Absolute INSANITY!

Excuse me? The prices of streaming services are already extortionate, they can get to f***

Not as bad as Italy's BBC fee being included in the electricty bill, but my god! What a joke!

Honestly, as someone who doesn't use streaming services I think this sounds like a good idea. With so many shows moving behind paywalls, the BBC's ability both to provide factually correct reporting and good TV for people who for whatever reason aren't able to access streaming services is put at risk, and this sounds like it would give them a boost.

In an ideal world this might actually convince everyone to stop using streaming services, which in turn could convince those in charge to get their programmes back on terrestrial TV!

Difficult one. We need a public broadcaster, we just need a way of funding that that doesn’t piss off so many people. Not just a problem unique to Britain either, very familiar with the horror stories of Japan’s NHK trying to fund itself.

also a wish for all streaming services to die in a fire until they provide consistent catalogues and reasonable ways to access their stuff - I’d be fine with a legacy content subscription (allowing that the most up to date stuff probably needs funding in a specific way) that I keep permanently like I do my music one, I don’t want to be jumping around services hunting for a specific movie or TV show that’s decades old at this point

15 minutes ago, PeteFromLeeds said:

Honestly, as someone who doesn't use streaming services I think this sounds like a good idea. With so many shows moving behind paywalls, the BBC's ability both to provide factually correct reporting and good TV for people who for whatever reason aren't able to access streaming services is put at risk, and this sounds like it would give them a boost.

In an ideal world this might actually convince everyone to stop using streaming services, which in turn could convince those in charge to get their programmes back on terrestrial TV!

Streaming platforms aren't perfect and believe me, there's a whole lot I can say about that, but there are so many low-budget, indie, left-field shows and films that wouldn't have had a hope of getting picked up by terrestrial TV, and we wouldn't have had anywhere near as many new creators and variety of programmes created without them, some of the biggest shows of the last few years wouldn't have had a hope of getting shown on terrestrial TV, it's great for international, foreign-language productions like Squid Game and Dark in particular, not to mention that the likes YouTube and Nebula are fantastic for small-scale creators and video essays with viewpoints and specialist subjects that would never be seen on TV. Terrestrial TV is simply far too regulated and narrow-focused to alone incorporate the diversity and nature of TV today and a lot of channels beyond the main five are inaccessible, as well as being far too expensive for a lot of people, I think it is perfectly reasonable if someone has no use for live TV with all the additional costs involved and instead just takes an easier option (although even they're getting more and more expensive these days but this just exacerbates that).

I understand the need for a public broadcaster (and I'm a license fee payer myself) but paying more money to watch TV not even associated with the BBC is not the way to do it. I'm not sure it's actually been confirmed to be happening though, it isn't even on BBC News itself, just seems like a potential white paper that's been floated to the press as it'll get strong reactions x

Is this on top of paying for the license fee for normal TV or included in that one? Because there is no chance I am paying more to use streaming on top of the fee I already pay. I'll give up watching TV and move entirely to streaming.

The UK is part of an increasingly small number of countries that still directly charge a licence fee - just the ones in yellow here. You can't exactly compare them as not all public broadcasters have the same scope. France abolished the licence fee a few years ago, although French public television I believe has a greater proportion of its income coming from commercial sources than the BBC and it's not been smooth sailing since then.

Today (and for a long time actually), you can benefit from having a national public broadcaster without actually owning a TV and there needs to be something done about that as the proportion that actually pays a licence fee shrinks. But not sure if this is the way.

I can see this going the same way as the proposed Digital ID plans.

I think the license fee is amazing value for ££ compared to other services. Not sure how this is gonna work or what it means. Or is it even legal?

The BBC should just have Ad's if they're struggling that much

5 hours ago, Spiceboy said:

Is this on top of paying for the license fee for normal TV or included in that one? Because there is no chance I am paying more to use streaming on top of the fee I already pay. I'll give up watching TV and move entirely to streaming.

I don't think it's an additional fee on top of the normal but more so due to record amounts of people no longer paying as they don't need to watch live TV thanks in part to streaming services, YouTube etc. By needing it to watch streaming services they are essentially trying to make millions more pay the licence fee that otherwise wouldn't to generate revenue.

The license fee/BBC funding needs to rejigged although I agree it's really good value for money if you use the services (~£15/month). I think the issue is that it is an enforced/legal requirement if you want to watch any live TV, even on non-BBC channels/platforms. The BBC would be better off doing what some services do with different tiers including a free or cheaper ad-funded version potentially.

Edited 13 hours ago13 hr by Envoirment

From what I understand they're trying to do is make everyone pay the TV licence even if all they watch are streaming services so if you already pay for the licence fee then you're unaffected

Their bbc sounds app is brilliant and is part of the service so I finished it hard to believe people don’t use bbc services in some way whether it be on their phones etc.

As someone that doesn't watch tv or streaming but does watch user created reviews etc. on youtube which I already pay for in my internet bill, I don't care for this.

Expanding the TV licence to those that not only don't own a TV, but don't even actively use BBC services for personal use would be a massive overreach. The TV license itself made sense when there were only a handful of channels and no streaming services, but now it feels antiquated in a world where there are so many other entertainment options available that circumvents traditional media (I say that as someone who pays the TV license, and is more than happy to do so). If I were to reform the funding of the BBC going forward, I would do the following -

• Partially fund the BBC through direct taxation, rather than through the TV license - that way people will be less likely to notice they're paying for it, plus you'll get less stories about grannies being dragged through the courts for not paying it in the media

• Fund the rest by introducing advertising on radio, TV & streaming services, with a robust firewall in place between the advertising section and the production/editorial sections to ensure that advertisers don't exert undue pressure on the BBC, and vice versa.

• Ger rid of BBC Radio 4 Extra (why the heck do we need two Radio 4s?), and replace it with BBC Radio Brett-Butler, where I play all my favourite songs.

11 hours ago, Henessy Lake said:

The BBC should just have Ad's if they're struggling that much

Where would all the additional advertising come from? If the BBC had to carry adverts (making watching programmes at the time of broadcast unbearable), advertisers would reduce the amount they spend on other broadcasters, particularly ITV etc.

18 minutes ago, Brett-Butler said:

Expanding the TV licence to those that not only don't own a TV, but don't even actively use BBC services for personal use would be a massive overreach. The TV license itself made sense when there were only a handful of channels and no streaming services, but now it feels antiquated in a world where there are so many other entertainment options available that circumvents traditional media (I say that as someone who pays the TV license, and is more than happy to do so). If I were to reform the funding of the BBC going forward, I would do the following -

• Partially fund the BBC through direct taxation, rather than through the TV license - that way people will be less likely to notice they're paying for it, plus you'll get less stories about grannies being dragged through the courts for not paying it in the media

• Fund the rest by introducing advertising on radio, TV & streaming services, with a robust firewall in place between the advertising section and the production/editorial sections to ensure that advertisers don't exert undue pressure on the BBC, and vice versa.

• Ger rid of BBC Radio 4 Extra (why the heck do we need two Radio 4s?), and replace it with BBC Radio Brett-Butler, where I play all my favourite songs.

The BBC provide loads of excellent educational material which schools can use for free. Students are encouraged to use that material at home for revision. If schools had to pay for it, it would cost a fortune.