UK ISPs Could Face Government Broadband TV Tax 136
An anonymous reader writes "Industry regulator Ofcom, which yesterday launched the first phase of its review into public service broadcasting, is threatening to impose a tax on UK broadband ISPs to help resolve funding problems. The review covers all public service broadcasters, both publicly owned and commercial. Ofcom Chief Executive Ed Richards said: 'Public service broadcasting is at a crossroads. Viewers still want a mix of high quality UK-made content, but the traditional television model is not enough to meet all their needs. Today's proposals outline options for a securely-funded PSB future. Now is the time for a wide-ranging debate looking carefully and dispassionately at all the options.'"
everyone pays (Score:4, Insightful)
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As you do for many other things. Hospitals, ambulances, crime investigation, roads, schools, universities, the police, the military etc.
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The BBC's remit is to inform, educate and entertain [bbc.co.uk]. Watch Auntie's War On Smut [bbc.co.uk] if you can, it gives a good insight into how the BBC's emphasis was on informing and educating rather than entertaining until relatively recently.
advertising (Score:2)
This has been happening for years.
Re:everyone pays (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Nearly everyone I know who doesn't pay for cable TV downloads all their favorite TV shows, so they are making use of the content, just not through conventional channels.
2. The BBC and other public broadcasting services must be sustained. I've lived in the US for over four years now and I cannot even begin to express how terrible TV here is in comparison to programs by the BBC. There are a few exceptions, of course, but I would gladly give up my entire cable package consisting of nearly one hundred channels, just to get the handful of BBC channels available in the UK. Having lived in the UK most of my life I too used to criticize the TV tax but this was certainly a case of not knowing what you've got 'till it's gone.
Even if you from part of a minority who truly does not "make use of any of that content" you do indirectly benefit from living in a society where for-profit networks can't completely dumb-down television programming to the point that turning on the box literally causes your brain to rot, and where watching an hour of television also implies watching twenty minutes of commercials.
Public broadcasting benefits society, and taxes are designed to benefit society even though specific taxes may not benefit every individual. So long as the taxes are reasonable and produce real results I would be in favor of them.
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That's rubbish. The BBC is full of useless biased crap if the programme is in any way political or scientific (see the whole climate change propaganda article fiasco for example). If it's a comedy then the funniest line that any person says is "F***" and that is where everyone is supposed to laugh.
A large number of people in the UK have access to satellite and cable TV now and the most popular programmes on any TV channel are invariably American imports - Lost, 24, Prison Break, Heroes, The Simpsons etc.
Re:everyone pays (Score:4, Insightful)
Whether "popular" programs are imported or not is irrelevant. It makes sense for the BBC to supplement its own productions with the best productions from other bodies. It is the quality of the programming overall that is significant in the case of the BBC, and I have seen very little to rival it. Just as the shows you mentioned may be the most popular in the UK, they are also some of the most popular in the US. But take that list of shows, divide it among well over 100 channels broadcasting 24 hours a day, and perhaps you can start to see a picture of how sparse high quality programming is here.
I can't speak to the salaries of the BBC, nor do I claim that I'm familiar with their internal operations or that they are appropriate. I will say, however, that you might want to compare the typical interview with Jeremy Paxman to any number of interviews from the likes of Bill O'Reilly, and see how that turns out. I believe you'll find plenty of samples on YouTube.
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Why they did they have so much coverage of US Primaries? More so than they'd generally have towards proper foreign elections...
Re:everyone pays (Score:4, Informative)
Most popular programmes on british TV are a bunfight between Eastenders and Coronation street, between them taking up most of the top 10 viewing slots at around 10 million per showing. Add in Emmerdale and Casualty and that pretty much takes up the top 20, with the BBC News slipping in there at the bottom (yes, paxman earns his keep).
Sky are nowhere. The colour of magic was by far their most popular programme at only 1.2 million viewers (that's a british programme BTW), pulling in double the second place programme Stargate ark of truth which managed only half a million. Even the rerun of 'Ben Hur' on five got more than that.
