Friday 10 October 2014

I'm wondering...

How long the BBC can keep on making decent programmes, when so many people are giving up their licence to watch catch up TV, on the iPlayer etc.

The BBC have had a freeze on their licence for some years now and as they rely on most of the fee to give them the money to make programmes, will they be able to keep up!

Here is an extract from their web site:

"The fee you pay provides a wide range of TV, radio and on-line content, as well as developing new ways to deliver it to you. All of this content – and the television channels, radio stations and on-line spaces where audiences can find it – is paid for by the licence fee, allowing BBC's UK services to remain free of advertisements and independent of shareholder and political interest. The Government has now frozen the fee at £145.50 until the end of the current BBC Charter period in 2016."

I can thoroughly understand people trying to save money, as until the Government put a stop to it, the licence was rising every year. Our internet reception, despite being broadband, is not over quick. As such, we would find it difficult some of the time to watch TV this way, much preferring to either watch live, or record as it is being transmitted. Also, the quality is far better. Even HD on the iPlayer is not as good as HD on the TV.

When you divide the fee by 365 days, it works out at just under 40p per day. I have no idea how much it will rise after 2016 but at the moment, other than reading a library book which is free, I can't think of many forms of entertainment that works out at less than 40p per day.

I guess you pays your money and takes your chance as they say!

Welcome to Rosemary via Bloglovin. Have a lovely weekend everyone.

18 comments:

  1. We dont watch that much tv and its never on before 6pm, we usually put it on for the news, sometimes its on all evening and sometimes we switch it off, depends if there is something we want to watch. But, I wouldn't want to be without one just to save on paying the Licence Fee. We pay ours monthly along with the rest of the direct debits then just forget about it. Breaking it down to 40p per day seems good value to me.

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    1. We pay ours monthly as well, doesn't seem so bad that way!

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  2. I wouldn't be without a tv, its good value cheap entertainment.

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    1. Same here although I watch it more than DB.

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  3. Luckily Tom has reached the age when we get a free tv licence but we've only had a tv since the Olympics. If it went wrong I don't think we'd bother to get another. We do jigsaws, read, crochet. Tom loves tapestry and you can listen to the radio doing these things but I can understand some people love watching and would miss it.
    Briony
    x

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    1. DB also loves to do tapestry but not in the evening. He happily listens to his music with headphones on (or else watches something off the internet). I keep busy during the day but in the evening I like to watch tv. No rubbish though and boy, is there a lot of that on some channels!

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  4. If it wasn't for DD15, I think I would give up on having "live" telly nowadays. It was on almost constantly whilst the FH was ill, and he watched all his favourite programmes, and we had a free licence too as he was over 75, but now that I am going to have to pay for it this month, when it has to be renewed, I did think twice. I have watched the Bake off, and I am watching Downton Abbey, but I hardly have it on these days, and could easily watch those other ways. Probably when DD15 leaves for uni, I may well stop it then. Its an interesting debate, and has many points on each side.

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    1. If you have lots of other things to do or listen/play with, then maybe it isn't needed.

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  5. We pay our licence fee monthly, and we also have pay tv, which, since renegotiating our package ( I do it every year), costs less than £5 per week. It's a cheap source of entertainment for us. We don't drink, smoke, go to the cinema or for meals out and we don't have pets, so paying the licence fee and for the pay tv is our 'splurge'.

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    1. We record loads of films and watch them at those times of year when not much else is on.

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  6. We never watch TV during the day and generally sit down about 7.30. Quite often its on but one or the other of us has always got our heads in a book or paper and have the occasional glance, unless it's one of our favourite programmes. There are quite a few on at the moment. However I would miss the TV if we didn't have it. It's just a nice to have on in the background. Have a great weekend DC.

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    1. Will do! Wouldn't want to be without it if possible.

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  7. My TV hasn't been on this week but that's nothing unusual. However I wouldn't want to be without it. BBC.co.uk is one of my favourite websites and I think the BBC is a great asset which has to be paid for somehow. I suspect that the licence has just about had its day and it may be that Auntie has to be paid for by some sort of government grant. Until then my monthly direct debit will continue to be paid willingly.

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    1. I'm hoping come 2016 that the price won't rise too much.

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  8. I wrote about paying the licence fee a couple of posts back. I think the fee is worth it and find the BBC programs, on the whole, of better quality, as you say "decent programs". I would hate to think that all the programs were from commercial stations.
    Gill

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    1. We do watch some good programmes from the commercial sides but some of the stations are awful.

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  9. I'm probably one of the few people who would be quite happy for the Beeb to show adverts if it meant them ditching the licence fee. In these days when so many people have cable or satellite TV I resent having to pay over £12 a month just to own a TV set...and you can't watch any programmes on a TV set unless you have a licence, you even get asked for you address when you buy a new TV so that they can ckeck on you. There are some things I like to watch on the BBC channels but there's also a whole lot of rubbish just like on any other channel. Besides, the occasional advert during a show gives me a chance to make a cuppa or nip to the loo.

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    1. We hate the adverts, preferring to record advert channels then whizz through them. Just hope the fee doesn't increase too much in 2016.

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