BBC licence fee poll.

[TTwiggy]

Randy Winkman said:

But they are free to go and work for other channels aren't they? Then, what does the BBC do?

At that point the cry of 'the BBC has lost all its talent! Why am I paying to watch a bunch of nobodies present programs?!?' would go up.

[Smiler.]

[AJL308]

TTwiggy said:

AJL308 said:

TTwiggy said:

AJL308 said:

TTwiggy said:

Who would have thought that appearing regularly on TV would attract a large salary? Next they'll be telling us that playing football for a Premier League team is quite well remunerated.

No one is surprised.

The discussion is about whether it's morally right that such huge salaries should be funded by the tax payer. Do try to keep up.

I wasn't aware that the 'tax payer' was funding them? The licence fee is a charge to have a licence to receive live broadcasts. Calling it a tax doesn't make it so.

Of course it's a tax. It's a tax on using television receiving equipment. Just like "Vehicle Excise Duty", or "Road Fund Licence" or whatever it's called this week is a TAX on using the roads - hence why it's referred to as road tax. Excise duty on alcohol and tobacco are taxes too.

Referring to it (erroneously) as a tax opens the door to disingenuous suggestions that the 'tax payer' is funding the BBC. We pay a fee for a licence to receive live broadcasts. That money is then used to provide us with the BBC. Most countries charge a licence fee, very few (if any) offer something as comprehensive in return as the BBC.

Nope, sorry but you are wrong. If the charge was a charge for watching the BBC and only the BBC you would be right.

It isn't though; read the relevant legislation, it's a TAX for installing or using television receiving equipment. Even if that equipment is physically incapable of receiving BBC channels you are still required to pay it by law.

Yes the charge is used to fund the BBC but it is still a tax on the use of a particular piece of equipment.

[TTwiggy]

AJL308 said:

Nope, sorry but you are wrong. If the charge was a charge for watching the BBC and only the BBC you would be right.

It isn't though; read the relevant legislation, it's a TAX for installing or using television receiving equipment. Even if that equipment is physically incapable of receiving BBC channels you are still required to pay it by law.

Yes the charge is used to fund the BBC but it is still a tax on the use of a particular piece of equipment.

I didn't claim that it was solely in place to fund the BBC. I simply noted that we get the BBC by way of a return on the charge levied. Is your issue with the fee or the BBC?

[kev1974]

Randy Winkman said:

kev1974 said:

Not sure why people that just read the news out a couple of days a week are getting half-million plus. Sure they could get plenty of people just as good at reading it out for £30k. And quite surprised that Claudia Winkleman is their highest paid woman, she's useless. Could also be replaced by, well almost anyone.

How much do such people get on other channels?

Who cares, all I know is reading out the news from an autocue could be done by any number of actors or public speakers with clear and reliable voices, that is pretty much the only requirement of the job; let the other channels that need to attract people in to watch adverts pay over the odds for "celebrity news readers" if they want, but there's no reason the BBC needs to.

[AJL308]

TTwiggy said:

AJL308 said:

Nope, sorry but you are wrong. If the charge was a charge for watching the BBC and only the BBC you would be right.

It isn't though; read the relevant legislation, it's a TAX for installing or using television receiving equipment. Even if that equipment is physically incapable of receiving BBC channels you are still required to pay it by law.

Yes the charge is used to fund the BBC but it is still a tax on the use of a particular piece of equipment.

I didn't claim that it was solely in place to fund the BBC. I simply noted that we get the BBC by way of a return on the charge levied. Is your issue with the fee or the BBC?

The whole point of the fee, and always has been, is to fund the BBC. That is its sole purpose and has been since its inception.

The issue we were discussing is whether or not the word "tax" is a correct description of it. It clearly is a tax and what it is actually used for is irrelevant. It is a legal requirement that you pay it in order to operate a specific piece of equipment. That fee goes to the state and is used to fund a public service - in this case the BBC - whether the payer actually uses said services or not.

Money paid to the government to fund public services provided through the state is a tax. Argue otherwise if you like but you will be wrong.

[Randy Winkman]

AJL308 said:

Randy Winkman said:

AJL308 said:

Randy Winkman said:

How much do such people get on other channels?

Irrelevant - they are working for the BBC not "other" channels.

But they are free to go and work for other channels aren't they? Then, what does the BBC do?

It gets other people? It encourages new talent?

Are you seriously suggesting that in a country of knocking on 70 million people the BBC needs to pay Jeremy Vine £700K a year for talking to people on the phone for a couple of hours a day? Really....he's the only person in the country who can do that specific job which justifies his £700k wage packet?

This all supposes that they all could get work at other channels. I suspect that many of them (most?) could not.

In that case why does any company pay high salaries? Banks, lawyers, stock-brokers? They could all just let their staff go and get some more.

[wc98]

bhstewie said:

Dan Walker's on there now fair enough I think he does the football stuff too but I bet he and Louise Minchin have a fun conversation tomorrow

talking of louise minchin, whatever she gets is worth it just for her pins

[chris watton]

Randy Winkman said:

In that case why does any company pay high salaries? Banks, lawyers, stock-brokers? They could all just let their staff go and get some more.

Yeah but, 'Any Company' is not forcing anyone who does not use their products into paying their keep, are they. We usually only buy products if we like or need them.

