BBC fury as new boss appointed on six-figure salary on day free over-75s TV licence axed

OP, you do realize that six figures can be as low as $100K.

Wait. You need a license for a tv?? How odd.

[quote] The corporation warned that the Government scheme would have cost £745million a year and would have forced the closures of BBC Two, BBC Four, the BBC News Channel, the BBC Scotland channel, Radio 5 Live, and a number of local radio stations.

The license fee seems to be about $200 per year per person, payable to the BBC. Over 75s were exempt; not any more. That's like $65b per year to PBS. What kind of scam is this?

The BBC are a bunch of hypocritical SJW ratbags.

They need to get rid of TV licenses altogether. This is the same country that has parking meter type devices that people in apartment buildings have to put money into to turn their heat on.

BBC = buggers broadcasting Communism

R5 you mean the gas meter. Ghastly.

But,...But, WE LIKE big government, RIGHT? Well... RIGHT??

The TV licence is excellent value for money. All those BBC series you Americans fawn over wouldn't exist without it.

Based on the headline, I thought this was about Big black cock

[quote]The license fee seems to be about $200 per year per person, payable to the BBC. Over 75s were exempt; not any more

It's per household, not per person. And anyone over 75 receiving the Pension Credit will still be eligible for a free licence.

The government previously paid for the free licence scheme. However, as part of the right wing plot to undermine the BBC, they shoved the cost of it onto the BBC itself, which is why this step is being taken. No doubt posters in this thread support similar measures being taken to undermine public services in the United States too.

[quote]Based on the headline, I thought this was about Big black cock

I'd pay $200/year for regular access to that.

The BBC minions like to think they're hard-working public servants working for the good of the nation. But a lot of them are glamour-chasing, Islington luvvies.

[quote] All those BBC series you Americans fawn over wouldn't exist without it.

Surely not Downton? I had no idea.

[quote] as part of the right wing plot to undermine the BBC

"As I have always said to anyone intelligent enough or willing to spend a moment to listen, this is all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy." - HRC

"As I have always said to anyone intelligent enough or willing to spend a moment to listen, this is all part of a vast left-wing conspiracy." - DJT

[quote] Wait. You need a license for a tv?? How odd.

Yes, Virginia, you need a license for a tv.

OP, I didn’t realize you guys still had TV Licenses. Don’t most people stream online, though?

[quote] still had TV Licenses

Did they ever exist in the US?

The BBC is an anachronism. It was set up in the 1930s Depression for the depressed

[quote]No doubt posters in this thread support similar measures being taken to undermine public services in the United States too.

Absolutely, not. Not in the United States!

R19 The 20s, actually. Funny how uninformed you BBC-bashers are.

R5 That last bit...are you serious? I've been to the U.K., but stayed in a London hotel. What the fuck?!

R22 the gas meter and the electricity meter. R21 link please to the alleged US tv license.

R17 Yeah, fuck that. I'd stream on a device.

R23 Thanks. We have those here. So what's the big deal? I'm just a bit confused as to how it's supposed to work, I guess.

First, some facts: the tv licence in the UK is £157.50 a year, per household. That’s about $207 a year. Over-75s have enjoyed a free licence for the last 20+ years, paid for by the government, but The Tories are stopping this. The BBC says that they can’t afford to absorb this cost, which they say could take £700 million a year from their £4 billion licence income. The Tories think it’s very clever to make the BBC unpopular, though it’s the government that’s caused the problem.

For your annual $207 you get 10 tv channels, about 59 different radio channels (a mix of national and local, covering everything from different music genres to spoken word, sport, children’s radio, minority languages and ethnic broadcasting), the BBC website with its wide-ranging news & current affairs, sport, weather, arts and food content, BBC apps, and the BBC World Service (which also used to be government funded, broadcasting hugely respected news and other content with many local language services - a bit like VoA), until the Tories decided they wouldn’t pay for that either. All free from advertising.

By contrast, the cheapest Sky TV package is £25/month (=$393 per year) and it’s stuffed full of advertising. I don’t know what you might pay in the US for a basic cable package (anyone care to tell?) or what that might include, but for all the Tories’ attempts to damage the BBC, it still offers value for money and some good programming.

