Quote:
Originally Posted by TheDaddy
How is it absurd, the other channels are free but the bbc tax is not, you or they shouldn't have to find any money to cover it. Scrap the tax is another way of closing the loophole to btw
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It's absurd to equate the cost of a TV licence with the price of a theatre ticket, which is what you seemed to be doing earlier. The TVL works out at around £3 a week. I took the kids to the panto last Christmas and the cheapest seats in the house were £20 *each*.
Yes, you can of course have a free-to-air national TV broadcasting service without imposing a charge on those who use it. The quality of those networks is however not so good. Even in the USA, where the advertisers potential audience is more than five times the size of the UK, free-to-air TV is swamped with cheap, low quality dross. What we see of US TV in the UK is highly distilled, has often been made to show on networks that require a subscription, and these days is normally shown in the UK on a network requiring subscription, given the producers' need to recoup the high costs of making it.
For a *tiny* contribution from all TV users in the UK, the BBC produces quality output and caters for a wide range of interests. Even for those who do not watch it, its output sets a benchmark that forces its competitors to keep their own standards up.