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Comment by lqet | Hacker News Reader

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege.

I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. When I was a freshman student 10 years ago, things were a little bit different: an inspector (the "GEZ man") came by my apartment a few months after I moved in. He wanted to have a look inside. I declined. He came back a few times, but I didn't open the door. I never paid the fee (and I didn't have to, because I received BAföG [1]). Even if I would have had to, there was just no way for them to prove I was actually owning a television. Here, those "detector vans" have been an urban legend for 60 years. I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they never existed and where basically "created" to fear people into paying the fees.

[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkabgabe

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesausbildungsf%C3%B6rderun...

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At least in the UK there is content on TV worthy of watching (I got addicted to snooker while there, also some quite interesting shows like "Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole"), also, when I moved overseas they paid back the licence fee for the remaining part of the year, no questions asked.

Now I'm in Austria and the "content" on TV channels is just ridiculous. Targeted at 70+ pensioners, but why should I pay for their entertainment...

BBC is awesome, their news is very good and they produce some of the best series in the world. It's a shame that they have split up BBC UK and BBC International so strictly and do everything they can to lock all BBC UK offerings to citizens of the UK. It infuriates me that I'm redirected from bbc.co.uk to bbc.com and are being displayed something else than people in the UK. If I go to bbc.co.uk, I do that to find out what Brits are seeing.

My girlfriend would gladly pay for being able to access BBC UK series, but that's apparently impossible. They've made some horrible contracts with BBC International that seem to prohibit that. It makes no sense that she has to resort to illegal streaming even though she'd love to be a paying customer.

Another problem is also that BBC International creates and distributes US productions that are far below their normal standards. So if you're looking for BBC nature documentaries, for instance, you have to manually sort out all those trashy international productions that are like National Geographic commercials. As I've said, it's a shame.

Re BBC nature documentaries

That's interesting what you have to say about international vs domestic documentaries. Could you give an example of either group?

I mean, I appreciate the BBC documentaries that I've seen for their high production quality and photography, innovative CGI and all, and I think they inspired and pushed the limits and budgets for TV documentaries worldwide. But personally, I prefer old-school quiet and scientific documentaries having extended interviews with leading scientist of a field and generally are about a scientific discourse rather than CGI-heavy interpretations of historic, cosmic, or paleo events; you know the kind where dinosaurs look up to an approaching meteorite in sorrow, or idk Alexander the Great is portrayed as a vulgar commander yelling at his men, with lots of made-up ethno kitsch and sensationalist commentary. But perhaps these latter ones are exactly the kind you're not so appreciative of.

"I prefer old-school quiet and scientific documentaries"

I do as well. The BBC actually produces a lot of these types of documentaries but they are probably not sold to broadcasters outside of the UK. I presume it's because they lack the big-budget, glossy look that is attractive to bigger audiences (and to international broadcasters). Or sometimes documentaries are trimmed or edited for international audiences. (I don't know if this is the BBC editing the programme or the broadcaster who bought the programme.)

A lot of the "old-school quiet" documentaries can be found on BBC4 - a specialised channel that shows programmes on specialised or niche topics.

Those old-school documentaries do not seem to be made much any more. I also prefer them but they are rare to find nowadays. Instead I go looking for lectures on the topic on Youtube instead. Or search for podcasts.

The production cost ratio is probably 1-100 or 1-1000, at least, between the old school, interview-an-expert type, and the dramatized CGI-heavy ones, so it is strange that so much money is put into production of documentaries with so little factual content value.

ethno kitsch .... mmmm, tasty

Unfortunately BBC news really isn't that good any more. It's been on a long slow decline since about 2005 or so, and now the majority of their news programming (with a few small but notable exceptions) are primarily cheering on the Tory government + ministers of the day.

It sometimes seems like each side of the UK political spectrum is convinced that the BBC is irrevocably biased in favour of their opponents. The Tory right want to hamstring the BBC ("Bunch of Bloody Communists" used to be the witty cry) and jump on it at any opportunity.

It seems impossible to imagine the BBC being truly unbiased when the government occassionally likes to show it has power over the organisation by sabre-rattling over continuing to allow the TV license fee. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/09/boris-johns...

Honestly I think it has a general pro-government-of-the-day-bias - as you say, 'used to be the witty cry', indeed! Under New Labour it was still broadly speaking pro-government (generally, it's never totally uncritical, just tending towards friendliness relative to the opposition of the day), it was just a different government with different values.

But people don't notice when something stops being biased against them if they've already stopped paying attention to it because they were previously put off by their perception of its bias, so many of these older perceptions of its bias still exist. This creates the illusion that there's bias both ways, based on people's claims, and that it therefore must be 'balanced'.

I agree with your general thesis. However, this line got me thinking:

>It seems impossible to imagine the BBC being truly unbiased

Thought example. If there was a truly objective, unbiased source of information about political and physical reality, wouldn't it be far too valuable to put in charge of a news desk. They should be running the government in place of the parliament and politicians!

Of course, if you find the idea somehow troubling, this is to demonstrate that unbiasedness is actually more difficult concept than is sometimes given credit for.

Ah, but that wouldn't be enough in a democracy because people might choose to vote against it given the right conditions. Your best bet in that case might be to communicate it to the voters in some sort of news programme - taking us back to square one!

But in all seriousness I do accept that unbiased outlets basically don't really exist and it is an impossibly high bar. The reason I talk about this in the way that I do is not as some kind of campaign against the BBC: on the contrary, I think public service broadcasting is in general a good thing and frequently produces higher quality content than the vast majority of privately owned outlets, at least in the UK, despite its biases.

It's just that to me, everything has a bias, and it's important to understand what any particular outlet's biases are before you start accepting information from it. I'd say this is the one redeeming feature of our print media, despite how much crap they often produce, they are at least usually very open about their biases.

You can get a lot of good information out of the BBC news and politics programmes, but I'd say you do have to use a fairly critical lens to get the most out of it.

"Truly objective, unbiased source"

It's not possible to be an unbiased news reporter. The only thing we can wish for is reporting that wears its bias on its sleeve.

What is this "unbiased" reporting anyway? It can only mean that I happen to share the bias.

Any reporter who thinks their work is unbiased is a reporter who is unaware of their bias; which is much more dangerous than a reporter who is biased, and doesn't care who knows it.

I agree with this sentiment considerably. The BBC seems to get equal bashing from both sides of the political spectrum. I think therefore it's likely it's doing quite well in terms of impartiality.

For a laugh and good demonstration of this point, check out the replies Laura Kuennsberg gets to any vaguely controversial tweet.

Usually a solid amount accusing her of towing the party line, being friends with Boris, Tory mouthpiece etc then another bunch accusing her of being an example of how the BBC is full of leftie communists who want to reverse brexit. Both equally vitriolic.

The way she draws the hate from both sides is impressive.

It's partial to the status quo.

I'm a huge fan of the BBC but I couldn't help notice that during the last Scottish Independence Referendum there was definitely a bias - which I did conclude was simply a bias towards the current state of things.

I take this "both sides" argument as a sign that actually it's just bad - platforming the most extreme people from both sides in order to get the best fight, as if this was Jerry Springer without the chair throwing, rather than a sincere attempt to get at the truth of the matter.

Edit: it's definitely going to get worse. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bbc-richard-s...

