Page 1 of Pensioner TV Licence Fees will be means tested from 2020

If you're on Pension Credit. you'll still be eligible for a Free TV License, otherwise you'll have to pay.

The government used to fund the scheme, but the Tories put the whole kit and caboodle onto the BBC. £750 million a year would have been a fraction of the Budget, but for the BBC that will be a fifth of the licence fee revenue spent on OAPs from 2022. So most pensioners will have to pay for their licence fee again.

As usual, the anti-BBC brigade have grabbed their pitchforks and lit their torches on HYS.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48583487

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Jitendar Canth

Quote:
"I thought what I`d do was, I`d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

Site Reviewer at DVD Reviewer & MyReviewer

Carving out a niche with a pneumatic drill at Anime @ MyReviewer.com

Its time the tv licence was done away with for everyone, as the BBC has only a few channels out of hundreds now available, which we pay for seperately. Who needs Doctor Who anyway? 

Luckly in Australia we did away with a TV tax, sorry, licence in 1974. The UK should follow suit, and let the BBC earn its own revenue.

EDIT..Interestingly when I went into my bank to put a direct debit on my tv licence, my bank manager was telling me not to pay, as he has not paid for years, and no one has been at his door.

Whereas if I missed one payment there would be a host of tv detector vans parked outside LOL

This item was edited on Monday, 10th June 2019, 18:27

Quote:
Jitendar Canth says...
"The government used to fund the scheme, but the Tories put the whole kit and caboodle onto the BBC."
Unsurprisingly I have no sympathy for the BBC.

They have their own merchandising and magazine selection, not to mention their whole home release catalogue.

They have 11 national radio stations and 57 local radio stations.

That's not counting the 8 national TV stations, 6 regional TV stations, 12 local TV stations, 10 UKTV collaborative stations and 13 international TV stations.

I just can't see the value of a lot of these when we live in an age where we have commercial stations in both TV and radio as well as home streaming from multiple vendors.

They could easily find £750 million for pensioners amongst that lot.

I'm sure I'll be a lone voice here, but hey...

...and I'm not suggesting scrapping them all, just cut back on those that are superfluous in the modern market and focus on those that aren't currently catered for in the mainstream - which I believe was the BBC ethos when it was set up.  Just seems to have been lost a little down the years in my humble opinion.

Oh, and free TV licences should be provided for everyone over retirement age.

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

This item was edited on Tuesday, 11th June 2019, 18:39

If I remember my mother in laws free TV licence was at age 75 onwards, so it was not pension age at 65.

What they should have done is say you can still get a free TV licence but only if you are 85 and older plus both your parents must sign for it.

Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"They could easily find £75 million for pensioners amongst that lot."Which £75m?
My understanding was that without this action, it would have been ten times that and twenty percent of the total BBC budget.  Not close to realistic or sustainable.Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"Oh, and free TV licences should be provided for everyone over retirement age."Why?

Ste

Quote:
sj says...
"Why?"
Just...because...that is all.

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

Quote:
sj says...
"Which £75m?"
Typo on my part, but my point still stands.

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"Typo on my part, but my point still stands."Don't see how to be honest.  If the point was they could easily afford £75m (2%) but it turns out to be more like 20% then I don't at all see how they could 'easily' find that amount at all.
Equally, if it was just a typo and you meant £750m(!) could easily be found too then frankly that's a ridiculous assumption.

Equally, I don't see how or why the government could force the BBC to allow some people, purely based on age and not 'wealth' access to a service for free when there could be other, more deserving cases who have the misfortune to be younger.
I suppose the BBC are at least making some attempt to bring some type of system in where affordability is considered.
Some of the comments from Tory MP's about how disgusting the move is is so ironic it's ridiculous.  They decided they didn't want to fund it any more and then say how bad it is when the company providing the service says they can't afford such free subsidies.
Of course, you're allowed to feel that no matter how much money someone has that the day they reach a certain age the get a free TV license.  I'm just not so sure it's right or fair.  And certainly not right for a government to try to mandate that the corporation who provides it does so for free.

Ste

Here's the Parliamentary briefing from January this year:

https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8101

Total BBC income in 2017/18 was £5.06 billion with £3.8 billion directly from licence fees.  Avoidance (assuming this is illegal avoidance) is 10% in Scotland, 9% in NI and 6% in England. 

Salary costs for the BBC  in 2017 were £862m according to the NAO:

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Managing-the-BBCs-workforce.pdf

2,500 full-time equivalent freelance and agency workers working with the BBC, in addition to payroll staff, in March 2016 - I think we may know who most of those might be and that they push that £862m up quite significantly...

Tell me that there are no savings whatsoever in there, especially when they agreed at the time that they would actually be up on the deal:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33414693

BBC Director General Lord Hall said there had been "intense negotiations" to ensure the BBC had "secured a strong deal for our audiences".

"If anything, I believe it will put the BBC slightly up," he said.

"Crucially, it gives us room for investment in the first two years of that charter. This will help us to manage the transition we all know is coming to an online world."

So was the BBC as good at negotiation with a Conservative government as that same government was with the EU?

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Si Wooldridge
Reviewer

http://synth.myreviewer.com

This item was edited on Tuesday, 11th June 2019, 21:21

Quote:
Si Wooldridge says...
"Tell me that there are no savings whatsoever in there"I've made no such statement, there are savings to be made in most places - although I believe the BBC are in the top quartile of 'efficient' companies.  They're held to high account now and challenged on almost anything.  I don't imagine they're giving away too much to these freelancers and agency workers.
Quoting salary costs for a company really isn't the best way to ascertain how much savings can be made though.  How much cash do they have?  How much profit do they make a year?  You said they could 'easily' make savings of £750m a year, I don't think they could.  And certainly not to be used to pay for every pensioner in the country.
£750m a year is a huge chunk of cash for such a corporation, not so for a government.  We give almost that to the EU in a fortnight don't we?....


Ste