and I can't help wondering if such an agenda has found a voice here.

sniff sniff

.....smells suspiciously like a conspiracy to me.........probably one funded by the all-powerful Rupert Murdoch.......

;)

The BBC isn't the government. It's a corporation with its own management and board of governors.

And with all of the power of a government agency. The 'not a government' thing is a mere fiction on paper. Any agency which can force people to pay a tax is a government department. The remainder is mere semantics to make it all sound good.

If you don't own a TV, you don't have to pay for BBC output (and you can still listen to radio broadcasts).

That's like saying that if you don't own a house, then you don't have to pay property taxes. But most people want someplace to live. And most people want to watch TV. At least some. Too bad that the good people of the UK have a government.....excuse me......a corporation which taxes them for the privilege.

I say bring back the old English hearth tax -- in a modernized form. After all, if people don't own a furnace, then they don't have to pay a tax for heating their houses in the winter. Message edited on: 03/06/2006 18:16

Well Xen, I can only say that I'm sorry this licence/tax thing bugs you so much. Why don't you write to Tony in Downing St on behalf of us benighted Brits? :) How do I avoid paying mystery-money for advert-funded TV I rarely watch? I actually, seriously do object to that.

"The BBC isn't the government. It's a corporation with its own management and board of governors."

The senior executive and the board of governers are directly appointed by the government. The BBC is established under Royal Charter.

"The licence fee..."

The existence of which is by statute, the level of which is set by the government, the collection of which is enforced by statute...

"...is a flat fee that pays for all BBC broadcasts (including the World Service -- much valued in countries whose own broadcasters actually are arms of government)".

The BBC World Service is funded by direct taxation and administered the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/faq/news/story/2005/08/050810_wsfunding.shtml

"It isn't a tax..."

Correct, it is a licence - legal permission from the state to install and use television reception equipment.

But rather delightfully, the Office for National Statistics has, for accounting purposes, redefined the licence as a tax. Poor old Gordon's sums are now toward the red by nearly 3 billion. Note also how the BBC has been reclassified as "Central Government":
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/cpst0106.pdf

"Of course if someone's ideologically anti-taxation it's a waste of time arguing..."

Didn't you just say it isn't a tax? ;-)

"There are plenty of (privately-owned) media people who dislike the BBC licence, and the BBC in general, because they see its size, range and popularity as a threat to their own money-making plans..."

Dirty, filthy little money makers. Of course, many people having to earn a living and fund businesses do see the BBC as a gross interference in the free market. It is.

Unfortunately, these same broadcast people are also terrified at the prospect of a privatised BBC absorbing an already over-thin UK advertising market. Ironically, it is in the short term financial interests of the dirty, filthy little money makers to retain the licence. Otherwise they'd have got shot of it years ago.

"However, whether you own a TV or not, you still have to pay for advert-funded TV, since advertisers recoup their promotional expenditure by passing on the cost to the people who buy their products (do I really have to explain such an obvious fact?)"

Do you really feel that such an obvious fact is somehow relevant as mitigation for a government licence to watch the telly? Companies advertise their products and services all over the place; advertising makes their products and services commercially viable. It's all part of what makes the economic world go 'round. . No economy = no public sector taxes.

"How do I avoid paying mystery-money for advert-funded TV I rarely watch? I actually, seriously do object to that."

You know what? Some taxi drivers give money to political parties. Everytime you take a cab you might be paying mystery-money to a party you disappove of. Oh, the horror.

LOL. If we get rid of the BBC, we'll have to have a go at the government schools next. They are producing citizens with an entirely warped sense of reality.

Well Xen, I can only say that I'm sorry this licence/tax thing bugs you so much. Why don't you write to Tony in Downing St on behalf of us benighted Brits?

What I want to know is when Rupert Murdoch is going to get to start charging a "newspaper reading license fee" to every household in the UK which possesses a newspaper?

After all, poor 'ol Mr. Murdoch has a corporation to run, ya know..........

;)

Cable channels that I have no interest in, and dont have to look at or pay for...oh that would be wonderful :D At present, I have over 200 cable channels, and watch about 20 of those....sometimes. But I have to pay for them all, and they wont let me choose except for the things like HBO and so on >:(

"Dirty, filthy little money makers..." Sorry if I prodded a nerve there. In fact, that ascribes to me (by implication) views that I've never held. I sell product here on this site, and co-ran a successful small business for many years. Much of my life has been occupied with freelance work of one sort or another, so I'm all for making money. I'm perfectly comfortable with free markets, but I don't take a doctrinaire view with respect to them, and don't see anything wrong with governments getting involved if the result is to the general good. I am not a Libertarian.

My defence of the BBC is pragmatically-based. It's good value for money. If an independent media group can provide a similarly broad range of content of equivalent high quality, without adverts, for 125 quid a year, then bring them on.

The reference to "an already over-thin UK advertising market" has some relevance here, as it does explain the creeping meretriciousness in the output of much of the independent broadcast and print media.

The comment about taxi-drivers is not analogous and has no bearing on this discussion, nor has the one about "government" schools.

That's my last contribution to this thread, and we'll have to agree to differ :)

PJF said, "No, absolutely not. I'm pointing out the irony of those already under real state supression shrieking about imaginary suppression happening in America. The USA has the First Amendment to prevent the government from interfering with TV or broadband, etc."

Well, that's our Constitution, of course, but Our Peerless Leader has already stated that that antique document doesn't apply to him. It's not the law that's at fault, its those who apply it for their own "laudable" ends.

"The USA has the First Amendment to prevent the government from interfering with TV or broadband, etc." Hasn't stopped em from trying

Indeed, but people are watching and acting: http://www.volpac.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=210