Pay up and stop moaning you tight bastards
I'm perfectly happy to pay the license fee, it's far better value than things like Sky subscriptions. My free trial of Netflix was enough to convince me that wasn't worth paying for - surprisingly far less choice than LoveFilm (the postal DVD rental service before we had fast broadband).
I do pay Virgin for cable but that's because TV reception was unreliable, I get better catch-up/recording options and TV is bundled with 150Mbps broadband and telephone.
On holiday in the USA the TV was so bad I soon stopped trying to watch anything. In UK even the ad-funded TV channels are more watchable.
I don't watch a lot of TV and am fairly channel agnostic so it may be effectively costing me a pound an hour to watch BBC - compare that with what you'd pay for theatre, cinema, concert etc and it's still a fantastic bargain. And remember that the BBC also delivers some excellent radio programs and web sites requiring no license, fees or advertising revenue. I'd pay my £145 just to get Radio 4. You may not like Radio 4 but there are plenty more free BBC resources and I'd be amazed if none match your entertainment needs.
Bugger the skinflints who moan about "there's nothing any good on BBC" they fall into two camps: those too thick to be able to understand anything more intellectually demanding than a bunch of guys kicking a ball around and the tight bastards who don't want to pay for anything if they can scrounge a freebie (probably roll their own cigarettes from discarded fag-ends and finish off left over dregs of other peoples drinks in the pub). Which are you?
The problem is really with BBC management. They suffer the same malaise that adversely affects too much of our national life. Too risk averse, politically correct, dare not offend anyone, not willing to take the kind of risks that resulted in programs like Monty Python. When they try to respond to that criticism the "risks" they take with "new talent" are subject to so many constraints and management oversight that the results are usually rubbish. At the same time they happily run a massive bureaucracy and some very generous salaries and get bumped into paying a handful of over-rated performers who consider themselves "stars" (Jonathan Ross - WTF??) monopoly money.
The license fee is flawed but is at least a way of capping the BBC's spend, if it came from general taxation it would inevitably be at the cost of (even) greater political interference.
When I say flawed what I mean is it fails to charge the freeloaders who moan that it's not worth paying for but then try to find ways of watching for nothing.
Then there are the threatening letters to my business address (still, despite it having closed down 2 years ago) which assume I let my staff watch TV on their work PCs and that therefore I need a license. That's not why I employed people and provided them with internet connected PCs, if I caught anyone watching TV when they were supposed to be working it would be a disciplinary offense. (Similar issues arise from PRS and PPL making assumptions that I allowed people to listen to music at work and demanding £££ despite my repeated denials and written staff policies specifying that TV or Music at work was a disciplinary offense.)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
