.

Including illegal rip-offs, such as premium rate telephone scams...?!

BBC fined for Blue Peter phone-in
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6284014.stm

BBC feels the heat as cookery programme calls are investigated
 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1438011.ece

However anoying it is to pay the TV licence i would much rather pay this than have adverts spoiling tv programes. Anyone who watched tv programes on commercial stations knows how anoying adverts are and they cause people to have short attention spans. when i used to watch sky tv it was unwatchable because every ten minutes they had ad breaks. Children nowadays have much shorter attention spans partly due to commercial tv. At least with the BBC you can get away from commercials and concentrate on the programe.

You dont just get 5 channels, freeview boxes are less than £20 nowadays so even people on low income can afford this giving many more channels.

The bbc has lost it a bit recently and needs to get back to what it does best, but it is still good value compared to commercial tv which is not really free as we buy the product advertised?

A really really stupid idea!!
Fair point about the inequality of the licence fee - as with VAT etc - it's not a progressive means of taxation. However, to propose privatising the BBC is not the way to address. What do you think would happen if the BBC had shareholders and allowed advertising? Public service my arse - the BBC is not great at the moment but when compared to Sky it is bloody marvellous, which is the way it would go if it were to privatise - this idea is straight from the Daily Mail / Murdoch wish list and is very very poor to put it mildly.

and I think you might find that a significant proportion of the populace deem to spend their cash on SKY rather than other things.

You dont get SKY for free...... and god help us if we get much more brainwashing in the form of adverts....... keep the beeb as a fee paying organisation

Nice to see someone has their priorities sorted out.

Commercials are our friends, how would we know what to buy without them?

Some people, I beleive are living in cloud cukoo land if they think that the BBC are advert free. One only need look at my; "FlickR Group" to realise that the BBC is an advert, it's an advert for its own products.

 http://flickr.com/groups/bbcproducts

Nearly every program which is broadcast on the BBC you will find a product to go along with it, be it a DVD, Video, Audio Cassette, Board Game, Magazine, Book, Toy, Clothing, you name it the BBC are into it.

Public Broadcaster is one thing but Public Manufacturer is something else, covert advertising is the name of the game because the brainwashed don't realise that when they sit down and watch a 40 minute episode of Dr Who, they are infact watching a 40 minute advert for the product "Dr Who"

The BBC have in all aspects failed to deliver any reasonable return for the amount of money we the British people throw at them for the privilege of having a television in our homes. Has anyone actually looked at a BBC daily schedule lately? Its full of cheap reality shows 20-30 year old programs and endless repeats. Yes ITV and Sky are guilty of the same offence. But in both cases I am making a choice of how/if I fund their programming, and I am not being forced to contribute to the DG's salary.

But here's what really annoys me, in an average week I watch about 8-10 hours of television roughly two of which are spent watching BBC programs, thats 110 hours per year at a cost £131.50 giving an average cost of £1.20 per hours viewing! My point is this, if I watch 2 hours a week of BBC programming why on earth should I subsidise someone else who watches 100+hours? Ah yes but I could watch more If I wanted to couldn't I ? well let me ask you this, if you had soup in a restaurant would it be ok to charge you the same amount as the man who had lobster? Because in effect this is exactly what the BBC can and does do! And I'm not being overly simplistic here that is the hard truth.

Yes I pay a sky subscription, but thats my choice and I'm not a criminal if I choose not to. As for commercials, yes irritating but with new digital technology I can skip the ad breaks entirely. I shan't mention the amount of channels my Sky subscription lets me watch but it's a heck of lot more than the BBC provide.

I also don't believe for a second that children have shorter attention spans today because of commercial television, thats just rubbish and I'd like to know what on earth gives people that idea. Given that the BBC has in effect written of any child of, say over ten years, I fail to understand why or how ITV can be blamed. Children today, especially older children have far more ability to absorb and process ideas and information than people of my generation ever did. Not only that, but their demand for an interactive enviroment has meant that most of the independant television companies are now desperately playing catch up in an effort to secure a very lucrative teen market. If their attention span was as insignificant as one poster implied I doubt whether so much money time and effort would be expended.

Many years ago the BBC provided quality entertainment and drama, its news coverage was excellent and its radio shows were wonderful... but, today we live in an enviroment vastly different from then.. Today I can rent DVD's or listen to music or surf the internet where I can watch/listen to just about anything I feel like when I feel like it... And you can too! Now I know from some of the comments here that some people, for whatever reason enjoy the BBC's programming and I'm really not saying that the BBC should be scrapped. What I am saying is it should be forced to live in a competitive economy like you, me and everyone else has to in the UK. Only two outcomes are possible, either it will flourish and regain its historic prestige or it will dissapear without trace. I know which one I'd bet on.

In the digital age, the television licence that funds the BBC is archaic and in this day and age where Sky and Cable offer you hundreds of channels is completely pointless. In 1971 the radio licence was abolished with the emergence of commercial radio, where the BBC couldnt collect the fees. I believe that the BBC should be funded from other resources like ITV and other channels are funded by advertisments; the way that they persecute those who do not pay the fee are treated like common criminals made to face magistrates and are fined heavily with the threat of imprisonment if they do not pay the fine.

If the licence idea was imposed on the US then there would be uproar, but in this country no body has the guts to stand up to this. Abolish the TV licence, and stop lining the pockets of those who are supposed to make quality programs but infact we are exposed to mindless programs about selling your house or antiques. Television 15 years ago was worth paying; but now there is no point.