There is no way that anyone with that level of donation to any political party can ever pretend that they or their organisation is "impartial". Being a Brexiteer just makes it even more ludicrous and guarantees that all the ongoing problems and losses of Brexit will be hidden by the state broadcaster.

I did agree with this sentiment for a long time but I have seen a shift towards failing to challenge conservative policies. I'm also quite critical of the number of Conservative members that have been made controller. There is a bit too much of revolving door between tory communications and BBC at the minute.

That used to be more of a thing, but the recent governments have politicised the control of the BBC in a way that was not nearly as overt in the past.

> (the bCC) are primarily cheering on the Tory government + ministers of the day.

I was about to say the opposite:

https://order-order.com/2021/01/08/bbc-uses-old-picture-to-h...

Their programmes quite often suffer from both-sidesism. They'll have a senior scientist on debating a conspiracy-theory-believing anti-vaxxer, as if they're both on the same level.

While that's galling to see, it's targeted to convince the anti-vaxxer, or really the person who's on the fence. If they just dismiss the ideas, the anti-vaxxer says, "Oh look, the mainstream media covering up the truth again. Must be paid off by ${EVIL_BILLIONAIRE}." If he's given a chance, debates, and loses, that's a much better impression.

What's with this tendency to stick a binary label on every controversial issue? There are peer-reviewed valid concerns about these vaccines. Are the authors lumped into the anti-vaxxers category?

Regularly watching BBC World I've yet to see the both-sideism you describe. As if on the same level? Well in relation to another bete noir, you'll likely get to see an interview with Greta T. (zero academic qualifications) while waiting interminably to hear any (usually edited) counter-position from (for instance, there are many others) Richard Lindzen (with around 200 peer-reviewed papers in atmospheric climatology, MIT emeritus professor) or Judith Curry (https://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currycv.html).

That's arguably not "both-sides-ism" so much as "straw-man-ism" if one side does not get the best representation.

That said, it depends on the demographic you want to represent.

BBC News has always been the de facto propaganda arm of the British government. It may only be apparent to you now, but their reporting has always been overly biased. Examples are any reporting on the Troubles (especially British crimes there), the Iraq war (especially the lead up and the Camp Stephen killings), and anything about Brexit.

Slightly odd then that one of the names for the BBC used by Brexit supporters was the "Brussels Broadcasting Company" because they thought it was far too pro-EU.

As I'm sure you're aware, the British government was pro-EU during the Brexit campaign.

Apparently there is a subscription service called BritBox - created by BBC and ITV, but it's only available in Australia, USA and Canada.

https://www.britbox.com/

I expect that will be slowly expanded; the BBC's new Director-General wants to increase commercial revenue (and immediately before being appointed as DG he was the CEO of BBC Studios, the BBC's commercial subsidiary).

The new chairman has apparently donated to the Tory party.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-...

The DG was also a former deputy chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party.

https://inews.co.uk/news/tim-davie-new-bbc-director-general-...

Should making a donation, campaigning for a candidate, or exercising other forms of political speech disqualify one from working as a civil servant?

No, but it just raises valid questions regarding motivations. Civil servants are supposed to not be biased toward a particular political party. In practice, that may well not be the case, but questioning his appointment is fair enough. The Tory party has for many years attacked the BBC, using those attacks as a political tool. So people draw conclusions from the appointment of a prominent Tory donor to the post of DG.

BBC also sat on their 10 million hour archive of media while the internet, social networks, Wikipedia and blogs went ahead commenting, sharing, indexing, discussing and remixing other sources of content. They cared so much for their copyrights that their media became unconnected and unused.

The BBC and developed the web based on-demand video platform that inspired Netflix back in 2005 and operates the world's most visited news website. They did this despite having fixed funding, charter obligations not to advertise around their content and royalty obligations to producers.

While locking out most of that content for people outside the UK..

> My girlfriend would gladly pay for being able to access BBC UK series, but that's apparently impossible.

There's the Britbox streaming service, but I have no idea whether it is international. Otherwise, there's limited amounts of BBC content on Netflix. But again, that may just be the UK version.

It's not international, and is jealously geo-blocked. As a Brit expat, I wish it was available. They are effectively refusing my custom, presumably because they can make more money from international licensing deals for terrestrial stations and higher-reach streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.

I'm a Brit expat who is very fond of his VPN service and wishes he could give the BBC the money instead of them...

Can you use a VPN, and your parents or friends postcode in iPlayer?

They lock content away from UK users too, it's mostly made by third party, paid by UK public, and so it's locked from international use so those companies can sell rights abroad, and locked from UK users so they can buy the content again (despite paying for it already).

> Now I'm in Austria and the "content" on TV channels is just ridiculous.

small demography of 9MM, so the only way to differentiate themselves against bigger German channels is to produce content specifically for that niche. Shows in Austria/CH only value-add are a "local dialect" of actors, or setting the plot/story within Austria/CH. Other than that it's either a poor local copy of German shows (which are often copies of international shows).

Having been spoiled by British quality TV for a couple of decades I'd say the BBC is an incredible high yardstick, impossible to reach not just for Austria, but there is nothing like it in DACH.

One of my biggest annoyance by far is the dubbing of OC into German. They have only a handful of voice-over actors who they rotate for these jobs so the lead-act of every other movie has the same voice[0].

As a child I thought one of the reasons Eddie Murphy was so funny was because of his incredibly high-pitched voice[1]. Once people sit through the dubbed content most of the meaning and jokes are lost.

While other Europeans grow up watching things like Father Ted, Only Fools and Horses and such classics in their __original__ language, I have not 1 German-native friend who is able to follow English language on TV (even there are subs) and they will never get to appreciate other excellent shows like Norseman, Gomorrah, Suburra, because it's "too difficult to read the subs" and they didn't have to since they were kids.

[0] Dennis Schmidt-Foß has given voices to Ryan Reynolds, Chris Evans, Eddie Murphy and others. In fact the situation with E Murphy was so bad/ridiculous that they decided to give him a _new_ voice!! That's right the same person now has a different voice and nobody thinks that's odd.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKGAOM0mAOo

Germany has a considerably larger population than the UK, and the German public broadcasters are equally terrible as the one in Austria.

Good series or programs produced by public television you can count on one hand. Literally.

Indeed, they also invest most of their money in entertaining old people. This may be due to the aging population, but I'd rather assume it's good old grifting.

Benefits Britain is C5, not BBC, so it's not funded by licence fees.

Indeed very few programmes appear to be made by the BBC.

It seems like what happened/happens is that producers form their own private company, do the work for the BBC but the public don't get to keep the benefit of the work paid for the benefit gets locked away to provide private gains.

Long running programmes are now made by third parties when they could easily be made by the BBC proper, Gardeners' Question Time, say.

In part is to serve 'talent', but BBC's remit is to fill the gaps where commercial programmes don't go, to be distinctive, so they should never be paying £millions for a talk show host.

If you're going to use public money then you should be benefiting the public as much as possible, not carefully twisting it to get private profits.

That was a political choice to increase competition it also means that more £ goes to the talent.

> Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole

This is by notorious awful tv station Channel 5, and is not paid for by the license fee. (In fairness, it's not amongst their most terrible content; about half of their programming amounts to "Look! Poor people! Haha!", and despite the name this isn't really an example of that.)

Unfortunately the only demographic that really kept watching Austrian stations is pensioners, and sports fans (the amount of skiing tournaments on our main station in winter is ridiculous).

