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Tv licences

Started by wooders1978, February 02, 2019, 07:04:08 AM

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DrGreggles

Quote from: Malcy on February 02, 2019, 12:58:29 PM
I dont get a TV signal in my house but that doesnt matter. Even if you have a smartphone you have to pay it.

They have to PROVE that you as an individual are accessing content and therefore require a licence at that address. Just having a device that could be used to watch TV is irrelevant.

Don't give them your name (even if it's one they already have on record), just tell them that you do not require a TV licence at your address and ignore all the subsequent letters.

Sony Walkman Prophecies

The BBC was always best at making documentaries, even better than the Americans, who rule all aspects of TV but for some reason can't churn out a piece of reportage about anything without going into sentimentality overdrive.

9/10 I watch a documentary on the Beeb these days, it's a civil servant doing some fairly innocuous stuff while some pizzicato strings pluck away and a voice over goes "Today is David's big day in the office. He has a presentation to make. But he's forgotten to set his alarm". It's not about telling a story or setting the record straight, it's just about making everything appear faintly ridiculous. As if life was a play put on by Tony Hancock and the little gay one from the Carry On films.

Alongside the aggressive formatting, all of their art presenters seem to be chummy gestalts of received opinion these days, and most of their natural history stuff is just comedians in the undergrowth going "Cor" and snapping pictures of large-eyed things in trees on their smart phones. We're not even hiring journalists at this point. It's simply about finding a familiar face who make all the expected noises. Really, why even bother exploring the world outside light entertainment at all?

It's not very good, and hard to justify paying hard cash for when you can get just the same sort of fare on Netflix these days for a fraction of the price.


Malcy


Crisps?

Quote from: Malcy on February 02, 2019, 12:58:29 PM
I dont get a TV signal in my house but that doesnt matter. Even if you have a smartphone you have to pay it. I'm just going to say i dont consume BBC content when in fact it's the majority of what i watch/listen to.

My experience of a visit from a BBC Gestapo camp commandant was he looked in the front room, saw there was no TV and said I wouldn't be contacted again for two years. And I wasn't. So if you genuinely have no TV/signal/aerial, you're probably better off just letting the guy see for himself (in the front/main room only), rather than going all Waco freeman of the land as some people suggest.

I personally wouldn't be bothered about giving my name either (I think I did); refusing just seems weird and defensive and marks you out as warranting further attention.

Similarly, I also wouldn't say you don't watch BBC or live TV or whatever, because that just sounds like you've researched TVL evasion stuff. If you say anything, just say you're not into TV, more into games or whatever, or that you're not in much.

olliebean

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on February 02, 2019, 10:25:35 AMStill, for Inside No.9, Who and Vic and Bob alone I don't mind paying, and it makes me feel less guilty about all of the tv I torrent.

Really? You don't begrudge paying for the last series of Who?

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Paul Calf on February 02, 2019, 07:08:00 AM
No. I'm not sure how you can be a comedy fan who decides that you're never going to watch anything on the BBC ever again.

tut tut tut tut

hermitical

My better half got increasingly frustrated with the letters, after initially notifying them as requested the letters kept coming so she started scrawling on them - reminding them to leave us alone. They reached a peak of warning/threateningness before there was a pause, then I think a few months later they started the cycle again with the gentle letters.

Iirc they ended sending someone around at our new place, we explained the situation (not had a TV for about 10 years etc) and that was that for a couple of years. The iPlayer wasn't part of it by that point. Once you had to register I stopped using it. I think we've recently got the first in a new round of letters.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Sony Walkman Prophecies on February 02, 2019, 01:19:26 PM
The BBC was always best at making documentaries, even better than the Americans, who rule all aspects of TV but for some reason can't churn out a piece of reportage about anything without going into sentimentality overdrive.

9/10 I watch a documentary on the Beeb these days, it's a civil servant doing some fairly innocuous stuff while some pizzicato strings pluck away and a voice over goes "Today is David's big day in the office. He has a presentation to make. But he's forgotten to set his alarm". It's not about telling a story or setting the record straight, it's just about making everything appear faintly ridiculous. As if life was a play put on by Tony Hancock and the little gay one from the Carry On films.