Scan through the BARB figures and you'll find the vast majority of popular TV in britain is british. The rest is made up of Australian and US stuff... but none of the things you mention are in the list.
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Why? The BBC is not a neutral entity. They are extremely one-sided politically. This is not a problem when it is commercial t.v. When you are forced to pay for it, however, this is completely wrong. I say convert the BBC and other public stations to a commercial status, drop the t.v. tax, and let them compete with each other as they should.
Most American commercial t.v. sucks. So what? Turn it off or switch to a cable station. If your ca
Re:everyone pays (Score:4, Interesting)
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And you are mistaken to think I live in the U.K. I've traveled extensively in Europe and have been to the UK (London, what a shit-hole!). Here in the states, every now and then I turn on "BBC America". If they only show their best shows on this station, then UK t.v. is worse than I originally remember.
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CNN like all US news channels is extremely right wing.. not quite as bad as the average US slashdotter, but the agenda is clear.
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*a story which, you might recall, was broken not by the major news networks, but by a blogger commenting on a story the major networks were sitting on.
You probably think F
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Re:everyone pays (Score:4, Interesting)
If anything I think the BBC (and the Australian ABC) are generally over-critical of whatever government currently in power.
However I do not see that as a bad thing. In a sense this is a way of them demonstrating their independence. It is far more dangerous for a national broadcaster to be too soft on those in power than too hard.
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Why? The BBC is not a neutral entity. They are extremely one-sided politically.
I have noticed their coverage of the Olympica Torch is more Pro-China.
This is not a problem when it is commercial t.v. When you are forced to pay for it,
Who pays for ITV? Tesco, Morissons, Asda, Sainsburys, etc. etc. It's pretty hard to avoid paying for ITV. Or Sky.
however, this is completely wrong. I say convert the BBC and other public stations to a commercial status, drop the t.v. tax, and let them compete with each other as they should.
You can choose not to have a TV.
most shows on the BBC suck, too. Just as with commercial t.v., there's the occasional gem (Dr. Who).
But while you, I, and most of Slashdot love Dr Who, there's 50 million people the UK that don't. The BBC has to cater for all of them.
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I lost my cable connection last week (glitch?) and can't be bothered to have it fixed because the only shows I care to watch are recorded (dvr) by a friend so we can watch whenever we want, not when the networks choose. At the moment the shows I am interested in are: Dr. Who, Torchwood, Battlestar G
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If I watch a programme on ITV, but don't buy the products advertised, I don't get taken to court. That's the difference between commercial TV and the BBC.
I don't see why the licence fee can't fund individual programmes rather than channels. So the licence would pay for Planet Earth, Life in Cold Blood etc, but they'd have to put adverts in the shit like the Andrew Lloyd-Webber adverts^W talent shows.
And British TV as a whole would be better
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Now because that has not worked the worms are trying an internet tax.
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I have to agree. (Score:2)
My one gripe is that broadband is not truly comparable to broadcasting unless the ISPs enable multicasting to the home. Point-to-point streaming is so harsh on bandwidth t
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I've never heard of brainrot caused by the quality of the information you consume. In fact I've never heard of brains just starting to rot in healthy individuals (and I don't think any of the brain diseases I've heard about qualify as rot).
(AKA don't use "literally" when you mean "figuratively" or just an expletive for emphasis)
Ofcom (Score:3, Insightful)
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Woah there buddy ... it isn't government run, but it IS government funded . There's a big difference. As someone above suggested, the BBC is the terrier nipping at the Government's heals. Sure, when there's a change of Gov, the BBC are all happy about it, but when it starts to turn nasty (see also nu-Labour's last 5 or more years!) they start a-nipping!
I'd suggest the TV-tax has had it's day and it should come directly from the general t
Right... (Score:2)
Re:Right... (Score:4, Interesting)
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The irony here is that while all this is going on in the broadband review, another government review process is pretty solidly rejecting the idea of imposing a levy on blank media as compenstion for a format shifting exception to copyright on the basis that it would be unfair to people who do unreasonable things like backing up their own data.