[quote] £4 billion licence income

Fuck, what broadcaster has that, from a tax on owing a TV? That's $5.2billion: these are Hollywood figures for the failing BBC.

And no, streaming won't save you.

[quote]link please to the alleged US tv license

No-one alleged there was a US television licence. You're just making that up because your actual arguments are laughably poor.

R26 Yes, imagine if PBS had secured funding of billions a year, and how that might improve the US. Imagine a properly funded impartial news service. Imagine programming produced without commercial demands to please advertisers.

The level of hatred Rupert Murdoch has for the BBC tells you all you need to know about how much good it does.

R25 is from the BBC.

[quote] make the BBC unpopular

The BBC is a bloated failure and is unpopular hence the huge amount of other broadcasters; but you can't contract out of the BBC. The BBC's already deeply unpopular, that's why the UK gov can afford to attack it.

You have to pay the license even if you don't watch the BBC shit.

[quote] For your annual $207

It's not a subscription sweetums, it's a tax.

[quote] I don’t know what you might pay in the US for a basic cable package

BBC is not cable

[quote] Imagine a properly funded impartial news service.

If the BBC did just that then I would say about $5m a year; what else would we need them for?

I seem to recall that Emily Maitless brought the whole lack of BBC impartiality back into the spotlight recently.

R28 Don't be ridiculous. The BBC isn't unpopular in the slightest.

It's known and respected world-wide for the quality of its output, be it news or television.

[quote]The BBC's already deeply unpopular

You do realise how stupid you sound when you say stuff like this, right? 66% positive opinion, 18% negative.

R29 Except she didn't. Cummings did break the rules. All you're doing is showing how pathetically uninformed you are.

This thread title is word salad (?)

The BBC are here in strength, ha-ha.

Regrettably, I can tell you as a court employee that a lot of our work is to do with putting unmarried mothers in prison for not paying the licence fee.

R34 So you're British all of a sudden? Despite your OP and other posts in this thread suggesting you're American?

What does "on day free over-75s TV licence" mean?

Very poorly written headline.

Thank you

I have no earthly idea what OP is attempting to convey with that title.

The poor residents also have to pay for a host of 'BBC celebrities'. One of the more obnoxious is this prat. He needs to keep his 5 sons living in a style to which they're accustomed.

He makes the occasional donation to demonstrate his "noblest oblige'.

Re-read slowly R36: it is the Excess after all.

The Excess doesn't get a $5.3b subsidy from the UK public every year so they may struggle sometimes.

R29 Emily Maitlis and Naga Munchetty deserve each other.

If you don't pay the BBC license fee you may be taken to court and get a criminal record. There is a statistic somewhere that 10% of the work of those courts is take up with enforcing the BBC fee: the same courts which deals with petty crime and youth and family issues. Youth and family issues.... but the BBC continues to demand its money. The UK gov is right to sack the BBC license fee.

One is appointed “on” a salary?

Most of Europe uses a tv license in some form or another. The UK is only unique in the batshit inefficient way it enforces it.

"With" a salary R43.

R42 10% of court cases are about the licence fee? hahaha

R46 what's so funny when the courts are crumbling through lack of gov investment?

R42 Wrong again. Whereas around 10% of cases at magistrate level involve non-payment, they're dealt with in specially held bulk trials, meaning the process is efficient and does not take up "10% of the work of those courts" as you claim.

At some point you should ask yourself why you need to lie and misrepresent rather than present any factual arguments.

I see that you've at least switched to your 'British' sockpuppet now though.

This man allegedly touched up teenagers.

The BBC adored him. They gave him a safe playpen. For years.

The BBC speaks at R48: "10% of cases at magistrate level involve non-payment"

R48 your BBC trolling is not as good as the trolling we get here all the time from the Russians so forget your b/s it won't work here.

This thread is fucking PACKED with rightwing trolls.

Who are these people who show up on the weekends, anyway? And why so many more of them on the weekends than weekdays? Every so often we'll have a Tuesday or something where the trolls don't show up and the board is back to normal again.

[quote]There is a statistic somewhere

No there isn't. If there were, you'd have linked to it.

Pedo Rolf Harris was BBC too. Cunt R51 is another BBC puppet.

[quote]R45 "With" a salary [R43]

Not in THIS title...

