[Former Member 237]

I really don’t know what “bad faith” means but I’ve addressed all your points already. You’d think I’d asked for the BBC to be closed down based on that reply. But I actually said part of it would remain public. And as far as I know the council tax is compulsory but I myself didn’t say anything about a council tax. I said it should be funded from a general tax stream not have it’s own specific tax, in regards to BBC News. The rest of the BBC it’s either adverts or subscription if we are going to be realistic here. So it’s not really possible to get away from it. The harsh reality is that, if I don’t watch something why should I pay for it? We already pay vast amounts of tax and BBC news would be there in public form to address the gap in my mind. It wouldn’t just be news presenters reading the news clearly. Please don’t misunderstand me, I recognise the need for public service broadcasting to a point, but I think retaining BBC News will meet the needs. I don’t see why you’d need the rest. Especially as lots of the content is sold commercially also.

[Steve in Pudsey]

Imposing something that is currently a matter of choice is never a good idea for legislation.

You may as well impose Vehicle Licence Duty on people without cars or forcing everyone to buy a lottery ticket each week. It would be laughed out of the Supreme Court.

You've inadvertently hit on a precedent for doing exactly what you describe - the Road Fund License was abolished, with road building and maintenance coming out of general taxation.

[interestednovice]

I really don’t know what “bad faith” means but I’ve addressed all your points already. You’d think I’d asked for the BBC to be closed down based on that reply. But I actually said part of it would remain public. And as far as I know the council tax is compulsory but I myself didn’t say anything about a council tax. I said it should be funded from a general tax stream not have it’s own specific tax, in regards to BBC News. The rest of the BBC it’s either adverts or subscription if we are going to be realistic here. So it’s not really possible to get away from it. The harsh reality is that, if I don’t watch something why should I pay for it? We already pay vast amounts of tax and BBC news would be there in public form to address the gap in my mind. It wouldn’t just be news presenters reading the news clearly. Please don’t misunderstand me, I recognise the need for public service broadcasting to a point, but I think retaining BBC News will meet the needs. I don’t see why you’d need the rest. Especially as lots of the content is sold commercially also.

I think you do start to lose some of the power and “special” status of the BBC if you start to break it up, so personally I wouldn’t like that to happen.

I do think that what you suggested could be made to work though, although it wouldn’t be my favoured option.

[cable]

perhaps the future of the licence fee should go to supporting PSB content on other channels. This would allow the BBC to gradually reduce the size of the organisation and services offered. Leave it up to the commercial services to provide the mass market appeal shows and redirect money that would otherwise be spent on that sort of content to PSB programming.

[Stuart]

You've inadvertently hit on a precedent for doing exactly what you describe - the Road Fund License was abolished, with road building and maintenance coming out of general taxation.

I used the wrong term. It's called Vehicle Excise Duty, and is very much alive and kicking, but it's only charged to people who have a vehicle on a public road. The previous name for it was Road Fund Licence.

Building transport infrastructure is a state service, so that has always been funded from general taxation. Driving a vehicle is a personal choice.

[Steve in Pudsey]

The previous road fund license was exclusively used for building and maintaining roads. Since the 30s, when VED was introduced they have been paid from from general taxation, of which the VED is just part of it.

My point is that the cost of road building and maintainance exceeds the revenue from VED, so everyone contributes to it. And as you allude to, that feels perfectly reasonable now, but may not have in the 30s when car ownership was lower.

I'm not suggesting it's a perfect analogy but I think it is a valid example of something going from just users paying for it to general taxation.

[interestednovice]

Interesting parallels there as well, as broadcast-receiving equipment was very much a “luxury” when it first started, but has definitely now become even more pervasive than car ownership.

[Stuart]

My point is that the cost of road building and maintainance exceeds the revenue from VED, so everyone contributes to it. And as you allude to, that feels perfectly reasonable now, but may not have in the 30s when car ownership was lower.

I'm not suggesting it's a perfect analogy but I think it is a valid example of something going from just users paying for it to general taxation.

My point was that transport infrastructure is a state provision, which benefits everyone. My food or other shopping could not be provided without using it. It is therefore funded from general taxation. People don't need to personally drive on roads to obtain the benefit of their existence.

5 million households, almost 20% of the total, do not benefit in any way from having a TVL. They choose not to require it.

You cannot force a universal charge for a non-state service on people who deliberately don't meet the criteria. Personally, I'm happy with the current TVL, but it's a dwindling revenue source.

Another solution has to be found, but universal collection regardless of requirement is most definitely not the answer.

[interestednovice]

It’s a tricky point, but I think you could make valid arguments about a TVL levy being good for wider society in similar ways to public (free) museums that receive arts funding, the indirect benefit of road and rail infrastructure and so on.

The availability of the BBC as FTA broadcast channels and high-quality but free web services benefits the cut-off, lonely, isolated members of society - disproportionately the elderly and the poor, so to have “a friend” in the BBC is important. If it is direct subscription, you take that away.

It is also good for society in a more indirect way to have a high-quality broadcaster for state occasions and major news events with coverage that is impartial and free of advertising or spin, as part of our shared moments of national significance. I really think the BBC is uniquely placed to do all of that broadly as it is constituted now, which is why I’d be wary of splitting off news.

The BBC existing also helps to support the independent production industry in this country, which allows a whole sector of the economy to stay afloat. The film and media industries would not be nearly so successful without the BBC, and some kind of “subsidy” to support those jobs (if you chose to see the LF in that way) probably provides far more back than it actually costs.

[tellyblues]

Making the licence fee or an equivalent of it mandatory whether people watch TV or not and it being likened to taxes that go to funding schools, hospitals etc is all very well if all what the BBC does and the content it provides can be deemed necessary. I'm not sure various presenters earning massive salaries is necessary or a good use of public money nor is content which is entertaining but does little in the way to educate and inform.

It's difficult for the BBC to make cuts because you could make a case for any service being beneficial to the public as the option is there for them to use it, and in some sort of Patch Adams way of thinking entertaining people makes happy people, but could all these services and the aims of BBC content as a whole be provided by spending less money? If the answer is yes, do it. If not because "we don't want to annoy people who won't watch Match of the Day if Gary Lineker isn't presenting", that isn't best serving the public and forcing people to pay for that attitude is unacceptable.

This isn't anything new from the BBC - it's been there for years but people being able to be watch stuff without having to pay the licence fee is affecting them too much now. Without making the BBC subscription only - and I doubt they'd want to do that anyway because they know most people wouldn't pay a fee if they had the choice - another option is the basic BBC service funded by the licence fee and content which can't be paid for by it put behind a paywall. The issue here is that with the licence fee being reduced (and it ought to really), would enough people pay the extra to make paywall content financially feasible? If not, the content already deemed superfluous should be scrapped, which is what should be happening now to cut costs.