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If you own any equipement that can pick up the TV signals (TV, VCR/Video Recorder, TV Card for your PC, etc) then you need a licence for said equipement. If you decide not to use said equipement for watching BBC programs then you still pay, in much the same was as if you purchase a car and leave it parked on the road, but don't use it, you still have to pay the Road F
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One of the largest ISPs in Britain is Sky, owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch is pretty much the most powerful man in Britain. The government daren't piss off Murdoch.
And Murdoch's News International pays virtually no tax in the UK, and I doubt he's about to start.
Ofcom can say what they like, but HMG aren't going to be setting aside time to pass legislation which will hit Murdoch in the pocket.
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BT are by far the dominant player having (last time I checked) around 60% of the broadband accounts in the country.
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they do have large pay checks and bonuses. regardless of the statement being incorrect the links are an interesting read. i have noticed many top stories missed by the bbc including anti war demo's the destruction of our civil rights.
Odd, as I've noticed all of that stuff being reported in depth. Er, you are listening to the serious news coverage on Radio 4, aren't you, not the bubblegum on the 6 O'Clock news?
what the bbc are good at is the scaremongering of paedophiles, terrorists and pirates, just to make sure we will all give up our rights to protect our children.
That seems to be more down to the press -- and the BBC generally points out when they're doing it.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/04/396197.html [indymedia.org.uk]
Hardly the epitome of balanced and fair reporting.
Totally ridiculous (Score:5, Interesting)
BBC iPlayer uses bandwidth that customers pay for, they have a set limit which they are allowed and if they exceed it then they have to pay for more bandwidth.
So why should a tax be imposed on all customers? Ofcom is stupid and a waste of time, they're ruining the UK TV market by allowing more frequent adverts and now this.
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This isn't obvious at all. Network equipment keeps getting faster and cheaper, and the only thing an ISP needs to provide more bandwidth is more and faster routers. ISPs like to pretend that your using ten times as much bandwidth costs them ten times as much, but it doesn't; it just means they have to upgrade a little sooner.
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I suppose the case the ISPs (particularly the budget ones) are making is that services like the iPlayer are causing a large proportion of their consumers to exceed their bandwidth limits. Now, it would be impractical, the ISPs argue, to go after the individual customers (man
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Failed business shoulden't be allowed to use tax to survive they should die out like any normal business.
~Dan
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- I know of a company which makes a lot of money, its called Iliad Free-telecom
- the client pays 30â euros a month
- gets uncapped connection up to around 20mbps (only limit is how far you are from the dslam,) free phone to 70 countries
- dozen of gigabytes personally used a month up and down (musician here, exchanging large files,
Taxes (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is this a tax on Internet access, rather than being drawn from the general fund? Net access is something that is good for people to have, so putting a tax on it is a bad thing, especially since it's a regressive tax (people with lower income will spend proportionally more of their income on net access, so proportionally more of their income goes to the tax).
Taxes on specific things, rather than broad taxes that go to the general fund, should be for one of two reasons. Either the tax should be intended to discourage something (whether that's an ethical reason I'll leave to others, but if society making such judgements is reasonable then the tax is reasonable), or the tax should be intended to internalize an internal cost. So taxes on carbon emissions and other polluting activities make sense (though imho tradable permits are better), because there is a normally external cost paid by society that should be shifted to the ones creating the problem. Internet access is neither of those things -- and public content is most certainly not an external cost.
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In fact I think the whole iPlayer is just an excuse to make sure the BBC is on the net so there is no getting around paying for a licence.
This is obviously not the case, hence why this issue of broadband tax is coming up. I'm a bit confused as to how you could think this anyway - don't you think having the BBC's content online is a good thing?
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And again, from the article you linked to:
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I have no problem understanding the following in the link: "You only need a licence if you use your computer to watch programmes at the same time as they are being shown on TV."
and
"However, you are free to watch archived programmes or downloadable clips without a licence."
I also have no comprehension problems with ahref=http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/support/rel=url2html-31969 [slashdot.org]http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/support/>, which says that "With BBC iPlayer you can catch up with the programmes from the past se
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I wasn't replying to that, I was replying to your posting in which you linked to an irrelevant article, pointing out that it was irrelevant.
