TV License to Increase from £159 to £169.50
In the News
Article from March 26, 2024: www.nme.com/news/tv/your-annual-tv-licence-fee-is-going-up-this-week-3609726
£169.50? Might as well just say £170, then.
I haven't had TVL since 2019 and better off without it as I don't watch Live TV/Streams nor use the BBC iPlayer.
We stopped paying for a licence a few years ago as we don't watch live TV either and couldn't justify the ridiculous tax - sorry licence fee!
Even if the licence fee was scrapped (in my dreams) we wouldn't watch 'normal' tv as we find most of it rubbish.
What is more worrying is that most people probably think that as fees go it is quite small especially when you compare it to the price they are paying for sky etc....
Dont watch any BBC crap as there Is nothing on there anymore. Rip off anyways. Dont have a licence and not going too.
Emerge11 If we were in Germany they'd force us to pay a TV/Radio Tax even if you'd never use either service.
Just disgusting.
I hate the TV License, but Germany's TV/Radio Tax is admittedly even worse.
PhilipMarc Disgusting. I just read It. The BBC are a corrupt cover up corporation who knew about these so called predators but failed to look Into It years ago. A bit like the Met Police.
BBC should show adverts like the rest of the channels. It’s a joke that not paying your TV licence is a criminal offence rather than a civil matter. They show repeats most of the time too and I really don’t think Gary linker is worth millions of pounds for a couple of shows a week it’s ridiculous. The fact it is compulsory, subject to criminal proceedings but we can’t hold them accountable for the way they spend the money they act like a private organisation (similar to the post office and we know how badly run that is but the top dogs earn more than the normal person could ever dream of) just shows how bad it is and during a cost of living crisis the government just ought to tell them they can’t have it anymore and also a the very minimum they can’t increase it but the government doesn’t give a monkey’s about the general public either
Also if paying by direct debit why do we have to pay the tv licence half a year up front - you don’t do that with other bills - council tax etc why are they allowed to do that??
It is getting to that time when more people are considering getting rid and not bothering with anything to do with them. Just be careful if you do stop and check what you can’t use anymore.
Never watch BBC or listen to their radio channels, they wanted to rise it even more, but the government capped it, it's a total rip off
The tv licence is a rip off because all they seem to show are repeats.I would like the BBC to show and justify what a viewer is getting for the increase. It should have been scrapped years ago.I never watch anything live on the BBC.
What annoys me most about this is lack of choice, they impose a rise on people whether you agree with it or not or whether you want BBC or not .
Like a lot of the other comments, i dont watch live tv and i think that an increase of £10 is a bit steep tbh
There are 2 things that a Government needs to do which would be very very popular. The first is to abolish the licence fee. The second is to stop energy companies from imposing standing charges on meters. Theft of the highest orders.
The license should be free.So many elderly people rely on the television for company if they live alone.The fee is too expensive for them in relation to the pensions they receive.
I haven't had a TV license for quite a few years, unsure how many but seems like a long time since I've paid for a TV license, probably 4-7 years since I've bought one. I have to admit I still have access to the BBC as my mother has a TV license and she only lives a 4 minute walk away so anything I want to watch either on the BBC or live TV I watch there. She tapes anything I want to see, that is the theory anyway but in reality I don't even watch BBC stuff there pretty much as its all pretty dull and uninteresting. However I do enjoy the Wheel when its on on Saturdays and the 'Impossible' quiz show. I can watch itv, channel 4, channel 5 on streaming services and to be honest don't watch much of that either. I mainly watch youtube and my own DVDs, video files etc. There are quite a lot of free films on youtube and you can use an adblocker to prevent any adverts and its totally free. I have network drives so have various movies and TV series on that which I can stream to any device.
£170 is a huge amount of money, over 10 years that is £1700 for example. The price of a holiday or a good basic secondhand car etc.
The other issue is I don't even like the BBC they are hugely wasteful of money and pay and conditions are far too high for a state broadcaster. They waste a huge amount of money on programming for minority interests and often their production values are very poor. A large part of the BBC License fee is paying for a pension shortfall. So poor people are forced to pay for ridiculously generous pensions for other people. Just seems wrong to me. Less than half the money the BBC gets goes into programming and that figure was from 2015 I think its much worse now due to the pension funding shortfall.
I cant see the BBC ever scrapping the licence fee. But if you pay for TV like Sky or Virgin I think the fee should be included in your subscription price.
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