TV Licence?

[Derron]

We have to pay 210€/year

The public broadcasting "companies" receive a bit more than 8 billion Euro a year. A big portion of it is for retirement pays they pay for their "former employees". The board is occupied with many people out of the politics (or connections to it). So they are absolutely unbiased.

Nonetheless they are able to send advertisements until 19:00 o'clock (7pm). Money is spend to send soccer (expensive) or custom productions (some very cheap - with no audience - or expensive - with no or big audience ;-)).


The problem with money is: if your counterpart knows you have money, then they ask for more. There should be competititon but the competition is biased as the deciders might not decide unbiased - or they eg. define the rules for the competition in a way so that their "buddies" can announce a low price but then get more through "oops did we write that in the contract?"-side-notes.
For my studies in economics I once checked if I write my thesis on the finance-estimation of public broadcast in Germany - and how it affects the actors in the whole transactions. Talking about Principal-Agent-problematic (Everyone wants to have a little benefit out of an action and the more specialized you are the more you know about a subject compared to your "principal") and much more. There is even more to consider when you want to know why the public broadcast fees are so high, and why they are not working as efficient as a smaller TV channel might work.

An episode of Sherlock season 3 (BBC) costed ~2.65millon. That is pretty much for a "one time event" (+ repetitions and sales to world, so at the end it might have been a "income creating production").


On the other hand: what you pay finances thousands of jobs. It is not just spending money to someone who you do not know, who never buys _your_ products (or your unemployement pay - if you are without a job now). So in "parts" the money returns back to us. The big problem is the "goiter" of the public broadcast. The drain to pensions, to "more expensive than needed" productions ...


bye
Ron

[cpsmith0191]

I've just started watching a bit of TV after many years without, (never got into it in the first place) but having surfed the various channels I think (and this is just my opinion) that the BBC do a fine job both in the news feeds and the childrens output. The thought provoking plays and in depth reporting seem a bit light, but radio 4 continues to support the reporting of challenging issues.
Yes the reporting is favourable to the status quo but that's life. Nobody will get a job in reporting on any news channel who harps on about the UKs dirty laundry. Have fun cps