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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
313 points dcminter | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cooper_ganglia ◴[21 Oct 24 19:34 UTC] No.41907633[source]▶
A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK.

Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.

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lifeisstillgood ◴[21 Oct 24 20:20 UTC] No.41908142[source]▶
The BBC is prized in the UK, and rightly so. Most national broadcasters have strong public interest provisions but the Beeb has a history and culture of strong independent journalism, incredible childrens and family output and acts as a mainstay anchor to support a creative industry.

There is plenty to criticise but the weird ring fenced tax that we pay is incredible value for money (films, tv, web, journalism for the price of Netflix

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colonwqbang ◴[21 Oct 24 22:20 UTC] No.41909167[source]▶
I appreciate state TV content and watch it regularly. But this argument just doesn't hold water. The service is so wonderful that they had to make it a criminal offence not to be a subscriber? And surely an "independent" TV station would have to be one which is not completely controlled by the state.
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1. lifeisstillgood ◴[21 Oct 24 23:05 UTC] No.41909479[source]▶
The bbc has been in a state of cost cutting as the Tory government of past 15 years has consistently throttled the licence fee as “punishment” for not being state controlled enough (ie Tory’s feel the BBC is biased against them

This is unlikely - partly any news media is biased against government as they do the actual decisions, but mostly the BBC is middle class britain incarnate, whereas the tories represent - well whatever the right wing is becoming these days.

As for licence fee - it’s basically a historical accident that became a ring fenced tax. Governments have strong views about people not paying taxes.