The Lemon Fool

richfool wrote:Wouldn't it be simpler if the BBC started showing adverts and funded itself, and let the rest of us get on with our lives, without the TV licence which amounts to yet another tax. It could then pay its presenters what it could afford to, like any other business. I resent it using my money to overpay its staff, and to support its biased programmes...

Apart from anything else...

Why is a non transparent method of paying for the BBC, via the purchase price of products being advertised, mysteriously better than being taxed transparently for watching BBC programmes?

richfool wrote:...not to mention its agents harassing the public (at further expense) who may have chosen not to have a TV .

Then they don't pay the TV licence, do they? Unlike those who have chosen not to have TVs, who still have to pay for TV advertising costs.

XFool wrote:

richfool wrote:Wouldn't it be simpler if the BBC started showing adverts and funded itself, and let the rest of us get on with our lives, without the TV licence which amounts to yet another tax. It could then pay its presenters what it could afford to, like any other business. I resent it using my money to overpay its staff, and to support its biased programmes...

Apart from anything else...

Why is a non transparent method of paying for the BBC, via the purchase price of products being advertised, mysteriously better than being taxed transparently for watching BBC programmes?

richfool wrote:...not to mention its agents harassing the public (at further expense) who may have chosen not to have a TV .

Then they don't pay the TV licence, do they? Unlike those who have chosen not to have TVs, who still have to pay for TV advertising costs.

No, they don't and indeed they shouldn't, but that doesn't stop the NTVLRO (if that is what they are still called) from sending harassing and threatening letters to the occupier, even going as far as telling them what will happen in Court, - all when the occupier doesn't have a TV, nor need a license, or its an unoccupied premises.

Crikey, thought I was in Bitter Lemons, but it seems I'm LoSt.
Spelling's got worse too.
Don't feed the troll!

A more relevant question:

Why is the BBC showing football, and paying market rates for some pundit?
Surely this is something that can be left to commercially funded TV....

TUK020 wrote:A more relevant question:
Why is the BBC showing football, and paying market rates for some pundit?
Surely this is something that can be left to commercially funded TV....

I think that football is of significant interest to a sizeable fraction of the populace (who are paying for the BBC service), and hence seems an entirely legitimate part of the BBC programming. As to paying for the pundit, I have never noticed any BBC presenter leaving to join our commercially funded services for a reduction in salary. So although I may think the pundits are overpaid, I suspect the free market would think otherwise. Yes - I certainly do get grumpy at the size of salaries paid to "star" presenters - but it would certainly not disappear with the demise of the BBC. Incidentally, it appears that the government is about to remove my free TV licence, and there seems to be some persons being so confused as to blame the BBC. Maybe the next ploy will be to remove our bus passes, and blame it on the bus companies. Or maybe they can get people so confused that they actually believe that Boris or Corbyn is fit to be a PM.
(with apologies to the moderator for the last part - but I'm trying hard to avoid the UK heading for a political nervous breakdown as feared by the former head of MI6, and I'm most certainly grumpy about the possibility)

TUK020 wrote:A more relevant question:

Why is the BBC showing football, and paying market rates for some pundit?
Surely this is something that can be left to commercially funded TV....

They aren't being paid market rates. Shearer is paid less than £500k for doing the same job Gary Neville does for about £1.5m for Sky.

Lineker is paid about £3m per annum by BT and about £1.75m pa by the BBC.

I have no idea, and have no way of finding out, what the hours commitment is for each job.

DM

On further reflection, there is a moderately acceptable libertarian workaround solution to the BBC tax.

With Amazon Prime or Netflix there is probably more content than is healthy to watch.

No need for the odious TV license.

No need to the increasingly baked-not-fried Gary Lehneger (peerless crisp-flogger and flagging micro-blogger).

It’s better than acquiescing to the TV licensing goons.

richfool wrote:I think all TV presenters earning over £400K are overpaid.

Obscene salaries.

Sure thing. Just like the "obscene salaries" paid to football stars. Just like the "obscene salaries" paid to company directors - by, in effect, other company directors!

But this is the norm now in the current model of our form of capitalistic, market economy. I really do wonder just how many here foaming at the mouth about the 'egregious BBC' are opposed to that

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Dod101 wrote:O and here's an idea. Why not cut the licence fee for everyone including the over 75s, except for those on benefits? Tell the BBC that they will need to live with that. The more money they have the more they will spend. It is human nature.

Dod

"Except for those on benefits" is utterly wrong: it leads to all kinds of poverty traps where cascading benefits cause a £1 rise in income to cost £1000 (or sometimes much more) in loss of benefits. As in my own situation as recently as 2003, when an income of £3000 lost me a would-be benefits package of £8000 (the majority of which would've been the local level of housing benefit) compared to sitting at home doing nothing but claim benefits.

(Since experiencing that I have sympathy for those who refuse to take low-paying work, or fail to declare it).

Just read that there has been a sudden increase in the number of applicants for 'benefits' amongst the over 75s, so that they can avoid paying the the licence fee. The Law of Unintended Consequences again in action.

I meant to say so earlier but the free licence is only for those over 75 and not many of those will be earning in paid employment I would imagine so your point is unlikely to arise.

Dod

Dod101 wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:

Dod101 wrote:O and here's an idea. Why not cut the licence fee for everyone including the over 75s, except for those on benefits? Tell the BBC that they will need to live with that. The more money they have the more they will spend. It is human nature.

Dod

"Except for those on benefits" is utterly wrong: it leads to all kinds of poverty traps where cascading benefits cause a £1 rise in income to cost £1000 (or sometimes much more) in loss of benefits. As in my own situation as recently as 2003, when an income of £3000 lost me a would-be benefits package of £8000 (the majority of which would've been the local level of housing benefit) compared to sitting at home doing nothing but claim benefits.

(Since experiencing that I have sympathy for those who refuse to take low-paying work, or fail to declare it).

Just read that there has been a sudden increase in the number of applicants for 'benefits' amongst the over 75s, so that they can avoid paying the the licence fee. The Law of Unintended Consequences again in action.

Sounds plausible. Except, why would you suppose it unintentional? The BBC campaigns constantly for more benefits, and for all those eligible to claim them.

I meant to say so earlier but the free licence is only for those over 75 and not many of those will be earning in paid employment I would imagine so your point is unlikely to arise.
Dod

On the contrary. The £1 income that makes the difference between eligible benefits and no benefits now costs an old person at least the cost of a TV licence. Potentially thousands if other benefits are similarly linked to "being on benefits".

Of course none of that affects old people who have enough to get by and whose dignity is greater than their sense of Entitlement.