Everyone else often had cable or SAT, which gave you all the German and also Swiss networks, particularly the private ones, where the program is aimed at different demographics (also possible because of vastly larger pockets: German ad market >> Austrian ad market)

At least ORF tried to modernize its image, but do you want to lose your main demographic as well? Can you compete (financially) with German private TV and pay TV? Not to mention Netflix, Disney+, etc? There is not really a way out.

So were stuck with Skiing, Austrian Soccer, Tatort and Gaming show clones. At least there is a lot of cooperation/joint shopping with German and Swiss (public) stations.

The self-created German content could be worse though. Tatort can be quite nice, it is not aiming to be CSI - and that can be a good thing.

Is there an Austrian version of Tatort? I've only seen episodes/teams based in German cities.

Yep, Vienna has a team. There is also a Swiss one, I think.

Back the day, before streaming was a thing, the benfit of Austrian TV was to whatch the same movies like on German private channels. Without any adds. Was quite nice. For obvous reasons, Austrian publc broadcasters lost there liscense in ermany one day. With the exception of the border regions, they cited technical reasons. Not living in a border region, I do rememeber that the Austrian news was quite good to get different perspective. Movies, as I said, were nice as well.

I do have to agree, so, that the home-grown entertainment sucks. In Germany as well. It is funny, so, that german public TV is not allowed to create their own streaming service and a lot of content has to removed from their online offerings after a certain period of time. Which kind of sucks. Especially since the rights catalogue of the public German networks, ARD and ZDF, used to be quite impressive. They just decidded to never show any of it before midnight, if at all.

> "Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole"

This is the kind of TV program that I think has contributed to the UK's extreme stinginess and bureaucracy of benefits; in aggregate it's probably got people killed. Cherry-picking the most lurid stories to make people look bad.

It's also not a BBC show, it's by Channel 5!

I'm with a lot of people that the BBC can produce great stuff, but only when it remembers to be Reithian and the managers aren't looking. These days most of the BBC content I watch comes from BBC4, plus the output of David Attenborough.

(ORF produce exactly one show with an international reputation: the New Year's Day concert from Vienna, which is lovely)

Austria has FM4, which is an amazing radio station and well worth license fee. ORF Sport is also pretty good.

> some quite interesting shows like "Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole"

The show that demonizes, humiliates and dehumanizes working class people by filming them being evicted?

> > some quite interesting shows like "Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole"

> The show that demonizes, humiliates and dehumanizes working class people by filming them being evicted?

The show that highlights, amplifies and prioritises the voices of working class people by filming them being evicted?

> The show that highlights, amplifies and prioritises the voices of working class people by filming them being evicted?

Thank you for pointing this out. I don't know British TV well so I wrongly assumed it was another show, because it sounded like it. The show I originally thought OP was referring to is called 'Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away!'. It is bile. That is what my above comment is really responding to.

It's sad to see people actually laughing at others' misfortune such as this youtuber, who has made a compilation of 'Craziest Freakouts Ever!' with clips from 'Can't Pay? We'll Take it Away!': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0kO9TA96h4

While that may be what some people use "Can't pay, we'll take it away" for, the programme is presented in quite a sympathetic way.

Often the enforcement agents have empathy with the people they are enforcing against, particularly when it's clear that the person has a struggle that's no fault of their own. They're far less sympathetic to wealthier people who are just ignoring their responsibilities and trying to get away with it.

At least that's how I remember the show, I haven't actually watched broadcast TV for at least 2 years now.

You seem to be implying that the BBC is discriminating against working class people by showing people on benefits / being evicted.

There are many working class people who are not on benefits or being evicted. You may wish to look for evidence of bias closer to home.

That show isn't even a BBC production, it's from Channel 5

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio.

This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. I must say, I've now found some of the programming on the publicly funded TV stations is actually pretty good.

At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?

It's not good for the government to have too much direct control over state media. They executive branch should not be able to change the budget from year to year on their own, since they can "punish" state media if they don't say things the government likes. Using tax revenue would generally give the executive branch power to set or at least propose the budget.

When Norway recently moved to tax funding state media, I think they solved this by making it a completely separate dedicated tax. At least that's what was discussed, not sure about the details of the final implementation. So it can only be changed by a vote in parliament, which is more visible to the public, can take more time, and requires a majority of parties to agree on that specific change.

Any payment the government forces you to make is a tax, in my opinion. And I see no difference in the “government” forcing you to pay a TV license versus bundling it in tax revenue. As you wrote, the same government can just preclude that amount of tax revenue from being altered by the “executive branch”, if that is the goal.

But otherwise, the “government” can always alter the tv license fee, or the tax. It’s always under their control, and changing its label doesn’t do anything.

I really don’t see how one has anything to do with the other. In the US, PBS and NPR are funded through the general fund and they still have editorial independence. But maybe that’s because the US system has a stronger separation of the legislative and executive branches.

In Germany, the budget for public broadcasting is decided by a somewhat independent commission. Sounds good in theory, but after a few decades, public broadcasters now have a budget of more than 8 billion € per year. This is more than the revenue of all private TV stations combined.

As written down below: to prevent the government from controlling the public television which they easily could if that fee was just another expense in the yearly tax spending budget.

Norway recently switched from a system where you paid a set fee if you owned a TV to a system where you pay based on your income and it's part of your tax form. The reasoning behind the change was that basically everyone either has a TV or internet, and since the channels are available online, everyone has access.

The Monty Python-inspired comedians in KLM made at least one story about it https://youtu.be/iaVMO4t_D8c (length ~1 minute)

That was hilarious.

They won some prices in Montreux, eg. https://tv.nrk.no/serie/montreux/1985/FUHA02008984 (in English) -- https://tv.nrk.no/ has lots of stuff freely available (as public funded productions should be...)

Their Montreux show about the winter olympics on Lillehammer is also hilarious: https://tv.nrk.no/serie/montreux/1994/FKUN46000293

So they can pretend their state TV is independent from the state.

Lines are blurry in Germany sometimes, sure. But outlets like the ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP. And they have been, regardless of government coalition. They still are as far as their pure news formats are concerned, much mre "just the facts" then anything else I ever saw in the US. Their more "opinion" heavy pieces are different, but still are far cry from opinion pieces in the US, e.g. Hannity or O'Donnel. And that by itself is a good thing.

Austrians public broadcasters, the ORF, are way better than that even. They mutineed against the attempt to install pulitical operatives at the head of the organisation. They even end interviews with gvernment secretaries if they don't get strsaight answers.

> ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP.

That is hardly a strong endorsement.

I could have used MSNBC and the Democrats. They have George W's former press secretary with her own show, so I'd say they are biased against the current GOP, less so against conservatives.

As far media and press is concerned, fact based and neutral is the strongest endorsement I can think of.

The german state TV is independent, neutral and does very good journalistic job. I don't know how on earth they could be criticised to be a propaganda outlet for the state. I personally know someone who works for the journalistic side of the state TV and I can assure you that he has all the journalistic freedom he needs.

That being said, i fell like the state TV is the opposite. Only neutral news, facts without much of an opinion. For me it's not enough to follow the news since I can't be an expert in everything. I need voices from a certain my political spectrum that write what they feel about laws and processes. Environmental activists commenting environmental laws etc. Thats why I read the newspaper additionally. It's certainly not unbiased, but still independent.

You can "easily" manufacture consent by selecting what goes online and what doesn't. What is said and what is not. This is somehow also very powerful.