R51 Your panicking suggests that you know that the current BBC is a bona-fide Left-Wing Organisation using unwilling tax-payer money in order to broadcast commercial-free Propaganda.

This "panicking cunt" is a regular who has been here for 20 years, an American who recognizes the crazed trolls we get on Datalounge, especially on weekends.

I would suggest that anyone in the UK spamming Datalounge at 2AM their time with anti-BBC propaganda is the one panicking and acting like a true cunt.

The BBC is monitoring DL: ha-ha-ha; some of us pay $20 a year for this; I bet the BBC with its billions pays nothing but posts everywhere and gets shit shut down.

Orwell's experiences as a BBC employee sparked the idea of the pigs in 'Animal Farm'.

The minions who were so successfully anti-fascist that they became fascists themselves.

R55 the BBC works around the clock all over the world through its trolls, some of whom have been on here and are, as we write, trying to get Muriel to 'paywall' this thread. If you owned a $5.3 billion tax you too could afford to employ trolls, from Russia and all over.

You're either mentally ill or you're overplaying your troll hand here.

No one believes the Russians are working for the BBC to get a small thread on Datalounge paywalled.

[quote] the current BBC is a bona-fide Left-Wing Organisation using unwilling tax-payer money

If this is true, it is appalling, but I have suspected it from time to time. Gosh.

R57 The BBC Empire does pay millions spreading their publicity on the web.

Here they're using sex to advertise a show about miners in Cornwall. The miner is being painted by an unseen minion in a nice shade of Malibu tan.

All this sex-titillation is being for with compulsorily-acquired taxpayer money.

Ah, I see the "Russians are trolling for the BBC" troll claims to be working in UK courts and knows that single mothers are being jailed for not paying the fee.

But they're also in the "Shopping is like hell right now" thread claiming to be an American dealing with the USPS and Walmart.

Can't be both, can you, troll bitch? Bye.

Can someone rephrase the thread title in plain English?

[quote] miners in Cornwall.

There have not been any miners in Cornhole for centuries except on the BBC but they think it means they can spend $5.3 billion a year on their b/s.

Some people in America has metered electric, just like in England. Not everyone has metered electric

TV licence is the reason state owned broadcasting companies don't show commercials. It's basically like watching HBO but with high quality news, sports and documentaries on top of films and tv shows. They are basically the PBS on steroids.

To my understanding in most Euro countries state owned broadcasting companies co-exist peacefully with the commercial channels. They all serve their purpose. In some countries state owned broadcasting companies are the more neutral news source while the commercial ones might be spewing propaganda dictated by the owners, and in some countries it's vice versa. In the more democratic countries there isn't necessarily that much difference between the commercial and the state owned broadcasters.

BTW, right wingers across Europe love to hate state owned broadcasters if their hate-filled agenda is not being broadcast, and as one might expect it's not. The accusations of using state owned broadcasters for spreading left-wing agenda are endless. The Nazis won't be satisfied until they get to decide what's on tv. They are furious that in most democratic Euro countries pure propaganda channels like Fox News can never happen.

You may have noticed how the paid BBC trolls apart from R67 ('educationalist') have shut up now; they tried but failed but their strategy is not to engage tactically. They have so much money.

Is this another thread infested with that has-been Donkey-face Milo?

The BBC was good back in the old days when we had beneficent masters like Lord Reith and Lord Beveridge looking after us.

But it's no longer relevant in the Digital Age. We want to make our own choices and not be force-fed their increasingly flakey Woke, SJW propaganda.

r5 I remember that all too well when I was stationed in England, and lived off-base. There was also a meter to have gas for cooking, and for hot water in order to take a bath.

Just imagine you bought a washing machine, then you were required to pay a yearly fee for soap powder from the British Soap Conglomerate, when in fact you only use Zingo soap powder.

That's what the BBC is like, when you buy your TV.

[quote]Is this another thread infested with that has-been Donkey-face Milo?

Oh god, is she back?

The BBC uses sex to excite us about Cornwall miners and here they're flogging sex trying to excite us about kitchen cooking.

Look at this clip and tell me this woman isn't behaving like a trollop—

Does "over-75s" refer to people over 75 years of age? Again, the headline is very, very poorly worded.

R73, it never left.

I read this headline four times and still have no idea what it means.

