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[Chunkers]

Its often observed that the license fee rules are deliberately confusing to scare people into continuing to pay for fear of being prosecuted / jailed - they send threatening letters to people and tell lies about their 'detection systems'.  Its a massive tax-funded bureaucracy which will not survive in the commercial world and they know it ...

As I understand it you have to pay for a license to watch any live broadcast, bbc or not and including things like live sport streamed over Amazon / BT sport, non-live streamed content is OK, as is catch-up TV ... its ridiculous.

I think being forced to pay for a service you hardly use is pretty objectionable.

My view is that the
BBC should not be funded by taxation and they should compete with everyone else, they don't really produce anything unique, they are politically biased and are increasingly irrelevant - my kids generation just don't watch live TV or consume media in that way any more.

[chenks]

Didn't take long for the anti-BBC agenda to pop its head in

[gt94sss2]

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the TV licence evolved into  one for having a broadband/internet connection

[Alex Atkin UK]

they don't really produce anything unique

I strongly disagree, I think their satirical and documentaries are exceptional, plus as already pointing out part of that license fee is for the broadcasting infrastructure.  Alas its grossly unfair to blame the BBC for the license fee, when you need it for none-BBC live content, surely THAT'S wrong as that content is already advert supported.  The fact you need a license to watch pay per view on Sky is what's insane.

What I object to is the government meddling in their funding, making them inherently more likely to side with the current government.  Their funding needing needs to be ring-fenced in some way so they can actually be neutral without fear of funding cuts.

[Bowdon]

The most annoying part of the BBC for me is that they split away the radio stations from iplayer, when most devices i.e. tv's, games consoles only have the iplayer app installed, not the Sounds app that they moved radio to. The Sounds app itself doesn't have a good UI and is overly complicated.

I think the BBC need to be moving to become a subscription service, or free with advertisements. The commercial side of the BBC i.e. BBC Studios is making millions from the UKTV acquisition. I think they also own other advertising based tv channels too. The BBC needs to decide what it wants to be, either a commercial organisation, which it as already proven to be successful (the current new head of the BBC is the one who made all the money at BBC Studios), or remove the adverts and give us commercial free channels like the regular BBC ones are.

[GigabitEthernet]

What a ridiculous thread this is.

[Alex Atkin UK]

The most annoying part of the BBC for me is that they split away the radio stations from iplayer, when most devices i.e. tv's, games consoles only have the iplayer app installed, not the Sounds app that they moved radio to. The Sounds app itself doesn't have a good UI and is overly complicated.

Its not like iPlayer is a great UI either, but like you said at least its available on more platforms.

Also bizarre is how long they have been beta testing UHD streams on "select platforms" while not even bothering to support 1080p at all.  I just don't understand their thinking.