How does the state exert power over the broadcasters if their income doesn't come from the government?

Edit: When I say 'how' I don't mean 'why', I mean 'by what means'.

The lines are blurry, but we can see different cases.

A notable case in 2009 was the contract as Editor in Chief of Nikolaus Beendet, which wasn't extended since Roland Koch didn't want to and went up to the Constitutional Court, which ruled that there was too much political influence at ZDF, leading to changed oversight, which still is close.

TlRecent case is the "coalition crisis" in Saxony-Anhalt, where the parliament blocked the new rates.

But it's complicated as bodies need some form of democratic legitimation and with the "Sozialwahl" we have one failing experiment of doing extra elections, aside from parliament elections ... where nobody knows who the candidates are and what they do ...

Thanks for the edit. In Germany, the means are to put people leaning to certain parties in top positions. Or people with the right connections. As a result, the bavarian contribution, the BR, is not necessarly known for its liberal agenda. Others are more left leaning.

One other way is to have former press and spokes persons from a government taking up positions at the braodcasters. When the current (?) spokesman of Angela Merkal left as a news presenter from the ARD (or ZDF, to lazy to loo it up...),that was regarded as a braek from customs and more or less a no-no affecting the independance of these broadcasters.

TL;DR: Political parties, and not so much the "government", use soft power to influence these briadcasters. Quite often by having certain people selected for certain jobs.

Is public broadcasting more prone to these things than privately funded broadcasting? If yes, why?

No, if anything I'd say even less. Private broadcasting can be influenced by add customers, politics and so on. Public briadcasting more or less only by soft political influence. Which tends to balance itself out between parties anyway. So if anything, basic bias tends to be the best reflection of the current center I can think of.

Because the government is the one who gave them the authority to levy the fees from you and the people running the public broadcasters are all directly or indirectly politically connected to the major parties.

Which other independent private business can just straight up charge you without you signing up for their service beforehand?

In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.

It's not just any private business. Compare with social insurance fees that must also be paid, it is not something you can opt out of while being part of the society. The fact that it is not a state owned organization is a feature, not a bug.

In Germany specifically it is not a revolving door between public broadcasting and politics, and there is clearly journalistic pride in taking down corrupt politicians, so while it is always good to be suspicious of media calling it a propaganda arm is overstating it. Media isn't always neutral but privately financed isn't more neutral than others.

You're contradicting yourself. You say it's good that the TV tax is levied by the government like social insurance fees but instead of it going directly to the government like social insurance fees, it goes to an "independent" organization and that's the "feature"? LOL, what?!

Do you really think that money is no strings attached? Ideally it would be and I guess that's the idea on paper but in practice, the public broadcasters almost never criticize the ruling coalition on the "don't bite the hand that feeds you" rule.

IIRC during the 2015 migrant crisis, no public debate was allowed on public TV over the decisions made to open the borders and the only opinion allowed on TV was that "it's good for everyone" with any argument against mass immigration (not immigrants themselves) heavily verboten.

Democracy requires an informed electorate and publicly funded broadcasters are a means to achieve that. The government must have as little control as possible over their funding to ensure their journalistic independence.

That's the guiding theory at resulted in most European countries having some variation of a public broadcaster funded by TV (formally radio) licences.

There are many implementation differences between countries and none of them are perfect but I would argue that those I'm familiar with serve their purpose.

Yes, that is indeed how things work. It is not part of the budget and the ruling coalition has no mandate to bargain with it. I believe most European countries have similar checks and balances in place. I do not understand what the contradiction is, but if there is one it must be widespread.

We pay for many things we can not use, roads where we don't live, schools we can not attend and health care for the opposite sex. That does not mean public funding is good in itself, only that the grey area between what is public and what is private is large and politicized and settled over time. I disagree with many of them but that is no reason to get counterfactual.

There was a loud public debate about the migration crisis, both at the time and for a long time afterwards. It is important to recognize these things even if we don't personally agree with the outcome. That's part of living in a democracy.

That's entirely dependent on the country and political culture. At the very least I can guaranty that in Britain, France and Germany public networks and new agencies are far more neutral and independent than private ones. And that's a result of political parties being unable to co-opt the administrative machinery of the government system. So they end up co-opting businessmen, who themselves control private media for influence.

In a well designed democracy nobody is strong enough for long enough to take over public media, the school system, the judiciary, the army etc.

That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted against it.

Once the fee is agreed upon, it cannot be changed either way with out every parliamnt agreeing to do so. The money cannot be held back by te "government" (we have coalitions, and those change regularly every 10 years or so). Neither can it be held back for state broadcasters (third programms) by the local governments or parliaments. Sounds pretty tempering free to me.

And the debate did happen in 2015, or didn't you see the same panel discussions I saw? It also happened in print and the public broacasters reported aboutthat debate in their news segments. The nature of these news segments being to report facts and not to debate.

It just turned out that only one party really opposed the opening of boarders, along with the right wings of the cnservative parties CDU and CSU. Thos are not the majority but rather a very very loud minority.

Nitpicking but this is a common misconception:

> An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat.

The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience.

The funding on operation of public broadcasters is instead determined by a compact between the 16 states.

Ah thanks for the clarification! I always had the impression it was the Bundesrat\Tag. The compact things confused me. But that makes this whole thing even more robust it seems.

The public broadcasters in Germany aren't propaganda arms of the government and are generally respected across political affiliation, except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach. They may exhibit some editorial lean (https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426), but from everything I've seen not even to the level that folks in the US complain about CNBC or Fox News.

Germany, in fact, comes in with one of the highest press freedom scores from Reporters without Borders:

https://rsf.org/en/germany , https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/

National public Radio and the Public Broadcast Company in the US, in further illustration, hasn't been Donald Trump's megaphone.

Just generally, independent journalism is important and can be subverted whether the sources are public or private. Open pluralistic oversight is most important to maintaining balance and Germany seems to get it right, while also making sure the media can be accessible to any resident.

Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.

> except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach

Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter.

> They may exhibit some editorial lean

More than "some".

> CNBC or Fox News

Those are corporations that noone is not forced to fund if you disagree with them.

> Just generally, independent journalism is important

Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.

Also, journalism is only a tiny part of german public TV channels. They also throw tons of money on sports broadcasting and game shows while promoting gambling. Add to that the insanity of having a local channel for every state. Even if you agree that public funded news is a good thing, the current setup is hardly an efficient way to accomplish that.

> Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.

You can call it "education" if you want.

Finally, unlike taxes, the TV fee is not means tested in Germany meaning that if you have a low income and don't fall into the few groups that are excempt then it is a very real burden.

> Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter. > More than "some".

This sounds like disgruntled opinion over having to pay 18 EUR/month for something you don't watch.

Please feel free to put something more substantial behind your snappy retorts. The studies and research I've read indicates that the people mostly trust and appreciate the balance in German public broadcasting, and most disgruntled with public broadcasting in Germany are on the radical sides. The second bit is more universally supported by psychological research indicating that the average person wants to watch stuff that confirms their biases.

> Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.

You're perverting the meaning of monopoly here, I think. There's a publicly funded infrastructure for broadcast programming, as well as privately funded sources of programming. ZDF and ARD don't have exclusive right to broadcast in any market in Germany as far as I know?

The publicly funded infrastructure includes representative oversight mechanisms from political and community sources, which provide a far more robust mechanism for neutrality checking vs the programming decisions of a profit-motivated private organization.