Nothing about big black cocks, at any rate.

Even with the license fee and getting a cable tv package, it's still less expensive than cable tv in America

The title was invented to torture people who can read.

BBC and Ireland's RTE offer an excellent public broadcasting service with top notch reporting and drama production. While Irish TV has advertisements, it pales in comparison to the relentless advertising , hype and product placement that seems to get more airtime than the actual programming on US TV stations.

Is the OP written in English?

No one can decipher it —

I saw BBC and fury and I thought this was going to be a totally different type of thread.

Many of the American fawned over favorite "BBC programs" are not from the BBC at all; the license fee doesn't contribute to Downton Abbey, for instance.

[Quote]For your annual $207 you get 10 tv channels, about 59 different radio channels (a mix of national and local, covering everything from different music genres to spoken word, sport, children’s radio, minority languages and ethnic broadcasting), the BBC website with its wide-ranging news & current affairs, sport, weather, arts and food content, BBC apps, and the BBC World Service (which also used to be government funded, broadcasting hugely respected news and other content with many local language services - a bit like VoA), until the Tories decided they wouldn’t pay for that either. All free from advertising.

The amount of the fee doesn't seem so unreasonable, it's more the method of collecting that is a bit annoying, together with the cost of enforcing license fee payments and the attendant litigation.

Ten TV channels is not earth shatteringly generous. Everyone in Spain gets 34 channels free, 5 of them publicly owned (plus radio via TV.) VAT and income taxes cover the expense and while many people have some subscription service for additional channels there is no reason someone without money could not watch TV for free, at any age. Many other countries in Europe have some variation on this free plan.

Even as the BBC news quality has suffered and scandals about some nitwit presenter's huge and unwarranted salary pop up with regularity, it remains a mostly good value. But knowing it's a public sore point, I think the fee might be distributed a bit differently - allowing BBC to privitize and self-fund some of their channels and sharing some of the fee with other existing and new networks to develop new, non-commercial fare.

R14 Downton was produced by ITV, an advertiser-supported channel.

[quote]Everyone in Spain gets 34 channels free, 5 of them publicly owned

And? Everyone in the UK gets 85 channels free. The poster you're quoting was talking about ten channels which are funded by the licence fee.

[quote]allowing BBC to privitize and self-fund some of their channels and sharing some of the fee with other existing and new networks to develop new, non-commercial fare

Aww, you thought you had an original idea there, didn't you? Plans like that have been looked at and aren't popular or feasible. Commercial broadcasters don't want to produce non-commercial fare, as that just means they lose time which they could use to make profit. And privatising parts of the BBC is merely a thin-end-of-the-wedge type plan.

[quote]Some people in America has metered electric, just like in England. Not everyone has metered electric

EVERYONE in the US has "metered electric;" what they're talking about is coin-operated meters, which we don't have (at least I've never heard of or seen one.)

The UK has such a better deal than Americans have. They get all the good channels/programs that Americans get, plus the BBC channels and they don't have to pay an outrageous fortune like Americans do for TV

The same with other great shows. In America you have to have the channel what ever show is on. Not so in England. They don't have to have AMC, to watch Breaking Bad. It will be shown on one of their channels. Brits don't have to subscribe to cable and a few streaming channels and all this other nonsense to watch good shows

[quote] EVERYONE in the US has "metered electric;" what they're talking about is coin-operated meters, which we don't have (at least I've never heard of or seen one.)

Well, if you've never seen or heard of it, then it can't exist. Right? Because you know everything? Right?

Plenty of people have pre-pay or Pay As You Go electric. It's 2020, so they don't have to use coins in their meters, but they do have to top up their account for the electric to work. A lot of meters take credit cards. The people can also do it online, call the electric company, or make payments at certain businesses in town that take payments

Lots of people have these plans for various reasons, 1. they can't afford a deposit. 2. They have bad credit 3. They don't have I.D and/or a Social Security Number 4. their electric has been disconnected too many times for non-payment

I’m in the US and I would gladly pay $17 per month to access to all the BBC tv, news and radio over here. (BBC America is ridiculous). So figure out how to make it available to people outside the UK and cash crunch solved.