Alongside the aggressive formatting, all of their art presenters seem to be chummy gestalts of received opinion these days, and most of their natural history stuff is just comedians in the undergrowth going "Cor" and snapping pictures of large-eyed things in trees on their smart phones. We're not even hiring journalists at this point. It's simply about finding a familiar face who make all the expected noises. Really, why even bother exploring the world outside light entertainment at all?

It's not very good, and hard to justify paying hard cash for when you can get just the same sort of fare on Netflix these days for a fraction of the price.

Well said, sir, well said.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: hermitical on February 02, 2019, 03:28:55 PM
My better half got increasingly frustrated with the letters, after initially notifying them as requested the letters kept coming so she started scrawling on them - reminding them to leave us alone. They reached a peak of warning/threateningness before there was a pause, then I think a few months later they started the cycle again with the gentle letters.

Iirc they ended sending someone around at our new place, we explained the situation (not had a TV for about 10 years etc) and that was that for a couple of years. The iPlayer wasn't part of it by that point. Once you had to register I stopped using it. I think we've recently got the first in a new round of letters.

The cost of sending those letters? 154 quid.

Sebastian Cobb

The TV licencing people (who aren't actually part of the beeb) are a bunch of toothless wankers who y use scare tactics to get people to stump up. I'd recommend not helping them and letting them waste their time posting countless letters of an inspector turns up tell them to get bent.

shiftwork2

Capita were selected in order to turn the public against the licence fee and the BBC in general, probably.

I visited TV Centre a while back and saw some proper luxury spending in the lobby area, orange designer chairs that cost a reputed grand a piece.  Imagine seven pensioners taking their pennies to the post office to pay for one of those.  In the snow.

I still think we'd say goodbye to something decent that we'd never get back if we lost the beeb.  So I pay the licence fee.

BlodwynPig

Quote from: shiftwork2 on February 02, 2019, 04:36:17 PM
Capita were selected in order to turn the public against the licence fee and the BBC in general, probably.

I visited TV Centre a while back and saw some proper luxury spending in the lobby area, orange designer chairs that cost a reputed grand a piece.  Imagine seven pensioners taking their pennies to the post office to pay for one of those.  In the snow.

I still think we'd say goodbye to something decent that we'd never get back if we lost the beeb.  So I pay the licence fee.

A sidenote: why are pensioners the same pensioners you saw when you were a kid?

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Paul Calf on February 02, 2019, 11:58:51 AM
No, that's fine. If you want to pirate content, I don't give a fuck; I'll even point you towards some DRM-removal software that might help you. But presenting pirating as a morally superior act to paying for the TV licence that pays for the stuff you like is a bit of a dead end.

And please stop saying 'moral midgetry'? It's not clever and is quite unpleasant if you think about it.

Maybe stop engaging in it, as you were in the exchange prior to ours, then you'll read it less.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: olliebean on February 02, 2019, 03:14:41 PM
Really? You don't begrudge paying for the last series of Who?

Well it had a lot of issues but there were about four episodes I enjoyed, and hopefully after next year Chibnall will fuck off and it'll become  a far better show.

thraxx


If you are reading this, then you are reading content that has a licence fee payable at 50p a character including spaces         . An investigation has been started against you, you need to pay what you owe and an officer will visit you soon. Settle your debt here: www.thraxxcash.com, or you'll get fucked up, seriously, like with hammers and that.

mothman

Quote from: shiftwork2 on February 02, 2019, 04:36:17 PM
I still think we'd say goodbye to something decent that we'd never get back if we lost the beeb.  So I pay the licence fee.

Exactly. The Beeb are nowhere near their best right now, but like the UN it's what they represent, what they aspire to. With all the problems - that many here have cited - I can quite easily foresee there could conceivably come a point when even I agree the game isn't really worth the candle anymore. That'll be a sad day, but TBH I think before it happens some future government will implement that one last shafting that will to all intents and purposes take the Corporation out behind the woodpile.