> Finally, unlike taxes

Means testing is a fantastic point, I whole-heartedly agree that statutory funding structures like this shouldn't overburden any slice of the population.

>In Germany and I guess, in most countries, the public broadcasters are basically low-key propaganda arms of the government. The whole separate tax thing is a intermediate smokescreen to give the public the illusion of independence.

This claim elides the difference between e.g. the BBC or Deutsche Welle and RT. It would be naive to think that the BBC is wholly independent of politicians. But it would be equally naive to think that they're no better than a state propaganda outlet.

I can't speak to Germany, but I view the BBC as the voice of the Establishment. That's a subtly different thing from being the voice of the government of the day. That's why they look right-biased if you're looking at their news output, and left-biased if you're looking at their drama/comedy output: they're just reflecting the Established status quo.

Because the broadcasters need politicians and courts to confirm that the TV protection money is constitutional.

It is protection money: You haven't ordered any service and if you don't pay they'll make you pay and ruin your credit score in the process.

In the collection process they pretend to be a government institution to avoid going through local courts, which sometimes are against them.

EDIT: Also, I'm beginning to wonder why any criticism of the German government or especially state TV is being downvoted here. Civil servants have a lot of time ...

I think it is downvoted because it ignores the complete historical context of this system. It was put in place after WW2, and with a lot of things implemented in the German Verfassung, it drew curcial lessons from the Nazis rise to power and their way of ruling.

Broadcasting, as opposed to the 100% Nazi party controll of media before, was thus setup to be independetly funded and run. The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms. The goal is to prevent media to become government controlled, with the added benefit of being independent from add revenue. And that principal is still pretty solid.

> The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms.

This was the original intent: Adenauer wanted a federal public broadcaster to compete with ARD which he considered too critical of his government. The constitutional court shut that down as only the states have the right to set up public broadcasters with domestic transmissions (Deutsche Welle is focused externally). Today ZDF and ARD have the same legal framework, they are just organized differently.

The arguments you make are orthogonal to the discussion whether TV fees should be protection money or based on actual TV ownership.

The latter has been the status quo in Germany for the better part of time since WW2, and arguably people were less radicalized on both sides of the political spectrum than now.

It is when institutions get overtly greedy that people start to complain.

In the UK I'd say the answer is probably that you can't as easily divert funds to a private Tory owned business by simply adding TV licence costs to taxes.

IIRC it's Capita who collect the money and keep a remarkably high proportion of it. They're also employing people to lie and intimidate to try and get access to homes.

Sweden made the switch in 2019 I believe. It was the availability of computers and streaming that forced them to change things. Since people with computers could now watch the programming everything became more complicated.

The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF).

Then you'll see a plethora of really well-made documentations about regions in Germany, regions in the world, culture, archeology etc.

The third programmes are also where new comedians, hosts and artists are given a chance to refine their show concepts and prove themselves.

> The trick is to watch the smaller "third programmes" or the programmes with special focus, not the big two (ARD and ZDF).

To be fair, The Big One is actually just all "third programmes" with some additional programming such as news.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Take a look at the first column of https://www.tvinfo.de/tv-programm/ard

Pretty much nothing in there is also shown at any third programme. The programmes are almost completely distinct.

Evening news are actually the one part where the third programmes show the same as the ARD.

I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name) and any programme is produced either by one of the regional broadcasters or by the shared production company Degeto. And of course is also shown in the "thirds". Take "Rote Rosen" (with questionable quality) and you will see it is also shown on rbb, hr, NDR and MDR.

> I am talking about the fact that the ARD itself is the collective group of all regional broadcasters (look up the name)

I know that. But it's utterly offtopic in this subthread. We're not talking about organisational structures, we're talking about "what can I watch".

The organisational structure causes what you can watch where and I am arguing that garbage produced by the "Thirds" is not only dumped to Das Erste but shown elsewhere as well. You gave me the current programme, I gave you "Rote Rosen" but that did not convince you. Here is more: "Sturm der Liebe" shown on BR, hr, MDR, NDR and rbb, "Bristant" shown on MDR, "WaPo Bodensee" shown on SWR, hr, NDR and BR … that is not "pretty much nothing".

Note that you pay for much more than just the TV networks; international / English offers such as dw.com are also funded by this.

There are so many misconceptions about public broadcasters.

Deutsche Welle (which operates dw.com) is 100% funded by federal taxes as it is aimed at foreign markets.

https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073

Thanks for the clarification. Still, the fee covers much more than many people believe, and I think many of those services are quite valuable to have.

DW is financed by the budget of the federal government, not the broadcast fee like the other public stations.

IIRC in Germany Netflix €14, Disney+ €7, Amazon Prime Video €6. And all 3 I can watch whenever I travel. The TV/Radio Tax is about €18!!! and I can only "enjoy" it in Germany!!! Not only that, the quality of programming quite bad, and to make it even worse, I am forced to pay for it when I don't even watch it. When I moved to Germany it just blown my mind.

Are you also complaining about other parts of societal funding that does not benefit everyone? You could argue about so many things that might not affect you directly (schools, police, roads, …) but at the end of the day you may also profit indirectly from those as well (more educated people, fewer crimes, proper goods distribution, …).

Schools? Police? Roads? Seriously? You gave probably the worst examples you could have. You only missed firemen and hospitals.

But even then, why so expensive? It is a lot of money. Germany has 80 million people, assuming 4 persons per house, that is 20 million homes times 18 times 12 is 4 billion euros per year to pay for shitty tv shows.

How could you possible live in Germany and not benefit in someway from the roads? And everyone pretty much relies on the existence of the police/hospitals, even if they rarely need their services.

A million miles from what is mostly a luxury good with lots of competition.

Exactly my point, but I was downvoted.

Most of their content is streamable worldwide. Exception being licensed content for which they only acquire the rights for streaming to Germany. Why would they buy worldwide licenses? Netflix and the others also don't do that – they only get licenses for the local market (of which they have much more of course), travelers are just a byproduct.

NRK, the national broadcaster in Norway, let you watch geo-licensed content anywhere in Europe if you are logged in and authenticated with BankId [1][2]. Which is very handy, as before I had to go via VPN which was ok but more of a faff.

* [1] https://nrkbeta.no/2019/12/19/na-kan-du-ta-med-nrk-tv-pa-fer...

* [2] https://www.bankid.no/en/company/

You cannot access it from abroad. That is what I was told at least since I don't watch German TV. If what you say is right, I doubt, my bad. Still, I am forced to pay something that I have absolutely no use. Is like if I was forced to pay for slaughterhouses if I am vegan (I am not).

If every household has to pay then it makes sense to abolish the tax and to fund it through the general budget instead, not least if the argument is that this is something that benefits society as a whole.

Taxes are not free to manage and collect so this also provides cost savings.

We have this debate periodically in the UK. The argument against abolishing the TV licence is usually that a dedicated tax ensures a larger independence of the BBC, which is not "at the mercy" of the government for funding, but I think this is a rather weak argument because the government already ultimately decides the amount of the TV licence fee, which is a tax.

Edit following the "reactions": By the way, in the UK it is not allowed to criticise anything related to the BBC (and the NHS) as you can see. Is it the same in Germany? :(

Hm, at least in Austria and Germany the government cannot simply change the TV license fee "just because". Of course they ultimately can, but it is not that easy.

