A previous discussion on LDV had a link to a poll with over 60% not approving the current situation:
http://www.libdemvoice.org/new-poll-time-to-scrap-the-bbc-licence-fee-5162.html

Any plans to address this at the party conference? The poll suggests it might be a vote-winner (and of course it is liberal)

Plenty of quality TV from the states:
Seinfeld
Friends
South Park
Ally McBeal
The West Wing
The Soprano’s
Prison Break
Oz
The Simpsons

And that’s without putting any thought into coming up with a list.

As for standards, the BBC seems to be in controversy precisely because it is disregarding standards and chasing ratings.

Should the license fee really be funding low standards like this?

Of course there are some good programs which come out of a commercial driven environment, but there is also a lot of utter pap. Standards overall would be a lot lower without the Beeb – as I said above, you only have to look at the States to see that. (Expand PBS, I say!)

I only hope I can give the Capita goons the run around long enough to cost them a fraction of this absurd fine before they give up and stop trying to harass me.

Maybe there are demands that the commercial world cannot meet but I would want to see the specific argument made rather than the BBC surviving by default.

The claim that the commercial world cannot deliver in general is put to rest by the existence of “24″.

We have far better TV here than in the United States, and ad-free ‘socialised TV’ (as some over there would call it) is the reason. For example, as a parent of small children, I’d far rather they watch high quality CBeebies than much of the commercial-ridden nonsense on other channels.

We should remember our party’s roots are in democratic ‘socialism’ as well as in liberalism. Otherwise we will lose our most loyal supporters.

There is serious material broadcast on channels other than the BBC.

So, I favour getting rid of the BBC or moving to a subscription service.

If people really want the service, let them subscribe to it.

I do not see why I should subside BBC programmes that give free publicity to psychic frauds, pay huge amounts of money to Jonathan Ross or tell you how to make your own medicine whilst being very careful to only use it with conventional medicine.

I am sure that Heroes would find a home on a commercial channel, just as Hustle repeats are doing

Alex’s idea that if you take away the BBC you will lose 5 DVDs worth of content is simplistic. It fails to recognise that I may get much less than that out of the BBC. Let me choose the DVDs I wish to buy

There is also a lot of material originally paid for by the BBC elsewhere on satellite.

That said, even for that minimal use it equates well costwise to buying a daily newspaper.

“I pay £12 a month or whatever so that I can watch 30 minutes of BBC Breakfast every morning, uninterrupted by advertising. Worth it? No.”

If you watch 30 minutes of BBC tv per day, that adds up to approximately 15 hours of BBC tv per month. This is roughly the equivalent of 7-10 trips to the cinema, or maybe 4/5 DVD films (that’s if you watch the bonus content). Using that comparison, £12 seems like a bargain. Never mind that you get all the other non-BBC channels for free.

The whole point of the BBC is to broadcast programmes which are unprofitable. One example: what other channel would’ve spent the best part of a month or two having programmes about the life and work of Charles Darwin?

Nobody in the BBC loses anything and there are no shareholders to feel the pinch, so the only real effect is of naming-and-shaming.

This fine is for the BBC for their part in the matter.

If I had my way I would fine each and every one of the people who complained without having heard the programme. Those that didn’t care what had happened but wanted to stick it to celebrities they hated- I would fine triple.

Vile people.

The law as it is promotes collective responsibility. If Ofcom fined performers (or even individual editors or channel heads) then there would be less reason for the BBC to bother about compliance and responsible broadcasting – and remember they’re currently in a position where they’re being forced to worry about “value for money” above all else – and more encouragement for a culture of blaming the lowest-ranking person you can get away with.

It is absolutely pointless ‘fining’ the bbc in this way, although punishing it by knocking a proprtion off of next year’s licence fee money does seem attractive.

Better still, we should try to dump the outdated licence – which is just a tax – and the heavy-handed bureaucracy we also have to fund to collect it.

I pay £12 a month or whatever so that I can watch 30 minutes of BBC Breakfast every morning, uninterrupted by advertising. Worth it? No.