There is perhaps an interesting debate about whether all PCs need TV licenses under the existing law (including all PCs at work, because they could be used to receive live TV, which is enough for the law), but none of that is anything to do with iPlayer, which is a complete red herring.
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The TV tax is also a silly silly idea, if you assume TV ownership is a good thing (whether that's the case is a different question). And since nearly everyone pays it anyway, it ends up being equivalent to a regressive general tax -- which means it would be better all around to simply take the money from the general fund and increase the general tax rate accordingly.
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Problems (Score:1, Insightful)
2) Dialup? P2PThrottled? AUP? Congested network? Well you're not getting this stuff then, are you.
Now is the time... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Pre-emptive strike (Score:2, Interesting)
I really don't know where I stand on this. On one hand, the ISPs have been massively overselling their capacity, and
I think you mean (Score:2, Insightful)
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Uk? Taxes? No! (Score:1)
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Anyone not getting the joke see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party [wikipedia.org]
Are we taxing the right group? (Score:2)
Sheeple Getting Sheared and Slaughtered (Score:1)
As long as people are content to sit on the sidelines and bleat like sheep, they will be slaughtered and sheared like sheep.
Like the meme of dropping a frog in hot water and it jumps right back out, but put a frog in cold water and gradually heat it up and the frog just puts up with it until it dies. People in the USA and Britain both are sitti
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They're too busy watching TV to care.
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Getting the wrong Idea (Score:2)
It also doesn't specifically say anywhere that ISPs are being singled out, it's pure speculation and fear mongering there. ISPs could even benefit, getting licence fee to ensure that they deliver online TV. It wouldn't make a huge amount of sense to financially pena
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When I decided that I didn't want to pay extra for cable, I canceled the service. That doesn't mean that the cable companies get to apply a fee on my Netflix subscription.
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Re:Getting the wrong Idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Note, video clips are not a live TV signal (defined due to prescient clarifications as being a live TV BROADCAST) note video clips are NOT a broadcast, they are by definition unicast, you
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UK TV Tax is Unsupportable (Score:2, Insightful)
But the benefit of that government work doesn't come only through the TV. TV is now, generations after introducing the tax, as integrated a societal activity, whether government produced or not, as any other largescale activity. I
Wrong (Score:5, Informative)
This is totally wrong.
The TV Receiving License is per {House,Flat,Shop,School,etc}
You can have as many TV's as you like in your house and only pay 1 License fee.
HMO's are treated as separate residences. ( HMO = House for Multiple Occupancy )
I have 3 TV's in my House and pay 1 TV License.
Distinction Without Difference (Score:2)
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"Tax": technically correct, practically misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
The UK taxes people per TV, supposedly to direct those taxes into the government production (BBC) and oversight (regulation) of TV broadcasts
There is no "supposedly" about it. Yes, the license fee is a charge imposed by the state, so its technically justifiable to call it a "tax". However, it is completely distinct from "general taxation" - like the "road tax" or tax on cigarettes which go into the general coffers with no obligation for the government to use the money for transport or healthcare. The license fee is collected independently and is actually used to fund the BBC [bbc.co.uk].
Likewise - yes, the BBC is a state institution. However, in the B
Re:"Tax": technically correct, practically mislead (Score:2)
Re:"Tax": technically correct, practically mislead (Score:2)
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Let me see if I have it straight. The BBC is an organization that you have to pay to support, but you have no way to influence what it does or how it provides its service?
Let me see if I have this straight: so every US citizen gets to vote at NBC/FOX/ABC board meetings? Nope, didn't think so. Everyone in the UK with a Sky box gets a say in how Murdochcorp is run? They don't ?!
But, hey - in the free market I can vote with my cash: let's see, which broadcaster is going to offer me the best deal for watching the latest episode of "Battlestar Galactica" or "Lost" tonight... Oh dear, it looks as if my only "choice" is to subscribe to a Murdochvision package or not watch the s
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Or the best deal might be to get it as a torrent of bits within a few hours of it having been broadcast anywhere on the planet.
