UK Weighs Making Netflix Users Pay License Fee to Fund BBC | Hacker News Reader

UK Weighs Making Netflix Users Pay License Fee to Fund BBC

bloomberg.com

37 pointsksec30 comments

Why not just pay them out of the general taxes. We did this in Holland decades ago, and with that saved s lot of money on the administration and checking of TV licenses. Just for those 2 homes in the city that didn't have a TV. It's not worth the hassle.

That's sort of the thing we've recently switched to in Sweden too.

Everyone who pays tax in Sweden also pays the fee for public service. 1% of the income (with a 1347 SEK roof) goes to SVT, SR and UR.

There's historically been a reluctance to making it a tax because public service wants to claim independence from the state. Now it has gone from a mandatory (but escapable) fee to an inescapable mandatory fee. Which is, basically, a tax...

Because no parliament can bind a future one - and there is a general right wing movement that the BBC is "biased" (despite them stacking the news leadership with their own appointees since 2010), and so the tax would be rife for cutting.

Makes sense but the same sentiment is present in Holland (that currently has an extreme-right government) and it didn't actually get cut.

And of course traditional media aren't really an important source of news anymore anyway.

Any kind of funding for public television necessarily depends on political approval, regardless of whether it is formally a tax. No ordinary private media organization can go collect license fees from people who haven't subscribed to anything.

I haven't watched TV in 19 years. Why should I have to fund the BBC via taxes?

I left school in 2003, but at least with things like education I'd be funding the young minds of tomorrow, or making sure people have adequate healthcare (NHS), or that we don't have a repeat of the Great Fire of London (fire service).

The BBC doesn't even provide a service that comes evenly remotely close to that.

Hmm yeah but I also pay taxes for things I don't use. And most people do have a telly.

But yes I agree it's not so important especially in this day and age. I don't even have a TV connection anymore. And haven't had for 7 years. I just watch streaming.

If they agree that the licence fee is regressive, why have they ruled out funding the BBC from general taxation?

If I had to guess it allows the UK government to indulge in its predilection for employing bureaucrats and keeping tabs on its own citizens.

The UK doesn't already do that?

What about YouTube users? Don’t people spend more time on YouTube, than any streaming service or linear TV?

Currently, it's based on live vs. on demand, rather than dependant on company:

> "You don’t need a TV Licence to watch videos or clips on demand on YouTube.

> But you do need a TV Licence if you watch live TV on YouTube."

And the same list of FAQs already says the same about Netflix, too, that license is required to watch "live tv" on it.

So if they change the rules to cover non-live, it will surely affect YouTube (and other streaming companies), not be a Netflix carve-out.

What confuses me is what counts as "live TV"? Does a professional Twitch streamer count? What about if a friend of mine streams to just me on YouTube?

All they say about it is:

> "Online-only TV channels still count as live TV, so you need a TV Licence if you’re watching or recording their programmes"

On the one hand, nobody in their right mind would consider one person streaming their gaming session to one friend to be "live TV", but since they don't define what does count as live TV... it surely can't be just based on whether or not the people running the stream call themselves a TV show or not?

The FAQ page I took the above quotes from (and there's lots of other questions, just none that answer "what counts as live TV?": https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/w...

That private enforcing company has zero motivation to make the rule clear and easy to understand. Their letter soliciting license fees or a declaration of not needing a license is very obnoxious and threatening. Part of the strategy is that "you won't know whether you need a license, but if we caught you violating this arbitrary opaque rule, you're screwed. So you better pay that money."

how absolutely disgusting that set of incentives and behaviors are! seems like it would erode trust in institutions and law.

Germany has had a "blanket" fee per household for ages [0] and of course, people are pro or contra, and of course it has changed over the years and went from strictly tv/radio/car stereo to also include internet "transmissions".

The devil is in the details, as usual, and I've never gotten why they don't simply scrap this extra thing and take a (small) percentage of taxes. Either you argue the public national tv/radio is a common good that can be publicly funded, or you don't.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARD_ZDF_Deutschlandradio_Beitr...

> Either you argue the public national tv/radio is a common good that can be publicly funded, or you don't.

You don’t want to couple it to the whims of the current government, if possible.

I don't think that matters here. The involved public stations have their board regularly appointed by the government, this is just the outsourced collection agency with weird rules that keep on changing.

If it was included in the tax you'd not have to fight for an exemption as a student for example, or if they wrongfully want money if you live with someone who is paying.

I agree it’s weird, but it’s protecting against this scenario:

BBC: “government bad”

Government: “hey everyone here’s a tax reduction! 50% less TV tax! (Oh and 50% less money for you, BBC)”

Realistically the board has influence, but money is the ultimate control and the ultimate test of independence.

https://archive.is/SWn9T

In germany the old system of requiring everyone who has a TV to pay for public televesion was replaced by requiring every household to pay, when it became clear that TV was on the waz out.

Looks like a misleading headline for a highly speculative article.

Don’t all Internet users in UK pay for BBC anyway?

No, only if you have some kind of terrestrial TV set up or if you watch Live TV online via BBC's iPlayer or one of the major channels' live TV players.

Its only for live tv? I had the impression you needed a license to use iPlayer at all

Yes, it’s for live TV and/or any BBC content

Yep, and the rules are absolutely mad. You can watch at home or on the go, provided you're on battery power. As soon as you plug your iPad or iPhone or whatever you're watching iPlayer on in somewhere else, the address the electricity is being supplied to needs a TV licence.

I get that these warts and things appear over time, and it's probably not intentionally the case that whether your iPad is plugged in or not can determine whether your licence covers you, but rather to avoid people creating fixed 'TV viewing installations' in other people's houses and claiming their licence should cover it, but still...

2025: year of tariffs.

Why just not let people that want to pay for the BBC pay for the BBC? They’ve given up impartiality long ago.

Because these "public service" organisations only represent a small fraction of the population which would not be neemt enough to feed the Beast. The same is true in Sweden where SVT and SR (television and radio, respectively) are largely staffed by and ideologically aligned with members and adherents of the more extreme left-wing parties while claiming to be independent ("oberoende" in Swedish, one of their favourite terms). When they interview "random people from the street" they quite often manage to meet political activists for "the cause" and/or members of "their" parties, something they also tend to "forget" to mention. Their "independence" is werken into their statues which they flagrantly violate with abundance without repercussion since it still is close to political suicide to suggest taking away their funding because people believe in the idea of public service. So do I but I also see that the current implementation of this lofty idea totally misses its goals and only furthers the polarisation of society.

What about you, reader, living in other countries with public service broadcasters, do they meet their goal of political independence? I know that the Dutch (NOS), Swedish (SVT and SR), British (BBC) and German (ARD, ZDF, NDR) versions do not. I do not know enough about the Belgian (i.e Flemish and Walloon) channels to say whether they do or don't. The Norwegian (NRK) television channel seems to be a bit of a mixed bag in this respect, it has made some programs which seem to escape the stranglehold of the "progressive" ideology, e.g. Hjernevask [1] ("brainwash"), a program deemed too controversial to be aired on Swedish television.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWHTKnB0jqZD9cR0zMpNL...

I know. I don’t care if the BBC needs to be fed. That’s the responsibility of people that do.

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