To license fee or not to license fee
Monday, August 18th, 2008
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:
- 50 pints and min. 25 evenings of pub politics
- 18 mid-priced CDs
- 5 trips to see a typical band or comedy act at a typical mid-capacity venue
- 18 trips to the movies
- 116 chip butties
- entry to 12 ‘blockbuster’ exhibitions at the British Museum, Natural History Museum or V&A
- 3 quarters of a typical 12 week language course
OR
a whole year of all of:
- the Today programme
- Gideon Coe, Gilles Peterson, Steve Lamacq, Tony Blackburn, Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe
- Later… and Just a Minute
- Mark Kermode’s film reviews and repeats of the proper Batman on BBC4
- Masterchef and the Food Programme
- Simon Scharma, David Starkey, David Attenborough and Melvyn Bragg
- excellent online language learning support materials
But then again I live in London so, according to the survey, I would say that.

