Why do only British citizens have to pay the t.v. license,when anyone in the world can access its services?

Question

examples;you can get bbc in America,also Holland,you can get it worldwide,seems very unfair to me.

Answer 1

Technically we pay a licence to operate a radio receiver. Of course this pays for the BBC programs which we see free of advertising. No doubt there are some people living close to the UK but not in it who benefit but I think you will find that when people in other countries see the programs the BBC gets paid in some way. If you watch a lot of the BBC programs carefully you will see that there are some breaks built in in which adverts could be put. So some parts of the world the adverts pay for the programs. As I understand it several countries have advert free channels but they are not very good. I think the BBC produce some excellent programs and are well the licence fee but then some people will complain about anything

Answer 2

Not anyone in the world can access the BBC's services.

What BBC is available worldwide is BBC programs broadcast on other channels in other countries, where those channels will pay money for the rights to broadcast those programs (for example Doctor Who being broadcast on the American Sci-Fi channel), or different BBC channels, such as BBC America and BBC World, which broadcast BBC programs but have commercials inserted, which is how they are funded.
In addition, these channels may be part of cable or satellite subscription packages, generating additional revenue.

You can not get the UK BBC channels (i.e. BBC1, 2, Three, Four, News 24 etc) outside of the UK at all. These are the channels that you pay for with your TV license and you pay for them because they do not have commercials. The channels outside of the UK are funded in other ways.

I imagine they need to be funded in other ways because most other countries do not have a company like the BBC and so do not have TV licenses. Your typical broadcasting company gets its money from advertising, the BBC is an exception. I read an example of a man who did not pay his TV license and was taken to court for it. He claimed he did not watch the BBC at all, only ITV, Channel 4 and 5, and was let off. If enough people refused to pay the UK BBC channels would be forced to show commercials.

Answer 3

The BBC services outside the UK are run on a commercial basis. The TV stations broadcast abroad (eg BBC World) carry advertising. The BBC also sells rights to show concepts outside the UK...when the Dutch made their own version of the Weakest Link they had to pay the BBC for using the idea.

The BBC is also starting to make some shows available over the internet to broadband users - but those can only be accessed for free by customers of UK ISP's. Customers in the rest of the world have to pay to watch.

Answer 4

Don't worry, in 'Holland' (i.e. The Netherlands) people get only BBC and BBC 2 via cable. The companies that provide digital TV also include BBC 3 and 4, but 'press the red button' never works for them, Ceefax is off completely as well. So all the foreigners get is a stream of video, usually poor quality too.

Apart from that, they pay their own licenses for their own national broadcasting services. I could get Dutch tv included, if I should get a sattelite, in other words 'for free' while the poor sods who I left in the flat lands, pay dearly for it. Apart from that almost everyone there has a cable subscription, and they're more expensive than the Beeb license.

You could also get many public service channels for free if you get cable or sattellite. But as you might not understand Dutch, Greek, Spanish, Danish.. You're probably not interested. Seems fair to me. Believe me though; foreigners pay for the BBC, via cable companies and all they pay for a lot more than they actually get.

Answer 5

Because its the british broadcasting corporation. The British public pay for it and so should be proud of what they help fund. Holland probably only gets it by accident and america only gets one measly channel whilst satellite viewers worldwide can get bbcworld service. Just think how many bbc channels we get in the Uk in comparison.

I do think they should advertise on the non-uk bbc channels though.

Answer 6

The BBC is mainly funded by the licence fee - that's why there's no advertising. The BBC also exports "products" to other countries, who in turn, may charge some sort of fee, never looked into it myself, but I assume that people pay for their satellite and cable services.

Don't forget that the BBC is a huge organisation, with a huge variety of costs attached, from staff to cutting edge technology. They make some of the best programmes in the world (that's why things like Attenborough's projects are globally acclaimed), have near-neutral news coverage, and importantly, via Royal Charter, ARE INDEPENDENT OF GOVERNMENT in every way, from content agenda through to funding - it's people like you and I who pay for the BBC, and we pay them directly, outside of the taxation system.

We could scrap the licence fee in place of yet more adverts and cheaply imported rubbish, thereby losing the values and quality the BBC stands for.

Answer 7

........Well this is the choice, pay for quality TV with no adverts or watch a commercial channel with adverts every 20 minutes while you are trying to watch a good film. As Bruce Springsteen said about the U.S television.....57 channels and nothing on. Is
that what you want???
Of course the other alternative is do what the Chilly Peppers suggest......Throw away your television

Answer 8

I agree with you !!

first we pay for the damned expensive TV itself - have you seen the prices of flat screens ??? a decent ones gonna cost atleast 800 quid

then we have to pay tv licence to watch the box !

even after paying that we get 5-7 free and crappy channels and everyone will agree - there are days when theres NOTHING on tv !

so then you substribe to sky or something to watch some decent programes paying atleast 15 pounds a month....

rip off !!

Answer 9

the BBC international version of the site were going to put Advertsments onto it's pages so that it's no longer free. but I've not heard anymore about it.

Answer 10

we pay theirs for them that's why they can afford to make decent programmes and we still watch the yellow brick road 200 years after it was made its called British equality