Quote from: BlodwynPig on February 02, 2019, 05:30:08 PM
A sidenote: why are pensioners the same pensioners you saw when you were a kid?

That's probably a whole thread of its own, but yeah. You look at these people and, they must have come of age in the 60s - so why are they dressing like they're 30 years oldeer than they actually are?

BlodwynPig

I expect to see today's 20 something hipsters in blue rinse, camel hued long coats and Nora Batty tights and shoes in 40 years time.

Cuellar

Ubi sunt Johannes Caramel

Paul Calf

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on February 02, 2019, 05:58:20 PM
Maybe stop engaging in it, as you were in the exchange prior to ours, then you'll read it less.

Are you really this pompous or is this a clever joke that I've failed to understand?

touchingcloth

Sounds like vile BBC licensing goon is back goon.

Dropshadow

Quote from: Paul Calf on February 02, 2019, 11:58:51 AM
But presenting pirating as a morally superior act to paying for the TV licence that pays for the stuff you like is a bit of a dead end.

And please stop saying 'moral midgetry'? It's not clever and is quite unpleasant if you think about it.

I think pirating is a morally superior act to paying for the TV licence that pays for the stuff I like. Oh, and 'moral midgetry'!

Don't pay into their protection racket, folks!

Ferris

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on February 02, 2019, 11:26:41 AM
In the case of Spotify, I'm sure that must've changed now as I know people who have self-released to it. One of them shouldn't have because strictly speaking the rights belong to some old label that grifted them. I imagine they got their arse in gear once people like Bandcamp cropped up.

I just checked and I still have a few records up on Spotify. I'm not paying them and I doubt the label is either. Been a decade lads, time to move on. Maybe one day I'll check and someone somewhere will have noticed the error (?) and they'll be taken down.

Re: tv license, I was googling this the other day as it happens - some people get militant about not paying. They write letters removing implicit right of passage onto property and all sorts. Surely you just tell them to fuck off, or buy a b&w license for 50 quid and change your telly to monochrome if the TV heavies come knocking.

I always bought one (I think) because for all it's faults, the beeb is still great and if it goes it isn't coming back. Mind you I just stream everything. Does the beeb do a Netflix style subscription service? I'd probably get it in Canada if so.

God I'm tired.

St_Eddie

Quote from: touchingcloth on February 02, 2019, 08:03:10 PM
Sounds like vile BBC licensing goon is back goon.

Mate.

That's racist.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: Paul Calf on February 02, 2019, 07:20:15 PM
Are you really this pompous or is this a clever joke that I've failed to understand?

Take a moment to breathe in and reflect on the mental gymnastics here. Man is called a moral midget after engaging in moral midgetry (which naturally involves a level of petty pomposity) then reacts by calling that person pompous.

I think in this case it takes one to know one.

Sherman Krank


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Sherman Krank on February 03, 2019, 01:17:03 PM


Are you proud of this?

Do you think it's representative as some of your best work?

thenoise

The great things the BBC do could be paid for by a fraction of the price. It costs as much as it does because they insist on competing with commercial TV, and producing the kind of content that is better suited to commercial TV.

Why pay some cunt millions when a commercial channel would pay them almost as much? Nurture new talent, pay a fair rate and cater to niche interests that the commercial channels wouldn't touch. This could be done for a fraction of the price.

I don't currently pay or own a TV, I buy Attenborough documentaries and the odd comedy on DVD/Blu  when they come out. I buy lots of archive TV from places like the BFI and Network. I would happily pay a few quid for the odd episode of WILTY/Vic and Bob I watch on youtube but fucked if I'm paying hundreds for it.

I used to love Radio 4 but it's all gone a bit Brexit lately.

Sherman Krank

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on February 03, 2019, 01:22:56 PM
Are you proud of this?
Not particularly, it pretty much wrote itself.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on February 03, 2019, 01:22:56 PM
Do you think it's representative as some of your best work?
Not for me to pass judgement on.





Any more questions?





How about a point? You got any of those knocking about?



Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Sherman Krank on February 03, 2019, 02:13:47 PM
How about a point? You got any of those knocking about?

*points at crotch*