[ZeroGravitas]

I love (nearly all of) the BBC output e.g. BBC4 documentaries, CBeebies and CBBC (two entire kids channels with no adverts), BBC Radio 6, iPlayer, various tech investments like Dirac and Semantic Web for music metadata with Musicbrainz etc. but yes, the licence fee is a terrible regressive tax that should be replaced with something like extra VAT on TV purchases, so that people with multiple expensive TVs pay more and since you couldn't avoid it you'd save on enforcement costs.

But... the tories hate everything the BBC stands for and any political changes to their funding model will result in them taking the opportunity to control and/or destroy the BBC. This leaves me highly conflicted.

On a very slightly brighter note, they've stopped jailing so many young women for non-payment after a rash of suicides a few years ago.

[mrvc]

I didn't realize it was that bad over there! Got a link for those suicides? I'd say, if UK citizens really do support it as they seem to do, then at least a proportional tax would be better. Having read into it a little though, the fact that it's technically a tax on information doesn't sit well with me (meaning if you didn't have a TV 20 years ago you were basically in the dark as far as video footage of world events were concerned).

[ZeroGravitas]

Can't find any links to the suicides, I may be conflating the string of female prison suicides at Corton Vale in the 1990s (story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1852047.stm) with the more general pressure from MP's to reduce the number of women (primarily young, poor, single and with dependent children) jailed for licence fee non-payment that occurred at the same time (it dropped as a result from 250 to 50 a year in the middle of the decade, still far too many and possibly still the leading cause of female imprisonment in the UK).

[mooism2]

We pay VAT on our phone bills and internet access bills as well. Paper-based newspapers and magazines are exempt though.