It still makes a huge difference if money is distributed through the hands of the government, or dedicated 1:1.

> It still makes a huge difference if money is distributed through the hands of the government, or dedicated 1:1.

Not really. You can make it mandatory government expense by law, so it is not controlled by the government and its change would require changing the law, which is similar to changing the TV fee (which is also limited by law).

This is a political issue and political issues are debated in Parliament in any case, and that includes the budget. It's no more easy to cut funding if it comes from the general budget rather than from a ring-fenced dedicated tax, and ultimately people will decide what they want when it's elections time (and I can tell you that the majority of people in the UK are very attached to the BBC). This applies for the UK but also I'm sure also for Germany and Austria.

IMHO, TV licences are anachronisms at this point (in the UK we still even have TV licence discounts for black and white TVs...) and it's right to at least debate if they are best suited well into the 21st century.

Oh, you haven't been following Austrian politics in the last 10 years it seems.

- Parties says x in elections, that doesn't mean they will do x.

- Some parties/politicians will use every possible way to force public stations to suit their needs - regardless of what people think. Most people will never know - they just consume TV, radio or tabloids and believe everything they hear/read.

- If you don't institutionalize independence, it is gone.

- People in Germany and even more so in Austria have no idea how valuable public stations are. In Austria in particular it is a growing trend to criticize and even ridicule public stations - and this sentiment was gladly picked up and fueled by populists. They regularly demand that ORF is defunded - simply because they cannot control their unfavorable reporting on them - and they would like to. They were in the last government and they put "their guys" in every possible position to ensure control. They are still there and undermining the principles from within, trying to slowly destroy the ORF as a whole - either from incompetence or malice, who knows?

In the UK Richard Sharp, the new chairman of the BBC’s board of directors, has in the past donated £400k to the Conservative Party.

Turns out keeping the license fee out of the general fund didn't do much to institutionalize independence after all.

there are a pretty way of saying your country have less income / business benefits tax, but then you fund your tv with a dedicated fee, your roads with tolls, your medical system with copays or private insurance... at the expense of having more inefficiencies and costs for the people having to manage those payments.

Those payments are also less regressive, as usually you pay the same regardless your income opposed to the income tax, so the system is less fair for the low class.

"Less regresssive"?

LMFTFY. A flat-rate tax is regressive, because poor people pay the same as rich people. A sales tax (such as VAT) is regressive, because poor people buy more stuff as a proportion of their income.

An income tax is progressive, because you pay more if you earn more.

Several people have claimed that the Beeb is some kind of "public good". I don't happen to agree; but if it's true, then clearly it should be paid for out of general taxation.

The funny thing is that as long as you render any kind of services on any level, they are inevitably to society, you're already benefitting it. Society has exploited your skill, and you have benefitted its members with your services, and for that you get paid.

Nobody owes "society" past that point, but it's extremely profitable in the West, specifically, to double tax people with guilt trips into having artificial indebtedness to "society".

> A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole.

Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from.

If you ever move out, make sure to let them know, otherwise they will keep hunting you for ever.

As an Irish person, I firmly believe this. While our our public broadcaster, RTE, is far from perfect (and sometimes mediocre), they are financed / run at arms length from government. They often run exposés on government mess ups and criticise their actions. On a more practical level, who else is going to make quality non sensationalist content specific to Ireland? One of the downsides of being a small native English speaking country is the onslaught of American (and to a lesser degree British) content that drowns anything local. It also drowns out most European content as people are not used to subtitled or dubbed content.

Having spent plenty of time in the USA, I can't fathom how a system with so many ads and skewed "news" could be better. Why would you trust an unelected private corporation with no motivation or mandate for transparency more than a non profit org that is at least in theory answerable to the people? If nothing else it provides a common reference to reality that allows a real conversation to happen. The lack of this has proven in the last few months to be a real problem.

Most people don't question paying for socialised defence, education, roads etc... many services they may not use personally on a daily basis, because they understand the value of having a cohesive society as a whole.

TG4 is class!

Problem is, BBC (and to a lesser extent RTE) are not these unbiased services simply presenting facts. Their staff have certain views on political issues and they present stories in a way that is biased to those views. They effectively tell their viewers the range of acceptable opinions they are supposed to have.

A lot of their entertainment shows are junk too and I do not see why they should be funded through a license fee - if there is a demand for them, they could be funded privately. The BBC website is full of tabloid-like news - that is unacceptable.

If we are to have publicly funded media, it should be boring, i.e. serious. Host 2-hour long in depth debates on highly controversial issues between the most prominent people that oppose each other, carefully moderated (arguably it would actually be better to do this in print rather than tv format). Do cultural shows that promote "high culture" that people otherwise might not have engaged with. Counter the natural tendencies to look up to sports and entertainment personalities with a focus on scientists and engineers.

The perpetual problem here is that while BBC is required to "be boring" in many respects, if it loses too many viewers its value is questioned. So they have an ongoing struggle that they're told off if they focus too much on doing things that is or becomes popular with commercial broadcasters, while at the same time they face threats of cuts in funding if they don't bring in the viewers.

I take your point 100%. I also love TG4's style of programming, but the problem with your approach is that you will be accused of "elitism" and being "out of touch with ordinary people" . I agree that a lot of the content on RTE and even BBC is a bit gimmicky or even trashy, but it is a difficult balancing act. Economy of scale is a huge issue for Ireland. We could never hope to cover even what the BBC does. I feel the answer ia more funding, not less. As for news bias, I agree that it is somewhat biased, but it is at least a common starting point for a discussion, as everyone sees the same message at least. The bias is more nieve, being towards centre left "good Irish morals" than some sinister government plot...

I firmly believe this, especially in recent times. Those mandatory fees finance the "public" radio and TV stations, which have a set budget and can freely operate within the budget. They are not depending on advertisement revenue (they have a limited amount of that too) and are not working to create a profit. As a consequence, they do have a certain degree of independence and overall can afford into a lot of good quality content. Of course, they have their share of low quality content too, but overall they do offer an environment where good journalism still can happen. Meanwhile even the most reputable newspapers, which traditionally were a place for quality journalism, are struggling a lot and it is not clear how long they can afford to present quality content.

If a state wants to fund public radio and TV stations, it doesn't need to do it through a mandatory, regardless of use flat fee. I would argue that that is the worse possible way to do it:

* Increased bureaucracy (why not add a 0.1% to an existing tax?)

* Regressive taxation (you pay the same amount regardless of your income; if you used the income tax, you would distribute it more fairly)

* No market shaping (you could instead fund it with a tax on, say, TV ads for high-calories sodas, or whatever as a society you decide should not be forbidden but discouraged)

The point of having a fee vs. a tax is, that the government has no direct control of it. So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc. But it is an independant entitiy deciding about this.

Could you have the same independent entity decide the total funding for the BBC and then have the government pay for that out of general taxation?

> So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc.

What stops legislators from adjusting the fee at will? There’s legislation enacting the fee, defining the fee, enforcing the fee. Surely, there can be legislation to modify the fee and remove the fee. Same as any other tax.

No, the fee is not decided by the legislators. Of course they can remove the whole system or pass new laws for its mechanics, but the fee itself is not under direct government control. The effect is, that they can just sneakily shave off the budget by 10% for the next year like with budgets under government control. They would have to fundamentally change the system first, which would create a lot of opposition, as a result, so far no government hasn't done that.

Parliament can pass any law it wants. That's central to the system the UK has.

