egafd.com

In-directly yes , directly no - only the bbc license fee ?
I'm not forced to pay for a bus/rail season ticket 'cus "others use it" , it's paid for from general taxation and by fare paying users .
If I had the choice i'd rather not pay my license fee !

You have to pay road tax even if you just leave your car parked outside the house and don't drive it other than once in a blue moon or even not at all.

You have to pay TV license fee if you have a TV but don't use BBC.

Yes , but my car I use everyday . My tv not so .
Cheers .

thing is though if you disagree with Rupert Murdoch you can stop giving him money by cancelling sky. Don`t have that option with the BBC.

David Johnson wrote:

> You lads don't know good value when you see it. You have
> "Privatise" spectacles on.
>
> For less than ?3 a week, I get the fantastic BBC website, the
> brilliant Iplayer so I can play back all the tele and radio
> that I missed and fancy watching, the best public service
> broadcasting in the world with a great mix of nature, history,
> politics, sport and drama. I've travelled around a lot related
> to work and I haven't come across anything remotely as good.
>
> I would have paid a ?150 just for the magnificent Olympics and
> Paralympics live tv, never mind access to all the best bits for
> months and months after.
>
> You Tea Party fanatics would privatise the BBC and I would end
> up having to watch South East Asian domino championships and
> some right wing twat on a news programme telling me that Obama
> is Osama Bin Laden's chief of staff.
>
> Stroll on pal and hands off the BBC!!! You'll be wanting to
> privatise the NHS next...........


Perfectly reasonable points, but they do not address the waste of money incurred in closing a purpose built TV centre, conveniently located in west London, and spending a billion on BH in central London. Michael Grade said that TV Centre could have been modernised for ?200 million, instead it has been sold for the same amount. Value for money? I don't think so, but in public sector organisations, which do not have the discipline of a profit and loss account, it's the sort of thing which happens time after time.

"but they do not address the waste of money incurred in closing a purpose built TV centre, conveniently located in west London, and spending a billion on BH in central London. Michael Grade said that TV Centre could have been modernised for ?200 million, instead it has been sold for the same amount. Value for money? I don't think so"

Since when did you become a multimedia expert in the corporate environment? Maybe some money was wasted. I don't know. More importantly, neither do you.

What I do know is less than ?3 a week is fantastic value for the totality of the BBC offerings. So I am prepared to put up with some money wastage which you get in every large corporation, private or otherwise that I have worked in.

"but in public sector organisations, which do not have the discipline of a profit and loss account, it's the sort of thing which happens time after time"

"Do not have the discipline of a profit and loss account." Don't make me laugh. What is by far the biggest cockup in business history in the last century? The global banking collapse. Typical private sector behaviour. Offshore the profits, nationalise the losses. What public sector business has brought entire nations to their knees in the way the private banking system has with hundreds of thousands of job losses and grinding, killing austerity?

Open your eyes!

BBC4 is worth the licence fee alone. You just don't get programming of that quality on any other channel. As Sky Arts...don't make me laugh.

David Johnson wrote:

> "but they do not address the waste of money incurred in closing
> a purpose built TV centre, conveniently located in west London,
> and spending a billion on BH in central London. Michael Grade
> said that TV Centre could have been modernised for ?200
> million, instead it has been sold for the same amount. Value
> for money? I don't think so"
>
> Since when did you become a multimedia expert in the corporate
> environment? Maybe some money was wasted. I don't know. More
> importantly, neither do you.
>

Clearly Michael Grade doesn't know what he is talking about either. If you sincerely think that public sector bureaucracies are dedicated to providing value for money then I pity you.

"If you sincerely think that public sector bureaucracies are dedicated to providing value for money then I pity you".

I think that is one of their objectives, yes. And I also think that they are just as likely to meet this objective as a private sector company if not more so.

Does British Gas provide value for money? Do the commuter train companies into London provide value for money? Did G4S provide value for money in their dealings during the Olympics?

To paraphrase "if you sincerely think that private company bureaucracies overwhelmingly interested in providing value to their investors are dedicated to providing value for money for their customers then I pity you, Robches?"

As usual you totally avoid all the points I make - running scared.

1. The idea you put forward that private sector companies are much better at providing value than a public sector company is laughable. Go check out the investment banks. Go check out all the retail companies that went bust in the last year, ripping off their customers in the process. So much for keeping track of profit and loss accounts.

2. Irrespective of whether the move for the BBC was good or bad, the licence fee is fantastic value. Michael Grade thinks not, plenty think that it was a good move. You haven't a clue either way.

Now post something relevant or I will just ignore your ramblings.

David:

You do seem to get rather snippy at anyone who does not agree with you 100%, which is a shame, as I doubt such a person exists. I really don't want to debate the licence fee, which is a seperate issue. My point is why the BBC chose to dispose of a fantastic asset, which they will never be able to reproduce, for a mere ?200 million? They then spent over a billion revamping BH, but that will never be more than a shadow of TV Centre. In all the various programmes the BBC put out about the closing of TV Centre, they never seemed to ask the question why it was closing? Given that it is our money they are spending, it might have been nice if they had.