I remember when paying for cable meant you didn’t have to watch commercials. Now it just means that your movie won’t be interrupted by commercials. And with Spectrum, you can’t fast-forward through their OnDemand viewing of their TV shows.

r88 No on in the US has to pay a penny to watch over-the-air broadcast television, which is what the BBC is. In the US, the people are considered the owners of the airwaves, which is why the FCC grants broadcast licenses and regulates them.

Licensed TV programming tends to be more educational than sensationalized and mainstream bait for ratings. Because, duh! Commercial TV channels rely on ads to pay for their programming. And the more people view their programming the more they can ask companies to pay for airing their ads.

Rupert Murdoch fights hard against the licensed TV model, because he can't control public opinion in countries where viewers have alternative means of receiving news media content.

This is what you get, UK, when you elect Tories. You get FUCKED IN THE ASS.

And not in a good way.

That's exactly the same in the UK, R92, but with a state-owned broadcaster occupying one of the licences.

And coin operated electricity metres? Are some of you posting from 1970?

The TV licence is an outdated concept, when we only had a few channels (if that) and the BBC ruled, it's time to scrap it.

1970? I had coin op electricity in my bed-sit in Muswell Hill when I went to school in London in 1989. It was still quite common then.

[quote]The BBC are a bunch of hypocritical SJW ratbags.

Considering it became 24/7 Corbyn-bashing, you know you're a stupid motherfucker, right?

If anything, they're neocons.

r95 r71 here. You guessed correctly, I was there in '72-'73.

[quote]R97 I had coin op electricity in my bed-sit in Muswell Hill

Come visit my Mussywell Hill.

[italic](raises caftan)

Kudos to you, R97, for being willing to admit you lived in a bedsit with a coin meter.

I was a student. Lots of students live with it. Frankly, I loved the coin op meter. Inconvenient when the lights go out. A wee alarm would have been appreciated five minutes before darkness. But I loved not getting a bill every month to have to fuck with. And I couldn't believe how long 50p lasted.

50p? R102 is a show off. If you could afford 50p you were not of the metered class. A shilling max; mostly 6d. There's no tv meter so you have to pay the BBC the lump sum for the license to use your tv.

And they should be blasted for this move.

Happens in the US all the time, especially under the reign of King Donald and the Crumps.

Many European countries have yearly TV licenses. Some also have radio licenses as well.

It's extremely common - some of my fellow Americans need to get out of their own country once and awhile.

Do the BBC still have those funny little TV detector vans?

The licensing fee seems reasonable to me. I'm giving public TV $600 a year plus paying Comcast nearly $300 a month for cable and internet, so???

My grandfather who was from Canada said they never had TV licenses, but that they did have to have radio licenses, not per household, but per radio, until the 1950s.

R107 Those TV detector vans were a myth. No-one ever saw one, and, of course, the technology didn’t exist for them to be true.

R110 the BBC used to run commercials (not on their commercial-free channels) claiming that a detector van was "in your area." Said van was shown. Are you saying the BBC made the whole thing up, that they are liars?

R111 All BBC channels are ‘commercial-free’.

All British people will remember the detector van threat, but no-one has ever actually seen one in real life. Those videos were made by the government, not the BBC.

You think in the 70s the technology existed that a van could roam the streets and tell which house had a TV licence and who was watching TV without one?

They roamed the streets. There was a driver and a BBC licence official; the latter had the official list of licence payers and would knock on the door of unlisted premises detected as having a TV - the TV had to be in use. This was the truth according to the BBC and now you cavalierly call it a pack of lies.

[quote] All BBC channels are ‘commercial-free’.

No R112: BBC America has commercials.

R114 BBC America isn't relevant to the licence fee.

Relevant or not, BBC America has commercials. Get over it BBC troll.

Who was it who denied the existence of TV detector vans?

R92, you said ‘No on in the US has to pay a penny to watch over-the-air broadcast television, which is what the BBC is’.

Sure, but the BBC is free from advertising, and also free from the influence of Rupert Murdoch or any other rightwing shitbag, intent on subverting liberal democracy. It’s worth £13 ($17) a month, for the tv, radio and other content they provide. Plus all the archive material.

BBC America isn't even relevant to the BBC, let alone the license fee.

It looks like the "The Star Trek Channel" this week, with a smattering of Law & Order reruns thrown-in and a movie or two in the evening and a Blue Planet marathon on the weekend. Do they even run the half-hour BBC News program produced for America any longer. I see that on PBS.