The BBC is dependent on a fee collected by the government, as regulated by laws the government has passed and the government enforces. Insisting it's not government funded is trying to invent a distinction where none exists.

In my personal experience public funded TV stations are just a propaganda machine for the current ruling party.

I've always mostly known public funded radios to be actually quite critical of the current ruling party. I do not watch much televison but I would expect a similar behaviour.

Howerver I guess it depends on the country you're from.

A ssome else pinted out, by funding public braodcasting directly they can afford to be critical. Were the fundid by a tax, collected by the gevernment, and handed out by the government this independance goes right out of the window. One of the lessons Germany learned from the Nazi regime with government controlled media.

there is no difference if is in the government power to increase or decrease that tax.

In Germany, the government has no direct control about the TV fees. There is a complex mechanism for deciding about increases, which involves independent entities. Especially, the government can't just cut the fees to influence the media.

In order to increase the fee for public braodcasters, not a tax (small bt crucial difference), both chambers of parliament have to agree. The bundestag is directly elected, the bundesrat represents the indivdual states. This means, in order to change the fee, every state and the bundestag have to agree. For the states, that means one single state not voting for a fee change prevent any fee change. Just happened, one state government feared backlash from the AfD and the right wing from the CDU (Merkels party) and voted against an increase.

So in order to change the fee, it is not just one govnment that can do something, but a grand total of 17 (federal plus 16 states). Usually they all agreed, but with different ruling coalitions in each state, this mix of left and right having to agree in itself prevents the public bradcasters from becoming a tool for government propaganda. They do represent the establishment, so. Populists hate this.

EDIT: To be really accurate, the legislative branch sets the fees, not the executive on. The legislative consists of two houses, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesrat is controlled by the state governments, which are composed of local arms of the parties present in the Bundestag (kind of like congress) and regional parties, mostly those state and federal governments are coalitions of multiple parties. It is the party line thing where it gets blurred between executive and legislative bodies.

EDIT: I fell for a common misconception, as an other user pointed out. It s not the Bundestag and Bundesrat deciding these fees, but rather a compact of the 16 states. The same states make up the Bundesrat, the compact is not the same body, so. Which further decreases the influence the federal executive, and even legaslative, branches have o public broadcasting.

> Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from.

It's the same argument for taxes, isn't it?

Do we believe that the "household-fee" serves the greater good? No, I'd say not really. It was, IMHO, public broadcasts solution to the icreasing number of people preferring streaming and the internet over traditional television. And more importantly the decreasing revenue.

Are these fees generally speaking a good thing? I'd say yes, because you get a non-add dependant news source. Is the implementation, especially in germany, perfect? Of course not. It still has a place, so.

EDIT: If you move, you declare you address change to the authorities anyway. Everything depending on your address, government-wise and some other stuff, is then done automatically. Not relevant here, but that includes ballots.

If it was just a news source it would have been fine, but it‘s not. The department that manages this tax alone has 900 employees. Then each of the two big channels has thousands of employees. How is that an efficiently run news source?

Did I say it is efficient? It pretty much is not. It is stil godd to have a news source that does not depend on add revenue, and by law they have to be neutral in Germany. In praxis, they are obviously not, and not all their news formats are good, neither is their entertainment. But for the society as a whole, they are important. And with everyone deriding their entertainment as being geared for the old, well, our older citzens have every right to whatch what they want and have someone develop content for them as well. It's not like I watch all the stuff amazon or Netflix are pushig out, and yet I pay for crap lke Tiger King and all these pseudo-true-crime sh*.

If I have an issue with publc braodcasting in germany, it's te sometimes blatant nespotism at higher positions, the abusively high salaries, especially when compared to private media outlets and the degree of party influence. Overall so, these public media outlets definetly have their place. They could be cheaper, so. But that ai't gonna happen anytime soon I guess.

He he, you’re woke man... you pay for health insurance?

You can add France and Japan to the list. In France, they don't go door to door, though, it's only a check box on some tax returns forms. In Japan they do come door to door. I've never heard about "detection vans" in either, though.

They actually can go door to door in France! And the fine for having lied is quite unpleasant.

Not that they have time to anymore since almost every single public service got their budgets slashed.

No detection vans in Japan but the door knockers are persistent as hell and not beyond making people feel unsafe in their homes.

The worst part is the intercom systems which are standard in every home. Not only do you hear the doorbell and the knock, but they get to broadcast their face directly into your private space! (I have since disabled the camera / audio feed but it spooked me more than a few times!)

Also sellers must declare to tax administration to whom they sold TV sets. The administration sets the checkbox for you automatically ;)

They might not come, but they will send you a letter to ask you if really, really, you don't have a TV.

Yeah, this is the same as how it worked in UK (still works? I dunno). I didn't have a TV growing up, bought one when I was about 14 thinking I was being sneaky about it, address was taken when I was buying it and obviously some box got checked on some system somewhere and my parents got bombarded with letters.

They do come for a surprise visit if you tick the box in France. Used to, at least, circa 2009.

> I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they never existed and where basically "created" to fear people into paying the fees.

We actually do have detector vans - they belonged to the RegTP, now Bundesnetzagentur, and are used to pinpoint pirate radios, malfunctioning equipment, and check if private point-to-point radios requiring licenses actually have licenses: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunik...

In 2019, the BNetzA was out in 4.700 cases of radio interference - mostly it was WiFi routers using bands that are not allowed in Germany, but there were also 1.200 cases where interference hit sensitive communications like police radio or airplane communications: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/bundesnetzagentur-be...

German public broadcasters in particular used to justify gross per-household fees by arguing free-to-air TV can be received by everyone, and pushed FTA DVB2 over antenna a couple years ago with spotty reception, and only in metropolitan areas, years ago. That argument is as comically out-of-date as it ever was, with CI/CAM devices (for SmartCard readers) being installed on every Smart TV and set-top box since the SD/DVB1 times. Even though they argue they act in accordance with the majority, they know quite well that they'd loose a large percentage of their audience out of inertia alone when they'd be doing the decent thing and require SmartCards for those who actually want to watch their TV programs which, as far as entertainment goes, is mostly bottom-of-the-barrel palliative-care crime series plus expensive programs for corrupt sports (the good stuff is mostly on radio IMO).

But public broadcasters also have expansive web/IP presence, and even use Facebook for public communication (ZDF), when in their news/opinion pieces they rant against social media LOL.

Public broadcasters today seem just to create a self-serving and self-referential media presence for politicians, in these times of Coronavirus more than ever. Tonight, they're going to push for even stronger measures including curfews (!) even though infections are going down; needless to say, without parliamentary participation. The whole thing is getting out of hands with irrationality fast right now.

Here in Finland they just moved the payment into taxes in 2013.

Basically 2.5% starting from income after 14000€ and maxes out at 163€ collected.

https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/newsroom/visual_aids_for_pre...

IMO, YLE actually publishes pretty good content, watchable via streaming. Commercial channels are mostly full of shit. 163 €/year makes ~14 €/month, a fair price, if you accept that public broadcaster is a tolerable compromise.

I remember the old times when there were inspectors going from door to door, often ex cops. Legally you weren't obligated to open your door, but if you did, and they heard a voice of TV, an invoice did follow. It was just crazy system.

Which is absurd to pay for if you're a foreigner not speaking Finnish, as the public broadcaster basically offers no content in English other than (poorly) translated news.

