Not at all, it gives me good value for the £145 a year, can't speak for others. I don't really watch much TV (as in really watch and concentrate on rather than it being on - it is all the time - but I'm reading or playing with the iPad), but what I do is usually BBC 2 or 4 (except for Family Guy, and that was funnier when it was on BBC). I listen to Radio 4, 4 Extra and 5 live, and use the sport and news apps a lot, especially when I'm travelling. I don't think it's current affairs stuff is especially biased either way, but even if it is I have the critical faculties to edit out the noise from the audience on QT or on election debates, which seems to be the main complaint, and listen to what the panel/participants are saying, or usually shouting over each other. Quality of what is on there is variable, and any channel which broadcasts unmitigated **** like Mrs Brown's Boys and the endless cooking shows does not merit unconditional support.
But I do think the BBC is something uniquely British, and worth persevering with for that. I can't think of another broadcaster which gives the variety it does, ranging from trash to outstanding drama and documentaries, some superb investigative journalism (much rarer now than in the past), and including stuff like Watchdog, where I learned that you have a good chance of having 'fecal matter' in ice consumed along with your fizzy sugary drink in McDonalds, Burger King and KFC and most major coffee shop chains. What major commercial channel would invest in broadcasting stuff like that? And what advertiser would buy time in such a programme (if the fast food chains which are major advertisers permitted it anyway?)?
Like any old, large corporation the BBC has huge challenges in adapting to a massively fragmented media environment and new market entrants. It's lost a virtual monopoly. But it's trying. The pay thing is just a stupid reflection of our stupid world at the moment, where entertainers and sportspeople are massively overvalued for reasons beyond my comprehension, and men valued more than women, though presumably someone is making a tidy profit from it. I'd be quite happy for the BBC to institute some arbitrary pay caps and see what happens to the 'talent' then.
I just suggested that you actually do something about your serious issues with the BBC besides going on about it on here, which you have been doing for ages, well before today. I do think you should have the choice not to pay for it if you don't want to, as long as you are also prepared not to watch it. Perhaps the solution is restricting access to those who are happy to pay the licence fee. I'm sure they could work something out for TV at least, charge for apps etc. If loads of people choose not to pay, fine, the BBC is scuppered. I don't pay for Sky, I don't watch it's programmes (or even use it's apps) and wouldn't miss its disappearance. Would you miss the BBC?
I did enjoy Huw Edwards' absence from the ten o'clock news tonight, absolving him from having to read out his own name in the list of high earners.
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