Bye bye, old-style TV.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Frankly I don't get the point of TV licenses, why not just add it as part of the general taxes fee? If the idea is that everybody will end up paying it why not cut the expenses of finder "cheaters" and just charge everybody a flat rate? That's where IMHO the idea of "fairness" goes beyond logic.

[Sibling DavidH]

Very strange, from a North-of-American perspective. Do you need to take a test to get a TV licence? 

Just a way of charging.  It began with radio licences, back when few people had a set and only users had to pay the BBC, which was the only station.  Then came TV licences, now radio licences have gone, but it's been politically impossible to change it - the idea is to keep the BBC independent of the government.  You have to pay the BBC if you have a set, whatever you watch, but not if you haven't.  IF you can make the beggars believe you.

I have to say the BBC is more or less free of Government interference and I wouldn't like to see it funded from taxes.  (It's monstrously left-biased, but that's not the same thing.)  But why not advertising, like all the other channels?

[Aggie]

That was my first reaction too, Zono - why not fund it out of the public coffers, like the CBC?  I suspect it has to do with the history of the Beeb, and the fine Vogon bureaucratic traditions of the British Empire.

Oops, have cross-posted with David...

The CBC stands apart from the government as an arm's length crown corporation, but gets about 2/3 of it's revenue from government funding (they do advertise, on television but not the radio):

Although the CBC has a similar remit to that of the BBC, and therefore has a unique national responsibility to advance Canadian culture without commercial objects, the CBC's budget is a fraction the size of the BBC's budget. The BBC received about £3.1 billion in licence fees during 2007/8 compared to the $946 million the CBC received from the public purse and which was split between French language and English language services.

The CBC tends to be a little left-biased in today's political climate (i.e. they are solidly centrist, but don't shy away from criticizing corporations and highlighting environmental topics, which makes them positively pinko by American standards ), but they reliably savage the two three major political parties equally, with special focus on whoever is in power (neglected the BQ there, regionally dominant but never in the running for leadership nationally).  There's little evidence to my eye of being a mouthpiece for the leadership, and I find them to be a good model of a balanced and informative media outlet, IMHO.

[Sibling DavidH]

I saw a review of the autobiography of Peter Sissons, a long-time BBC news anchorman.  Sissons apparently rants about the BBC's lefty bias:

At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.  By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told 'it's all in there'.

He's not the only person to think that.  Some programmes, notably the prestigious Today, are so biased against the Tories and interview so unfairly that I know many Tories who believe the Tory leadership should forbid MPs to appear on them.  I think so, too.

[Griffin NoName]

I'm happy with the BBC and the licence fee and no adverts. Hardly watch the other channels as so much rubbish.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

But why not advertising, like all the other channels?

At the beginning I thought the same about NPR but that is what makes it independent, when your livelihood depends on advertising you would never dare saying bad thing about the advertisers.

Left of Right bias is fine if the difference isn't that big, from here Tories and Labor aren't really that far apart. OTOH here in the States the distance between the so called 'left' and the [far] right is significant.