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U-Know! Forum » tv license rant /the bastards |
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anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Mar 11, 2003, 13:17
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I wish I had got rid of my television because I could afford to go out wining and dining every night and was therefore superfluous junk in my living room. But, instead it was to make sure that I di read a book on occaision, took up guitar again, got the cards out, did some voluntary work, went for walks, yes, maybe even took up painting instead of sitting glued to the same cylce of tosh every night. Snobby? No. Santimonious? Well.....
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Moon Cat 9577 posts |
Mar 11, 2003, 21:41
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I generally think the Beeb license is preferrable to ads, especially when things like things like "Life of Mammals" grace the screen. However, I do feel somewhat irked in recent times that substantial monies from the license fee are diverted into producing & promoting stuff on channels I can't see i.e. BBC's 3 & 4 and News 24 and so on. In particular I'm thinking of BBC3 'cos of it's remorseless plugging on the regular beeb ( the channel with 'no adverts'?) which has a bigger annual budget (from the license fee) than Channel 5 and currently often has viewing figures of less than 50 000 for its 'flagship' shows. I currently can't afford cable/a box or whatever the ***K it is you need to see these things yet my money is going to fund these ventures. What I have seen of BBC 4 it seems pretty good (parent & pals have it) but cant afford to be forced into cable/digital just to see where my license fee is currently going. Yours, peeved of Manchester
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Merrick 2148 posts |
Mar 11, 2003, 22:22
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A few stray things I'd like to chuck in here, most of them things I remember hearing but can't verify. Firstly, I *love* the World Service, but I'd heard that it's not funded from the license fee but by the Foreign Office. If so, it's not part of this discussion. Although many of us don't have BBC3 and all those yet, we will soon. They've brought out the 'freeview' boxes for £100 which give a range of digital channels. When the number of people in the UK without any digital TV gets low enough (around 200,000 households or so, I think), they'll give these boxes away so that non-digital broadcasts can stop. Then the newly cleared airwaves will be licensed off to the mobile phone companies. And of course, we do all pay for watching commercial TV. Not only do we pay with our time spent watching fucking adverts, but the adverts are financially paid for out of the revenue from people buying the products. I once saw a study of how much advertising adds on to the price of stuff, and it reckoned that an 'average' family of four spent more per year on adverts than on their TV license. Whilst I don't buy cars or Maybelline mascara (despite any rumours you may have heard to the contrary), like everyone else I do use products that are advertised. I buy stamps, electricity, food; some of that money goes to produce adverts for me to get riled by on TV. If not watching the BBC should qualify for a rebate on the TV license, shouldn't not watching TV qualify for a rebate on your groceries?
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 09:02
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A damned fine point sir!
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 12:01
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> > If not watching the BBC should qualify for a > rebate on the TV license, shouldn't not > watching TV qualify for a rebate on your > groceries? > I don't see this at all. The adverts are paid for by advertisers, not by the public. You can argue that consumers pay for them indirectly; but that's so abstract as to be meaningless. Advertising budgets are seen as a necessary evil by corporations. They are there to increase awareness of their product. They are not a revenue stream in any way, shape or form. To talk about them as a revenue stream is to engage in the sort of Enron-thinking that's one of the things that sickens me about capitalism. The BBC directly charges people for access to its service in exactly the same way as Sky TV does. Except individuals have the choice as to whether or not to subscribe to Sky, or just stick with terrestrial. That most channels generate a source of income through advertising is a deal between advertisers and TV channels. I just don't see the comparison to be honest, between a direct levy and advertising revenue. I'm never going to buy tampax (for obvious reasons). Does this mean that advertisers owe me a little bit of money whenever i sit through a tampax ad? Or do i owe them a little bit of money? It doesn't make sense. The contract is not between me and the advertiser. I'm about as anti-advertising as a person can get. I think of ads as an obscene form of psychological manipulation that are generating a massive collective neurosis within the human psyche. However, even i wouldn't go so far as to consider them a direct charge in the way that a subscription fee or a taxation is. It seems to me that's taking it *way* too far, and implies that the viewer has no ability at all to withstand the power of the ad. And that's a very pessimistic assessment of human psychology.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 12:40
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jeepers, interersting argument. >The adverts are paid for by advertisers, not by the public. You can argue that consumers pay for them indirectly; but that's so abstract as to be meaningless. meaningless? it's pretty bloody clear from where i'm sitting. they might not be a bit of direct taxation, but they are still very very clearly a part of the costs of each good. As Merrick says, various studies indicate that the 'average' person pays more for their telly via ads than via the license fee. It isn't easy to ascertain exactly how much of each product goes on advertising, but we know for sure that a certain percentage does. The argument about viewers not being able to withstand the power of advertising has no relevancy to this discussion, its a cpomplete distraction. Likewise the money back for products you don't purchase, it fails to understand the point. So the argument for a reducvtion in the price of groceries etc is quite valid, imo.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 12:43
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is indeed fully funded by the foreign office. it is the official voice of the UK ruling-class, and definitely a legitimate target in times of war. still better than any of the alternatives tho
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FourWinds 10943 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 12:46
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The Beeb is to stop encrypting its channels broadcast on satellite (I never even knew they did this ... why do they? - it's supposed to be 'free'). This will save £85m .. yes million over the next 5 years! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/2843069.stm
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 12:54
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Do some people without televisions still buy consumer products? Do some people who watch adverts never buy the products being advertised? If the answer to either question is "yes", then licence fees and ad revenues are fundamentally different. To draw an equivalency between them is therefore unjustified. And it smacks - as i say - of Enron-accounting (the idea that two things which, on the surface, appear very similar can simply be assumed to be the same). Advertising does allow choice. It's an attempt to remove that choice (i'm not arguing otherwise), but thank christ it's not got to the point where it's 100% successful yet. Nobody goes to prison for ignoring an ad, folks. The police bust you for not paying the licence fee. To suggest there are equivalent levels of coercion mystifies me. I mean, come one; i've ranted enough on this forum for you to be aware of my stance on advertising, necropolist. Haven't i? I ain't trying to defend this evil and dangerous emotional manipulation and psychological bludgeoning. But let's not over-state an argument to the point where it loses its potency through being absurd. I am never going to buy a new car (though i may buy a second-hand van when i move somewhere rural). This is despite being constantly sold new cars via commercials (they even use my favourite music to do it!) I know all about the power of adverts. But it's very different to legal obligations to pay taxes. If you think it's the same, that there are equal measures of choice involved, the so be it. I just can't see it.
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necropolist 1689 posts |
Mar 12, 2003, 13:59
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I'm not entirely sure what we're arguing about here, but I'll carry on anyway. Of course there are large differences between direct taxation (license fee) and indirect pricing (advertising costs). but that's not to say they are entirely dissimilar either. Of course no one buys every product they see an advertisement for, but I dont see the relevance of that. if we were to follow up the implication of the original statement (non-telly owners should get a rebate for the costs of advertising on the telly), then what would happen would be that you might well get a discount on the sainsbury's pizza's that you bought, but not on the maestro, that you didn't buy. my main beef was with your statement that arguing that consumers pay for adverts in the long-run is "so abstract as to be meaningless", when i think it is very far from it. As you say the companies who pay for the advert see it as a 'necessary evil' - and as such factor in its costs into the price of the goods being advertised. Rather like, say, wages. As such it is a very simple and direct link between the costs of adverts and how they get paid for. Demanding the right to 'our' money back for such goods is, of course, even less likely to be succesful than demanding our license fee back because we don't watch bbc, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make bit of a fuss about it.
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