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tv license rant /the bastards
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: tv license rant /the bastards
Mar 12, 2003, 12:01
>
> 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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