And working in the private sector, this tweet rings true:

" Laura Perrins @LPerrins


The most irritating thing about #BBCpay is how we pay 'the talent' 6 figures so they can lecture us all on how we are the greedy capitalists"

[V8 Fettler]

Licence fee needs to be scrapped. Let the free market prevail.

[anonymous-user]

turbobloke said:

La Liga said:

It's like some pseudo adult-cool to dislike the BBC.

It's misleading to (try to) reduce this to a matter of liking or not liking. It's not emotional it's rational.

The BBC has been pushing out left-liberal propaganda for many years in contravention of its duty to be impartial, its management is too often arrogant and incompetent, and the idea that people should have to perform administrative acrobatics to avoid funding something they may well prefer not to watch simply so they can watch other live broadcasts on devices capable of receiving them is little short of extortion.

Liking or otherwise has nothing to do with it. Liking an organisation means what anyway? I know two retired senior BBC staffers and they're both OK. They provide good company and have interesting tales to tell. Both have the freedom now to take a rational position that won't impact on their work / career / pension / peer reaction and they appreciate the same shortcomings (to put it mildly) as many others do.

I didn't say all those who dislike the BBC are irrational. My observation is there are many whom will parrot out anti-BBC sentiment in a band-wagon type way, as opposed to having a genuine, rational objection.

The BBC is often accused of being right / left, biased against Labour, biased against the Tories, biased against Scotland and Wales etc etc. The conclusion seems more related to the accuser's political leanings rather than grounded in reality or supported by substantial evidence. You can see the frequent angry topics on here when the BBC puts 'explosion' in a headline or other such rubbish people highlight.

Just so it's clear (even though it's pretty obvious), I am not saying everyone's conclusion about the BBC's political leanings / or lack of are related to their own political leanings / filters.

AJL308 said:

And, besides, how wonderful the BBC is is rather irrelevant in the context of people getting £700k+ as a journalist (and news readers aren't really that they just read from a script 99% of the time) or over a million to commentate and front sports programs.

The context of payment I never addressed or mentioned.

mybrainhurts said:

La Liga said:

mybrainhurts said:

Do stop blathering on. I stopped reading when you said pseudo adult cool. Strewth.

If you stopped at that point you wouldn't know what my point was.

Correct. I don't. I just spied a load of blather...

I will reflect on your feedback

[Halb]

The new airtime for adverts would glut the market and quality would plummet. The UK would end up with worse tv than 1980's USA.

[mybrainhurts]

Halb said:

The new airtime for adverts would glut the market and quality would plummet. The UK would end up with worse tv than 1980's USA.

I first heard that when we only had one commercial channel.

[Halb]

mybrainhurts said:

I first heard that when we only had one commercial channel.

And now we have loads, and most of them show repeats, imports or are full of low cost ste, so seems to be true. The Beeb have so much airtime (radio/TV) it would have a tsunami effect.

[Nothingtoseehere]

Halb said:

And now we have loads, and most of them show repeats, imports or are full of low cost ste, so seems to be true.

You've summed up the BBC perfectly now.
Plenty of repeats and low cost ste even on today.

[g4ry13]

Lineker's got it made. On TV for about an hour a week and does one award ceremony which equates to second highest paid.

It's ridiculous that the public have to fund such a politically biased organisation.

[steveatesh]

g4ry13 said:

Lineker's got it made. On TV for about an hour a week and does one award ceremony which equates to second highest paid.

It's ridiculous that the public have to fund such a politically biased organisation.

It's certainly an anachronism. When it started it was an unofficial arm of a patriarchal government, getting the message across to the population about what was expected of them.

Personally I can't see the need for a full time public service broadcaster in a supposedly free democratic society nowadays.

Tim Worstall made a good point (IMO) in an article on the Adam Smith Institute:


"The point being that there really are things that must be done and can only be done by government and the power to tax. Radio not being one of those of course. There's also a weaker argument that there's things it would be nice to have and where it's worth taxing the masses to produce a benefit to said masses. But what there isn't is a space for the argument that the proles must be taxed in order to provide something of only minority interest. For if something does not justify the costs then we should not be doing it. If producing "serious" radio costs more than can be gained from doing so then this is an activity which makes us all poorer.

The BBC licence fee is a tax of course. And we're really sorry to have to point this out but the point of mass taxation is not so as to provide sweeties for some small section of the metropolitan intelligentsia.

That not many people are interested in "serious" radio is an argument against the tax funding of it: that it doesn't, as claimed, cover the costs of its production is an argument against doing it at all, not in favour of taxing those who are uninterested in it."

In other words it's wrong to take money off poor people to pay for material that they would not watch or listen to but more wealthy people do.

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/media-culture/what-...

[BlackLabel]

I'm surprised that Andrew Neil and Laura Kuenssberg don't get paid more - they are never off the tv.

[AJL308]

V8 Fettler said:

Licence fee needs to be scrapped. Let the free market prevail.

Just watched some beardy BBC moron spokesperson on Newsnight trying to justify how their pay negotiations with 'talent' work. Almost every other word was "market rate", "commercial sector" or words to that effect. Sorry but, due to the unique way in which the BBC is funded, they can't fall back on those phrases.

The BBC is either state run or it is commercial. It can't be both at the same time.

[Glade]

This isn't new, but see also BBC executive pay...

Here by person:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/corporate2/insidethebbc/manag...

Here more generally... and interestingly for the public sector pay thread readers comparison of BBC, various public sector and private sector for pensions, salary etc... quite interesting

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/strategy/bb...