« How would you describe your ethnic background?
Song of the Week: Reasons »

To license fee or not to license fee

I read in today’s Guardian that their exclusive poll (aren’t they all?) reveals that 47% of respondents disagree that the BBC license fee is good value for money.

Are these people the biggest bunch of cheapskates ever?
And what the heck do they think is good value for money?

The license fee presently costs £139.50  a year. For that you get ten ‘interactive’ TV channels, a plethora of radio stations and a pretty damn good internet service - all without ads. Granted, there is some absolute tosh on the BBC which I do resent paying for, but there is also some great stuff as well and, as an entertainment / information / learning resource, I think that the BBC does pretty well.

To put it into perspective, £139.50 (at London prices) gets you approximately one of the following:

  1. 50 pints and min. 25 evenings of pub politics
  2. 18 mid-priced CDs
  3. 5 trips to see a typical band or comedy act at a typical mid-capacity venue
  4. 18 trips to the movies
  5. 116 chip butties
  6. entry to 12 ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions at the British Museum, Natural History Museum or V&A
  7. 3 quarters of a typical 12 week language course

OR

a whole year of all of:

  1. the Today programme
  2. Gideon Coe, Gilles Peterson, Steve Lamacq, Tony Blackburn, Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe
  3. Later… and Just a Minute
  4. Mark Kermode’s film reviews and repeats of the proper Batman on BBC4
  5. Masterchef and the Food Programme
  6. Simon Scharma, David Starkey, David Attenborough and Melvyn Bragg
  7. excellent online language learning support materials

But then again I live in London so, according to the survey, I would say that.

Tags: ,

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

7 Responses to “To license fee or not to license fee”

  1. BLTP Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    you, missed dr who, the proms, john peel, life on mars, the youngs ones, the office, porridge, dads army, monty python, th goons, jonathon meades, rick stein, bue peter, grange hill, garners world, the archers, mark lamarr,ISIAHC, bbc4 music docs, oh a Claire Balding!!

    what language are you learning I’m looking for a spanish course?

  2. Cocktails Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 9:29 am

    Yes, I could have gone on and on and on, but I was trying to keep things simple and you know, thematic. Not sure that I would include Mark Lamarr though. Well, ok, he has very good music taste but comes across as someone I really would like to slap very hard.

    I’ve been learning French on and off for two years. If you’re looking for a Spanish course you should look at http://www.hotcourses.com, or I could give you a more tailored list if you prefer, but probably not via this medium!!

  3. BLTP Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 9:50 am

    thanks having missed the boast last year I signed up for one at the city lit.

  4. Cocktails Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Good luck. And have a look at the BBC site, it’s French resources are very good so I imagine Spanish is too. I’d also recommend the Michel Thomas audio courses if you’re that way inclined (he does French, Spanish, German and Italian I think) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michel-Thomas-Foundation-Course-Spanish/dp/0340938935/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219136201&sr=8-3
    It works!

  5. planet mondo Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    I’m all for the beeb, but they’re in a tricky position - if they don’t move forward with technology - iPlay, Hi-Def, DAB they’ll be accused of stagnating - if they bump up the fee to cover this they’ll get hammered for the rise.
    Because of this, there does seem to be tilt to quantity not quality, however Dr Who, Maestro and plenty of others show they can still work their media magic. Would anyone trust ITV to spend £139.50 quite so wisely?

  6. Cocktails Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    Yep, Mr Mondo, I don’t envy the BBC at all. They do have to move with the times, and I think that their website and embracing of web 2.0 are quite progressive, if not slightly annoying (’we want to know what you think - email us right now’, ‘go to our chatroom to join the debate’ etc. etc.). I think a lot of people just don’t realise how much technology, let alone straight TV production, costs.

    I know I’m a complete snob, but just imagine what ITV would do with the license fee…

  7. ally Says:
    September 3rd, 2008 at 9:55 am

    how many chip butties ? i could definitely be persuaded that that could be a fair swap
    x

Leave a Reply