TV licence fee rises £3 to £145.50 despite BBC cutbacks

Daily Mail ^ | March 9, 2010 | Staff

[C19fan]

The cost of the BBC licence fee will increase by 2 per cent to £145.50 from April 1, it was confirmed today.

The rise from £142.50 for the colour licence is part of a six-year BBC funding settlement agreed in 2007.

[C19fan]

The thought I would have to pay close to $200 a year for the "priviledge" of watching a more entertaining version of PBS would make my blood boil. Is the fee per TV or household?

[Perdogg]

that's bloody outrageous, I say balls to that.

[pnh102]

It is amazing what people abroad put up with. I used to say that if the government ever tried to impose that sort of fee in the USA there would be rioting and blood in the streets... but now I am not so sure. :(

[GeronL]

The BBC has more than 300 highly paid executives.

[GeronL]

People in this country are becoming sheep.

[caver]

It won’t take me much more of an increase in cable bill to simply throw the boob tube out the door.

[Red Badger]

It is said that you can judge a civilization by its prisons, but you can also judge its decline by its regulations................

[mkjessup]

The only thing worth watching on the BBC would be the ‘Wit & Wisdom of Sir Winston Churchill’ and ‘The Best of Benny Hill’.

[Buckeye McFrog]

and yet yesterday the same BBC was demanding “free internet for all” as a Human Right....LOL!

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Is it true that in Britain, one must have and pay for a license, in order to own a television set?...

Heard that a while ago, and was frankly amazed.

Has that always been the case?

[thinking]

Yes

Yes

Yes

[KarlInOhio]

i>Is it true that in Britain, one must have and pay for a license, in order to own a television set?...

Has that always been the case?

They've also had radio license since 1922 which stopped in 1970. The TV license started in 1946.

But look at the bright side. Someone who is blind only has to pay half the normal television tax. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_license#United_Kingdom (yes, yes, I know, beware of wikipedia).

[calex59]

I’ve already trashed my satellite TV, I used the TV, but only to watch Netflix, and other sites, streaming video. I get my news from the internet and I would NEVER pay the government a tax to watch TV.

[Moltke]

I say double the fee! And then give 80% of the funds to Top Gear!

[AF_Blue]

Per household, based on the most expensive license (i.e. if you have a color and a B&W - yes, they still have 'em - you pay the color TV fee). BBC justifies the TV tax by not having any commercial advertising or sponsors ("made possible by a grant from..."). Part of the fee funds the TV-detector vans that monitors neighborhoods for homes with TVs (I don't know how) and bounces the info against the list of addresses that have paid the fee.

SatTV service is an additional cost.

I remember a news article many(, many) moons ago about a man who "modified" his TV so that it would not receive a signal nor could it be used for SatTV - he only wanted to use it as a VCR (that many moons ago) monitor, and didn't believe he should have to pay the TV Tax. Was ruled against because the original design of the TV was to receive the signal.

[Winniesboy]

Is it true that in Britain, one must have and pay for a license, in order to own a television set?... Heard that a while ago, and was frankly amazed. Has that always been the case?

The licence fee (originally for radio, subsequently also for TV) was introduced by the then Conservative government in 1922. There had been a lot of debate about how to pay for the new medium, and it was decided early on that there would be no advertising. The closest analogy available was the then relatively-new telephone. Just as you paid the General Post Office a yearly rental for a phone line, so you would also pay the GPO a yearly rental for a 'wireless' line. Seemed to make sense at the time - and despite all that's happened in media development since, and many predictions of the license fee's imminent demise, a sucession of reviews over the years has always come to the conclusion, in their wisdom, that it's the least worst system.