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TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

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Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#311

Post by hef19898 »

realityking wrote: post #303
hef19898 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That money has no strings attached, unless the amunt is about to be changed. An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The Bundesat, representing the individual states, means state parliaments have to agree first. That's the reason why the last fee increase fell through after one state feared backlash from the AfD leaning members of the CDU (Merkals party) and voted again…

Nitpicking but this is a common misconception: > An changes to the fee have to be agreed upon by both chambers, Bundestag and Bundesrat. The federal government, and thus Bundestag and Bundesrat, have no say in the funding or operation of Germany's public broadcasters. The exception being Deutsche Welle which is not available in Germany and has an "external" audience. The funding on operation of public broadcasters is…

Ah thanks for the clarification! I always had the impression it was the Bundesrat\Tag. The compact things confused me. But that makes this whole thing even more robust it seems.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#312

Post by Veen »

chrisseaton wrote: post #53
Veen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listen to most of those too, but as podcasts. The BBC has a very good selection of Radio 4 podcasts.

> I listen to most of those too, but as podcasts I don't understand what practical difference you think that makes... it's the same shows, made by the same people, how you listen to it doesn't make any difference.

You might be confused because you have, for some reason, interpreted my comment as an attempt to argue against your points.

It was, in fact, a simple statement of information I thought might be useful to people who are not aware of the BBC's podcasts.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#313

Post by pbhjpbhj »

philwelch wrote: post #153
sleavey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…

At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?

In the UK I'd say the answer is probably that you can't as easily divert funds to a private Tory owned business by simply adding TV licence costs to taxes.

IIRC it's Capita who collect the money and keep a remarkably high proportion of it. They're also employing people to lie and intimidate to try and get access to homes.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#314

Post by account42 »

hef19898 wrote: post #190
CodesInChaos wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they can pretend their state TV is independent from the state.

Lines are blurry in Germany sometimes, sure. But outlets like the ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP. And they have been, regardless of government coalition. They still are as far as their pure news formats are concerned, much mre "just the facts" then anyth…

> ARD, and a lesser extent ZDF (there are some legal differences between the two, including independance) are way more neutral regarding the ruling, or major, parties like, say, Fox News and the GOP.

That is hardly a strong endorsement.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#315

Post by hyperbovine »

4ggr0 wrote: post #93

A bit off-topic maybe, sorry. I am not from the UK, but quite a large chunk of things I watch on YouTube are british panel shows. I'm just in love with them. Which seems funny to me, because as a non-uk twenty year old, I don't think that I'm the target demographic for these shows. "8 out of 9 cats does countdown", "Would I lie to you?" and of course my favourite, "Taskmaster". Thanks for all of these great shows. "B…

Would I Lie To You is my second favorite comedy show of all time, the first being Peep Show. I have been trying to score tickets to a taping of WILTY for years now. The form requires you to specify an address and each time I have to note that yes, I really would fly from California to Uxbridge to attend a taping. They never get back to me :)

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#316

Post by realityking »

hef19898 wrote: post #254
cncndhJ wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the broadcasters need politicians and courts to confirm that the TV protection money is constitutional. It is protection money: You haven't ordered any service and if you don't pay they'll make you pay and ruin your credit score in the process. In the collection process they pretend to be a government institution to avoid going through local courts, which sometimes are against them. EDIT: Also, I'm beginning…

I think it is downvoted because it ignores the complete historical context of this system. It was put in place after WW2, and with a lot of things implemented in the German Verfassung, it drew curcial lessons from the Nazis rise to power and their way of ruling. Broadcasting, as opposed to the 100% Nazi party controll of media before, was thus setup to be independetly funded and run. The ZDF, if memory serves well, i…

> The ZDF, if memory serves well, is allowed to be more of a government policy outlet than the ARD and the third programms.

This was the original intent: Adenauer wanted a federal public broadcaster to compete with ARD which he considered too critical of his government. The constitutional court shut that down as only the states have the right to set up public broadcasters with domestic transmissions (Deutsche Welle is focused externally). Today ZDF and ARD have the same legal framework, they are just organized differently.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#317

Post by powderpig »

M2Ys4U wrote: post #306
jannes wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there is a subscription service called BritBox - created by BBC and ITV, but it's only available in Australia, USA and Canada. https://www.britbox.com/

I expect that will be slowly expanded; the BBC's new Director-General wants to increase commercial revenue (and immediately before being appointed as DG he was the CEO of BBC Studios, the BBC's commercial subsidiary).

The new chairman has apparently donated to the Tory party.

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-...

The DG was also a former deputy chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party.

https://inews.co.uk/news/tim-davie-new-bbc-director-general-...

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#318

Post by germanier »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #195
sleavey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…

Note that you pay for much more than just the TV networks; international / English offers such as dw.com are also funded by this.

DW is financed by the budget of the federal government, not the broadcast fee like the other public stations.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#319

Post by pbhjpbhj »

haspok wrote: post #91
lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

At least in the UK there is content on TV worthy of watching (I got addicted to snooker while there, also some quite interesting shows like "Benefits Britain: Life on the Dole"), also, when I moved overseas they paid back the licence fee for the remaining part of the year, no questions asked. Now I'm in Austria and the "content" on TV channels is just ridiculous. Targeted at 70+ pensioners, but why should I pay for t…

Benefits Britain is C5, not BBC, so it's not funded by licence fees.

Indeed very few programmes appear to be made by the BBC.

It seems like what happened/happens is that producers form their own private company, do the work for the BBC but the public don't get to keep the benefit of the work paid for the benefit gets locked away to provide private gains.

Long running programmes are now made by third parties when they could easily be made by the BBC proper, Gardeners' Question Time, say.

In part is to serve 'talent', but BBC's remit is to fill the gaps where commercial programmes don't go, to be distinctive, so they should never be paying £millions for a talk show host.

If you're going to use public money then you should be benefiting the public as much as possible, not carefully twisting it to get private profits.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#320

Post by realityking »

TonyTrapp wrote: post #195
sleavey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…

Note that you pay for much more than just the TV networks; international / English offers such as dw.com are also funded by this.

There are so many misconceptions about public broadcasters.

Deutsche Welle (which operates dw.com) is 100% funded by federal taxes as it is aimed at foreign markets.

https://www.dw.com/de/wer-finanziert-die-dw/a-279073

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