Am I the only person who refused to pay BBC License fee? Never pay it for nearly 30 years! All TV License warning letter always in the bin. Never answered the door to any TV license peoples.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Am I the only person who refused to pay BBC License fee? Never pay it for nearly 30 years! All TV License warning letter always in the bin. Never answered the door to any TV license peoples.

'Refused' is an interesting word choice, as that doesn't say I don't use their service so don't require a licence. For me I watch some BBC stuff so I pay the licence fee.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

Am I the only person who refused to pay BBC License fee? Never pay it for nearly 30 years! All TV License warning letter always in the bin. Never answered the door to any TV license peoples.

Do you watch broadcast TV?

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

For me I watch some BBC stuff so I pay the licence fee.

Which seems fair. Less fair is if someone is forced to pay for the BBC if they watch TV but not the BBC.

Several European countries have de-linked public broadcasting funding from the act of watching TV and have begun funding it from more generalised taxation. I think that's where it will go here too.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Which seems fair. Less fair is if someone is forced to pay for the BBC if they watch TV but not the BBC.

Several European countries have de-linked public broadcasting funding from the act of watching TV and have begun funding it from more generalised taxation. I think that's where it will go here too.

I wouldn't have an issue with the BBC funding coming from general taxes so everyone paid for it as long as its wasn't a party political broadcast for an incumbent government. I know some will say they don't watch it but you could say that about a lot of things paid out of taxes that not everyone uses or agrees with.

Edit: I should add, if that was the case the BBC scope shouldn't be as large as it currently is and the salaries for the top earning should be reassessed as it should be functional rather than picking the likes of the very expensive Lineker to present MOTD.

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 11-Aug-25 11:47:45)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

I wouldn't have an issue with the BBC funding coming from general taxes so everyone paid for it as long as its wasn't a party political broadcast for an incumbent government.

Any model whereby the government mandates payment for a public broadcasting service will always face such criticism, be it from non-BBC watching TV viewers, or general taxation, whether justified or otherwise. That's more an argument about whether publicly funded broadcasting should exist at all.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Do you watch broadcast TV?

Only netflix and you tube

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Just as several websites force you to give an email address. It’s not necessary for forums as most of them, like these ones, have a PM system for contacting members.

It’s not true that all BBC material is free. It is for us in the UK (as determined by postcode), but not in the global domain.

Of course postcodes can be faked, almost as easily as email addresses can be faked.

i have never had a site force me to give them an email address to read the site, there are these silly ones now that bring up something of accept cookies or pay, but never email address. I access a few forums online and they all require registration to post, but on think broadband there are some that don;t

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

The 9 forums that I mentioned all require registration. I can understand the reasoning in some cases, but “Technical Issues”, “Web Design”, and “VOIP” (to name 3) seem fairly innocuous.

I always sign in now, but i am sure there were some that did not need to sign in.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

@zyborg47 "some people buy their licence from a post office still, so have no need to use their email to buy one."

Not for a long time. BBC took licence facitity from the post office which has issued it since TV began and the radio licence before that. Just as the BBC took weather from the Met Office and gave it to some European company, though now they're coming back again. Licence purchase is now farmed out to Capita (aka disrespectully known as Crapita) as far as I know.

One bit less business for our High Streets, our post office is one of only four shops remaining in our small town.

Okay, pay point then, you can get a licence that way. My brother have a TV licence and I tell you now that there is no way he would have got it online.