YLE offers news in Finnish, Swedish, Finnish sign language, simple Finnish, English (https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/ doesn't look that poorly translated), Russian, Sámi and Karelian. Areena also has many English-language programs that are just subtitled into Finnish.

Taxes are mostly a package deal :)

To be fair it might appear poorly translated to an English speaker mainly due to the fact that there isn't much of it, in Finnish or otherwise.

Some people in Finland regard this as a feature not a bug, although it's taken me a while to get used to.

YLE also has some originally English content (and as we don't dub adult programs in Finland you can enjoy them too). For example the early seasons Game of Thrones were shown on YLE in Finland (this was before HBO Nordic existed)

Sweden also had this system until recently.

Also, alledgely, using scanners to catch cheaters. Though I got a visit from a man checking for unlicensed TV sets once and he didn't have a scanner, just a long list of people that didn't have a TV license.

There was also the funny scare tactics commercials where they said you would get a snail on the eye if you didn't pay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J03eeYQ72Y0

I bought a new TV and got a phone call from Radiotjänst a couple of weeks later, asking where they should send the bill for the TV license. Busted!

Now that the fee is discontinued, and it comes out of tax money instead, I sure don't miss getting those invoices.

The electronics stores had a reporting duty as I remember.

Yeah, it was some law iirc. Regarding being busted, i was zapping one day when the bell rang so i opened the door to the inspector with the remote in my hand and the TV blaring, THAT'D i call getting busted :D

Apparently, they actually had scanners, but never used them

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7113883 (swedish)

Worth noting that the license fee is now paid as part of the regular tax payment. So the tax authority manages the collection, as opposed to previously when it was a separate agency.

I don't know whether these vans were ever used here in Germany to detect TV watchers which don't pay, but these vans certainly existed. Their official, and I do think main purpose, was to detect signals which could interfere with TV and radio reception coming from defective electric devices or even illegal transmission sources.

Also same kind of system is in use in Denmark. :)

The law is such that the inspector can look into your home from public areas but you don't have to open your door to them or talk to them. They are unable to determine if you own any device which can be used to watch state TV. This is quite silly. People actually fear this and gladly pay up.

Yes, Switzerland also had roving vans with equipment with which they could detect a switched on TV. I know because I got caught about 40 years back and had to pay a fine. The person that came to the door could tell us exactly where the TV was in the living room. So, those vans - or something like it - did exist!

The TV fee exists everywhere, but usually if you have the cable, you pay; if you don't pay, you are cut off and that's the end of story.

This is not a fee for the cable provider. This is a fee you pay regardless of whether you consume public channels or not.

In some countries, the mere existence of a TV or radio in your household means you have to pay. These are publicly broadcast channels.

+Ireland

In The Netherlands the fee got abandoned and replaced by a tax increase (on BTW, an equivalent to VAT).

> no way for them to prove I was actually owning a television

(Emphasis mine)

This "playing fast and loose with language" that they do (and that you inadvertently did too, just now) makes me so irrationally angry.

Why would the burden of proof be that low? They need (should need?) to prove that you received broadcast television, not that you simply owned a TV.

We hear these stories about TV detector vans as if finding a TV set was ever sufficient evidence.

In the UK, you must pay if you are capable of receiving live TV, not only if you do receive live TV. Even if it was never switch on, a TV that is plugged into an aerial qualifies as meeting that requirement.

That is absolutely 1000000% not true. You only have to pay the TV Licence if you ever watch live TV, not if you merely have a televion set. I've never paid the fee because I don't watch live TV, ever, and when you go on the TV licence page to fill out the form why you don't need a licence, one of the options on the form is "I only use my TV for games consoles, netflix, dvd players etc".

So it's not some "clever hack" - the law specifically allows for not paying the licence fee if you own a TV set but don't watch live TV.

It's unhelpful to disagree with someone on a point of fact and to decline to provide a decent source. The result is that you've given the reader no reason to take your word over the other person's.

From what I can tell, your account of things is accurate. On the website [0][1][2] the requirements aren't concerned at all with what equipment you own or with how it's set up, only with the act of watching or recording live television broadcasts over any technology, including over the Internet. I imagine it still wouldn't hurt to disconnect your TV from the means to show live broadcasts, for the tiny off-chance things end up in court.

I think spuz's account may have been accurate in pre-Internet days, but this seems harder to verify.

[0] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/L...

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ99

[2] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/legislation-and-policy-A...

Thanks for the clarification. It's possible that what I said used to be true but looks like it is no longer the case. It's also possible that in the pre-internet days, the fact that you had your TV connected to an aerial was used as strong circumstantial evidence that you actually watched live TV but it was never actually used as the sole basis to fine you.

> Live TV means any programme you watch or record as it’s being shown on TV or live on an online TV service.

I find the wording here fascinating. Is watching a live stream over the YouTube app on my TV 'live TV'? Is watching a UFC event on the UFC app? What about the website?

What is TV? Is a monitor? A monitor with an aerial? Video content transmitted over certain bands?

>I find the wording here fascinating. Is watching a live stream over the YouTube app on my TV 'live TV'? Is watching a UFC event on the UFC app? What about the website?

If it's broadcast simultaneously by other means (e.g. satellite, cable, terrestrial transmitter etc.) it counts as "live TV".

What if an event is on YouTube but also shown by satellite, cable, terrestrial transmitter etc?

Does that mean I owe a license fee for YouTube? Am I obliged to check before every video?

(Obviously these are ridiculous hypothetical questions, and I don't expect answers, but the policy itself is ridiculous)

Yep, it technically does. If there is a live channel on Youtube showing say a football match, then yes, technically you have to pay a TV licence for watching it, since the same match is broadcast on a TV channel.

I don't think the policy is that ridiculous, it's just that it's one of these where certain edge cases like this one can be safely ignored. You will be tracked and found if you use the BBC iPlayer without having paid the licence, you will not be found out for watching some random live youtube channel. It's an imperfect rule for a complex world.

> If there is a live channel on Youtube showing say a football match, then yes, technically you have to pay a TV licence for watching it

Sky offer a streaming service in the UK called NowTV which includes live TV streaming of their channels, as well as Netflix-style on-demand streaming from their library. They're very upfront that a TV licence is needed if you wish you watch their live channels over NowTV, [0] but one is not required for on-demand streaming.

[0] https://help.nowtv.com/article/do-i-need-a-tv-licence-to-wat...

You're right except a few years ago the law was amended to include the licence requirement for watching anything on BBC iPlayer whether live or not. Other streaming services remain free.

I own a pile of antennas for ham radio, I own a bunch of TV tuners, because they're usable as software controlled ham radio receivers, I own a television, and I own a laptop that sometimes gets plugged into that television.

That might make me look pretty guilty, but my TV isn't connected to an antenna, and I don't watch broadcast TV.

The bar for evidence of a violation needs to be higher. It's possible to own all of the equipment without ever having violated the BBC's licensing rule.

You can have and use TV and not pay, so long as you can reasonably show you are not receiving live broadcasts (if it ever came to a warrant being issued). Not having it plugged into an aerial and the channel presets not tuned is considered proof enough.

I'd guess with more and more watching via the internet they probably have far more success catching people watch live broadcasts via IP addresses and ISP logs these days though.

> We hear these stories about TV detector vans as if finding a TV set was ever sufficient evidence.

The vans would be detecting radio activity; there's nothing to detect if the TV is off.

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