Letter from Red Ken

[expat]

Well, it is my money until it is stolen via taxation.

What is the BBC's 'real duty' if you don't mind me asking?

It is Britain's single most important cultural institution.

Those who don't believe there is such a thing as society (tm) or culture or Britain probably think it's a waste of "their" money.

[GeorgeGregan]

If the BBC didn't exist I doubt I'd bother having a TV. Just look at ITV, can you think of one programme worth watching?

You can put a topup TV card in a freeview box if you feel like paying for the extra channels. I don't see why you can't make the TV license optional in the same way - pay for it if it's useful to you but don't expect the rest of the country to subsidise the rubbish nobody wants to watch.

The TV license keeps going up but the amount of stuff I want to watch keeps going down - any decent sporting event (e.g. the Ashes), if I only watch that on sky I'm still expected to subsidise all the knobs who want to watch 5 different soaps and leftie TV.

[Bagpuss]

You can put a topup TV card in a freeview box if you feel like paying for the extra channels. I don't see why you can't make the TV license optional in the same way - pay for it if it's useful to you but don't expect the rest of the country to subsidise the rubbish nobody wants to watch.

The TV license keeps going up but the amount of stuff I want to watch keeps going down - any decent sporting event (e.g. the Ashes), if I only watch that on sky I'm still expected to subsidise all the knobs who want to watch 5 different soaps and leftie TV.

But, people do want to watch it, just look at the ratings
£131.50 for BBC1, 2 and all the freeview, all the radio and the excellent web content. Compared with over £300 for basic sky, which is fairly sh1t, you have to admit, apart from the sport which you pay extra for anyway.

Let's face it all you moaners would be subscribing anyway, albeit at a much higher rate.

PS 'Leftie TV', what decade are you living in Harold Angryperson?

[Lucy]

"It is Britain's single most important cultural institution."

[Lucy]

It is Britain's single most important cultural institution.

Those who don't believe there is such a thing as society (tm) or culture or Britain probably think it's a waste of "their" money.

But seriously, if it is so important, why do people have to be forced to pay for it ?

It is a sad day when the country that spawned Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Constable, Turner, Paolozzi etc considers a couple of TV and radio stations 'Britain's single most important cultural institution'.

The majority of the BBC's content is indistinguishable from much commercial content all over the world.

(Excluding the World Service as this is an instrument of Foreign Policy)

[BoredBloke]

Persoanlly I spend most of my time watching channels which are not the BBC. I do not often listen to BBC radio either as I tend to listen to planet rock in the car or my Yahoo Launchcast station when at work, instead of whatever cr@p they are pumping out of their stations.

I'm happy to pay the sky subscription because that is a matter of choice and it tends to offer me the programmes I want to watch, especially when combined with Sky+ Plus for my sky subscription I get loads of movie channels showing flms which are years away from the BBC. Yes it is expnsive, but nobody is forcing me to pay it are they.

The BBC are constantly telling us what value they are. I'd say for a couple of TV stations and the radio they are hugely expensive, especially when compared to what ITV and commercial radio does without a subscription or tax.

[Mailman]

2. It's not your taxes. Once paid, the money is not yours anymore.

Well actually the TV licence tax IS my money and its being wasted by the bbc on a daily basis!

Mailman

[Mailman]

What is the BBC's 'real duty' if you don't mind me asking?

Apparently their role is to spread anti-american paranoia and pro-terrorist propoganda around the world...all at the expense of us tv tax payers!

Who can ever forget baghdad raggie reporting live from downtown baghdad that the americans were no where to be seen in 2003, or that New Orleans was a ghost town (while cars and people were walking behind the reporter) OR...perhaps worst of all, broadcasting teleban propoganda!

THe real measure of quality would be those willing to pay for the beeb!

Mailman

[Bagpuss]

Apparently their role is to spread anti-american paranoia and pro-terrorist propoganda around the world...all at the expense of us tv tax payers!
Mailman

Do you REALLY believe this?

[expat]

But seriously, if it is so important, why do people have to be forced to pay for it ?

It is a sad day when the country that spawned Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Constable, Turner, Paolozzi etc considers a couple of TV and radio stations 'Britain's single most important cultural institution'.

A couple of TV and radio stations do not an important cultutal institution make; it is the productions that the BBC bring about, that commercial TV would not, that are what make it so.

I am not suggesting that the BBC is all of British culture. And indeed, if I could only have either Shakespear or the BBC, I'd take Shakespeare. But he's not an institution, he's an artist. I do think the country is in a sad way with what remains of its culture, but the BBC, at least on its good days, is a light in this darkness, not a greater darkness.