Good example! (Score:2)
Or the best deal might be to get it as a torrent of bits within a few hours of it having been broadcast anywhere on the planet.
In response to which, does the commercially-accountable-to-me-its-customer broadcaster change its policies?
Hell no, the commercially-accountable-to-me-its-customer broadcaster calls up his buddy in the democratically-accountable-to-me-its-electorate and persuades them to pass draconian new laws against file sharing. Somehow, they neglect to ask my opinion in the process.
Now, the BBC used Windows-only DRM in its TV downloads service. It immediately faced mounting pressure to change this policy, including
Yeah right... (Score:2, Insightful)
They are unelected, so have no need to please voters.
Their aims and views are at odds with government: empire-building vs not-getting-voted-out.
If HM Gubmint puts a levy on internet access on the say-so of Ofcom, I'm a banana.
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The BBC Charter was only settled last year. The next charter review is 2012 - at which time the landscape regarding ISPs, broadband, etc. will be totally different (we should be mostly if not totally digital by then for example). The incumbent government of the time will then make the final decision, present it to the queen (it being a royal charter) and carry on as usual.
Part of the license fee going towards broadband
Maddness! (Score:3, Interesting)
We have collected more than 41.000 "signatures" in opposition of applying TV license fees to the internet and/or devices which have absolutely nothing to do with television.
I have written a quick background summary in English [stopcomputerlicens.dk] on my website. The rest of the site is in Danish
So unfortunately, the British are not the first to go down this sad path.
- Jesper
More information (Score:2)
http://www.dr.dk/OmDR/Licens/sprog/20061009123141.htm [www.dr.dk]
brgds
- Jesper
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I have used a great deal of time on the matter. And yes, there are a lot of similarities. You may not agree with my wishes for keeping my computer and xDSL line free of TV license fees, but that does not translate my post into being irrelevant or wrong.
While you may claim that the Danish model keeps the license issue between the TV company and the end user, that is not entirely accurate. Several proposals have been made by the Ministry of Culture and the national TV station, DR, which had the goal of
same old story (Score:1)
Fuck it, I'll move back to Mars.
Hands up all who think TV over IP is a good idea.. (Score:2)
It's concentrated stupidity in its very purest form. One tiny drop of this is enough to lower the collective IQ of an entire nation.
Re:Hands up all who think TV over IP is a good ide (Score:2)
It's actually quite useful - I've found a lot of stuff that I wouldn't normally watch whilst browsing through it. Probably the first implementation I've ever seen that was actually usable, as long as you don't get suckered into downloading that kontiki crap.
All the ISP's fault (Score:2)
What about the folks not watching tv on pcs? (Score:1)
I am more likely to watch them in a given day than broadcast TV.
If I want I movie... bittorrent - and not any content from a broadcaster....
and that holds for XXX too.
BBC is fricking boring.... BORING!
Sat/Cable - Andrew Bourdain maybe history chan and nat geo chan otherwise forget it...
Now for the Number one USE of the internet WoW....
Blizzard is the only one responsible for that not any tax funded circle jerks...
New
A simple solution (Score:2)
BBC Thieves at work again (Score:2)
Instead it's an attempt by the BBC to get even more money for their crap shows for idiots so they can pay morons like Jonathan Ross millions of pounds.
The BBC can go crawl back into the hole from where it came and I hope it dies. It's a useless service as the internet has taken over and I am sick of their bias reporting..
I'm sic
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'If the BBC has funding issues they should cut costs'
- maybe this applies to everything else as well? If the NHS has funding issues they should cut costs, if the department for transport has funding issues in road building they should cut costs - isn't it rather a discussion of what the _job_ should be, and then whether the cost that is quoted is about as expected for that job, i.e. whether it's run efficiently enough?
'The other broadcasters can put a
The comedy of the situation (Score:3, Interesting)
* People are complaining that they are more busy these days than ever
* We complaining that our education system is failing us and our children are growing up to be louts
* We keep hearing stories of kids being parented to greater and greater extents by TV
* We want to see the top public broadcasters cutting costs and funding to put a few more pennies back into our pockets
Good move everybody, good move.
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