I've read their "partner" AMC, determines the programming.

I like Channel 4 R118 and I don't have to pay a licence fee for it.

I like Channel 4 too, R120. .. And funny how my favorite show offered by the BBC right now is the Australian import, The Heights.

Channel 4 used to be great, but it's been on borrowed time since the commercial TV market became too fragmented to generate enough revenue to produce quality shows. It's been mostly reality and lifestyle crap for years now.

R120, that’s fine, but Channel 4 is full of adverts. The BBC is ad-free.

I rarely pay the licence. I don't usually pay because I used to get visits and threats from the BBC about having to pay, even though I didn't (for years) own a TV. I tried to explain that I didn't own a TV: waste of time; the visits and threatening letters continued. It was a form of harassment really, so fuck the BBC.

They were on Coronation Street (the vans) so they must be real.

The people who whine about the TV licence are basically the British version of America's "sovereign citizen" types. Except R124, who pretends to be both.

R124 Nice try, but no-one believes you.

Freeman on the land

Does anyone remember the Monty Python skit about the guy trying to get a license for his pet cat? The BBC license for a television was mentioned in the skit. The pet owner became so unhinged when he was talking about the detector vans going around, that the clerk said he'd set a looney detector van on the customer.

I've got the books that go along with the sketches, but naturally, I cannot locate them. I'm sure I will as soon as I've posted this.

No, R129 I do not recall. I do remember that Derek and Clive sent a letter addressed to, "Cunts, London," and it was "delivered straight to the BBC."

Honky Tonk: brought to you thanks to the licence fee.

The detector vans were a myth, sort of. They could not "detect" if you had a television, but inspectors did drive around residential areas looking for tv aerials on the roof or side of the building and then matching the address with their list of addresses who had paid their licence fees. Inspectors and technicians would also look to see if there were cables going into homes of cable tv subscribers, although it wasn't called "cable tv", but rather, "wired relay networks". ( Google Rediffusion. ) If inspectors discovered a Rediffusion line going into your home and there was no record of your licence fee, you'd be in trouble.

Rediffusion gave their customers the option of leasing television sets instead of buying them, much as you can rent cable convertors in America. I don't remember for sure, but I think if you rented your television set from Rediffusion, part of the rental fee was submitted to the government by Rediffusion for the licence on behalf of the customer.

I have a vague memory of that thing called Rediffusion on our tiny black and white screen.

We didn't know what it was. We thought it was pronounced Redder-fusion. It seems such an uncommercial name.

One thing about the BBC I will forever be grateful for is Radio 3. It is the only access I had to classical music. Going to concerts in person was rarely and option and borrowing CDs from the library was a joke. So even though the music is falsely considered elitist Radio 3 is often the only way poorer people outside of the capital could access it.

Rediffusion was just a way of delivering terrestrial TV and radio in areas with a weak signal. The company also made TVs and had an ITV franchise, but mostly it was the rudimentary cable TV.

Worst titled thread ever!

R136, late to the party, as usual.

r137, relevance does not end at your whim.

British Relay Television, a competitor for Rediffusion mentioned above. BRT collected the licence fee as part of its 'service'.

I hear that the tv licence was the straw that broke the ass's back for Meghan Markle. Nobody asked her what she thought of a tv license, so she picked up and moved to LA.

The bbc has issues for sure. But it is impartial. It has broken too may stories to mention. The anti-BBC trolls here out and out lying are actually disturbing to me. On a lighter note anyone watching Katy Keene? On iPlayer? Love it

Many*

R141 Why is it 'disturbing' to you?

Do you have an emotional OR financial stake in this comfortably-financed megalopolis taking money compulsorily from citizens who don't use it?

Gary Lineker - £1,750,000-£1,754,999. ... Chris Evans - £1,250,000-£1,254,999. ... Graham Norton - £610,000-£614,999. ... Huw Edwards - £490,000-£494,999. ... Steve Wright - £465,000-£469,999. ... Alan Shearer - £440,000-£444,999. ... Andrew Marr - £390,000-£394,999. ... Claudia Winkleman - £370,000-£374,999.

Go and read the daily mail. Is that where you get all your news? Conservative voter are we?