Our international broadcaster

[vetran]

Scrap the TV Licence and make it a subscription service.

well stupidly they declined to support encryption on Freeview / freesat as standard so it will be very difficult to retrofit.

[AtW]

Scrap the TV Licence and make it a subscription service.

They'll lost 90% of revenues that way.

[Flashman]

Scrap the TV Licence and make it a subscription service.

[TykeMerc]

I'm not surprised at all.

Mind you I have no sympathy for the BBC, they've held the UK to ransom for decades with their licence fee, enforcement and an astonishing arrogance.
It's only recently that they've been forced to recognise that there's a much larger real world which they have to deal with and they're actually a very small fish in a really large pond.

[expat]

I have a Swiss friend living in Scotland who watches Swiss TV. He has to pay his Swiss licence, and indeed he has to be Swiss; the logical reasoning is that a Swiss abroad is still part of the Swiss nation.

By contrast a Brit abroad who obeys the rules can find that he can vote in British elections but not watch the TV news.

[vetran]

It's the BBC's own fault. They pushed Freeview and Freesat as free unencrypted services because they knew that way it'd be far harder for anyone to force them to become a subscription service in the future. As a result you get people all over Europe watching the BBC for free on satellite, and because iPlayer doesn't require any kind of logon either anyone directly or indirectly with a UK IP Address can watch that too.

Indeed however I suspect within a few years they will be forced to encrypt it.

[VectraMan]

It's the BBC's own fault. They pushed Freeview and Freesat as free unencrypted services because they knew that way it'd be far harder for anyone to force them to become a subscription service in the future. As a result you get people all over Europe watching the BBC for free on satellite, and because iPlayer doesn't require any kind of logon either anyone directly or indirectly with a UK IP Address can watch that too.

[SimonMac]

I'd have thought all the people with satellite dishes are more of a problem.

If you live abroad, can you pay for a TV licence even if you want to? I don't think you can.

Yeah pretty much everyone where we are in Spain has a great big dish to pick up the freesat channels, including the BBC, of course I justify it by saying I have a TV Licence for the house in the UK, but I have also in the past torrented TV shows from the US so I am not sure I am a good moral compass.

[VectraMan]

I'd have thought all the people with satellite dishes are more of a problem.

If you live abroad, can you pay for a TV licence even if you want to? I don't think you can.

[TheFaQQer]

is anyone surprised?

That people use a VPN to access content that's not generally available to that country - no.

Same way that people access hulu et al to view things that they want to see.

[vetran]

UK Proxies to get on iplayer are widely available and companies that offer them don't make any effort to hide what they are used for.

They should do what sky do, you get 2 logins if you have a licence any more cost.

Indeed. Though I would set it at 5 logins.

[minestrone]

I'm not too sure about that, it can only be people going through a VPN or one of those 'change your IP address to an UK one' because I can't get it, in fact anyone who doesn't have an UK IP address will get:

Is this the Daily Xenophobic making things up again or distoring the facts?

UK Proxies to get on iplayer are widely available and companies that offer them don't make any effort to hide what they are used for.

They should do what sky do, you get 2 logins if you have a licence any more cost.

[darmstadt]

Overseas viewers cash in on BBC shows on the iPlayer | Daily Mail Online



is anyone surprised?

roll on iPlayer licence.

I'm not too sure about that, it can only be people going through a VPN or one of those 'change your IP address to an UK one' because I can't get it, in fact anyone who doesn't have an UK IP address will get:

BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only.

Is this the Daily Xenophobic making things up again or distoring the facts?

[vetran]

Overseas viewers cash in on BBC shows on the iPlayer | Daily Mail Online

Overseas viewers cash in on BBC shows on the iPlayer: Around 112million people from outside Britain tuned in last year despite making no contribution to the corporation
Almost twice as many people watch iPlayer outside the UK as inside it
But those watchign abroad do not pay for the service through TV licence
Around 112million people use the website every month around the world
Figure is nearly twice the 64.5 million population of Britain, where majority of households are obliged to buy a television licence for £145.50 a year

is anyone surprised?

roll on iPlayer licence.