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[QUOTE=cantonboy;5472856]You have to be over75 to get it free, not just of pension age.[/
Radio 4 is worth the licence fee on its own.
It has educated me about astronomy, history, biology, philosophy, geography, language, sociology, the world at large and a lot else.
The Infinite Monkey Cage, In The Psychiatrist's Chair, In Our Time, From Our Own Correspondent, Word Of Mouth, Thinking Allowed, The Moral Maze, The Life Scientific, The Re-union, All In The Mind, File on 4, Great Lives and More or Less are just some of the excellent programmes that have helped in the field of erudition of this humble soul.
And then there's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, of course!
Easy fix:
1 - Scrap the license fee
2 - Take the money out of general taxation - last year license fee raised £3.8 billion this is 0.3% of government expenditure annually.
3 - Ring-fence this funding (e.g. 25 years) fix it to inflation, cross-partisan agreement with an independent financial regulator. Now the BBC can reap the benefits of long term certainty and budget planning, outside of party politics.
4 - BBC also benefits from saving a fair bit of its budget in enforcing, administrating and processing the license fee every year for millions of people.
5 - Continue making exceptional world class content in peace.
Its not 1923 anymore, the world has moved on, and habits are changing
Up to 10 years ago Newsnight was compulsory viewing for me, showered during the news at 10, into bed to watch Newsnight with my Ovaltine. Ever since streaming my routine has gone to pot, but so have Newsnight viewing figures.
Do the BBC have to pay top dollar for the six nations & MoTD ? Does it need four channels and a streaming platform? Should it even be in competition with commercial TV for "talent". Discover someone then if commercial TV want them, let them take them and find the next big thing.
A lot of BBC programmes make money, but the Saturday night fight with ITV needs to stop, the only winner is "the talent". We do need the BBC, but not like the last 100 years, adapt or die and IMO £2 a week is enough when you have to pay when you compare that to the other choices its great value, but thats because not everyone has to pay for Sky or streaming services.
I have always had a licence, and whilst its enforced always will have, however, I begrudge giving that organisation 1 penny, the moment the BBC becomes non essential to watch a TV, it will be ditched.
Care to explain, giving examples?
I could suggest that the Beeb's politics output verges on the political right. As an example, one Newsnight host said recently that one reason she quit the show was their impartiality policy, in that, at all times, both points of view where there were sides should have the opportunity to be spoken. The reason for her not always agreeing with this was that there were times when virtually all experts agreed in their view of something, yet they had to find some crackpot to give an alternative, when that alternative was clearly wrong.
If I was easily indoctrinated I would probably engage on one side or another in the endless and often tiresome left v right spats on here.
I belong to no herd and consider myself to have enough nous not to swallow anything whole, as it were - and most of the programmes I listed have little to do with didactic politics anyway.
yes I also enjoy most of these - with the exception of the Moral Maze, which I often find unlistenable. many of their regular contributors I find overly arrogant and don't make any real attempt to engage with the arguments they are presented with, just try to ram their own points home