Will the TV Licence Abolished?

The British TV licence is a special tax paid by everybody who owns a television set in the United Kingdom and its dependencies, the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. The revenue from this tax is used to fund BBC television and radio services. Every TV set owner must pay by law regardless of whether the viewer ever watches the BBC. There have even been cases of people in remote regions where they cannot receive the BBC signal being forced to pay nonetheless. The current fee is £154.50 per annum. For a long time there have been calls to take a second look at this funding model and finally there is a serious plan to do so. This has, I'm sure, been spurred on by the practical as well as the ethical issues at stake, like that fact that there is a backlog of licence evasion cases in the courts stretching for years. At one point, up to ten percent of magistrate hearings were concerning TV licences that were unpaid or in gross arrears. In 2014 it was announced that TV licence non-payment would be reduced from a criminal to a civil offence, which was probably simply because the courts can't cope with it, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/03/tv-licence-change-in-law.html. Last year it was announced that people aged over seventy-five would no longer be eligible for the licence and part of Boris Johnson's election campaign was to decriminalize evasion. The government have gone further since the election by announcing that they are going to review the very existence of the TV licence. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/boris-johnson-looking-at-abolishing-tv-licence-fee-for-bbc.

I would be delighted if the licence fee were axed. It is morally questionable even if the BBC were producing quality material, and they are not. The BBC's programming includes some of the most boring, disgusting, depressing, frightening and confusing publications I've ever seen. I hardly ever watch it because some of it is unbearably toxic. As far as I am concerned, the TV licence is the people being made to forge our own shackles. Some people are scared that without the licence the BBC will cease to exist, such as the former news reporter Martin Bell, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Leo5Ck7i4F0. He shouldn't worry; the BBC will still endure. For me, that's a bad thing and I would much prefer it to be destroyed, but it will not. It will continue under a different system. This could mean total privatization in which case it would earn money by advertizing in the same way ITV does. Alternatively it could become semi-private and apply for government subsidies or a National Lottery grant. It will be able to keep its name "BBC". This will probably be a trademark. It might end up being a subscription service like Sky or Netflix. People therefore choose whether they want to put their hands in their pockets to be propagandized or not. The BBC themselves are obviously terrified of this because they know very well that very few people would subscribe. It would mean that for the first time ever they would be forced to produce programmes that people actually want to watch. For too long the BBC have been arrogantly wallowing in their lemonade stand ivory tower, knowing that they can do whatever they like because the viewer was forced to fork out whether they wanted to or not, or even whether they watched or not. This could be the impetus for a huge improvement at the corporation, however I find that unlikely. I'm not even going to bring up the sex abuse allegations and Jimmy Savile etc. I hope the un-British Brainwashing Cartel falls apart and we never see or hear anything from it again.

See here for background: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-bbc-and-mind-control.html.

And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-tv-licence-is-dead.html.

And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/02/alfie-returns-to-tavistockenders.html.

And: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2015/10/my-trip-to-bbc.html.