[jpsouth]

Anecdotal, but out of my family I’m the only man who doesn’t pay the licence fee, and the only person who hasn’t had a visit.

They’ve visited my mother, sister and one auntie that don’t pay - they all live alone and are the sole name on the bill.

I’ve heard from friends similar experiences too, single men and households with men on the electoral register don’t get visits, or very rarely if they do.

I had the pleasure of answering the door at my mothers to one of these people and believe there’s an issue with the way they choose who to investigate. It’s predatory.

[notahacker]

Suspect more obvious factors are that men are far less likely to be home during the daytime when inspectors visit, and also more likely to admit they've had a TV for years or let the inspector in if he asks nicely...

(FWIW I'm had a visit shortly after I'd moved in with five other guys before, and avoided prosecution by simply asking how to pay...)

[gadders]

I suspect it's more likely that the inspectors see women as a soft touch and lower risk and more easily intimidated and less prone to violence.

In the same way ticket inspectors on trains ask people in suits for tickets but avoid asking the 6ft tall roadmen.

[jpsouth]

This is my theory. My relatives wouldn’t have a clue whether they were lying about being some official inspector and saying they’re allowed to inspect, and they would probably be scared of either an official looking, or bailiff looking person telling them this.

[wigster]

i'm beginning to think i'm the only one that DOES pay it.

[jpsouth]

It’s not really a topic of conversation that I’d bring up, but I know many people who do pay it so you aren’t the only one.

I don’t because I don’t use anything that requires me to, not from a moral standpoint. The BBC has given me a lot of fantastic content over the years but I’ve just stopped consuming most television over the past 5 years or so.

[MrScruff]

I don't pay it because I don't watch television anymore, live or otherwise.

However I do find the overreach of claiming I need to pay the license if I watch any form of live broadcast is ridiculous. If I wanted to watch the occasional live stream of a football game online via Amazon Prime then I would need to pay the license fee.

[permo-w]

that's too far, agreed, although I would be extremely shocked if anyone has been prosecuted for that

[jpsouth]

People are prosecuted for this with zero evidence other than an ‘admission’, with the admission being as nebulous as ‘yeah the tv is on’.

How can you prove someone was watching TV in court? As far as I’m aware you can’t, but the court sides with Capita generally. Please don’t bring up the TV detecting vans as evidence.

[permo-w]

none of this is evidence anyone has been prosecuted for watching live football from a streaming service

[bartread]

No, I do too, and I’m happy to do so. I’ve always felt it’s a useful brake on over-commercialisation of other channels, although perhaps less effective now than it once was. I do enjoy quite a bit of the BBC’s output as well.

[permo-w]

I feel there's a huge problem in this debate, which is that the people who don't like it are extremely vocal, and the people who do like it and quietly use and enjoy it without necessarily adoring it, perhaps like you, who I suspect are a majority, are just not really represented in the conversation, and the people who love it, like me, do not really have a central reference point from which to draw power from unlike the people who don't like it, who have the entire right-wing media crowing about it at every opportunity

[bartread]

You might be underrating my ardour on this as I've said my piece at greater length before.

I've always been in favour of (something like) the license fee to fund a non-commercial national public service broadcaster. Public service broadcasting is incredibly important otherwise it's all just commercial interests and you end up with the kind of nonsense you get in the TV landscape in the USA: low quality content, far too many ads, dominance of hyper-partisan "news", etc.

And if you look at what the BBC does - the TV channels, iPlayer, the national radio stations, local radio, news, the world service, the ground-breaking content they've created over the decades, and of course licensing/reselling content - it's incredibly impressive and, to me at any rate, represents incredibly good value for money as compared to other providers.

The TV license costs about the same as an annual Netflix subscription but the BBC is able to do so much more with that money than Netflix are. Doesn't even compare in my mind.

[andriesm]

If you believe in it, then pay. Just leave the rest alone that want no part of it.

[permo-w]

agreed on every point

[notahacker]

Not to mention the people who are extremely vocal about how horrible and woke it is for having too many minorities and that Mr Lineker also overlaps heavily with people who have watched it continuously for 50 years, wouldn't dream of switching over to newfangled channels like Channel 4 and don't know what an Amazon is...

[GlacierFox]

I think I'm one of those, minus the last bit about channel 4 and Amazon.

[permo-w]

perhaps there needs to be an inquiry into the issue

[jpsouth]

I doubt Capita would have any fallout from an inquiry, it would be another headline for a day or two then get forgotten by the media. I’m all for it though, they should be held accountable, my first statement is purely cynicism from me.

[permo-w]

depends who the government is really. I'd be cautiously optimistic that the current government would do something about it, ideally taking it out of the hands of a private company in the first place. this government is too nervous for that kind of thing, but I do think they could do something about it.

[jpsouth]

That’s got me thinking, who controls that? Do the BBC willingly employ Capita to enforce the licence, or are they mandated to enforce it in some way and Capita just so happen to be the vultures that were cheapest to hire?

[permo-w]

I have no idea but my guess is that it's handled privately so that no one at the BBC has to get their hands mucky