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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
362 points dcminter | 1 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.589s | 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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1. pjc50 ◴[22 Oct 24 09:32 UTC] No.41912639[source]▶
I used to think this, but it's no longer true. BBC radio is pretty good value. CBBC is valuable in having an ad-free service for children. But the rest of terrestrial BBC is .. tired. It's not really changed since the advent of streaming services and youtube, which have eaten its audience from younger ages.

And BBC politics is awful. Question Time is full of planted audience members. BBC journos give softball interviews to their friends in the Conservative party.

Personally I'd split the BBC into National Archive (all the material before 2000) and BBC Ongoing, and make the latter into a normal private company which sells streaming subscriptions. And abolish the absurdity of the TV license and its often oppressive enforcement against the very poor.