this). We could increase revenue to the BBC and right this injustice in one easy move: fund the BBC from general taxation (be it income tax, VAT, additional VAT on TV sets, a tax on content providers or something else).
I don’t think we should make the BBC just another subscriber service. That would lead to further erosion of its public service remit. But with so many of the arts already funded by public money, where is the harm in diverting general taxation to continuing this grand institution?
