This [1] is a story in the Daily Mail about a fall in numbers of people paying for a TV license. The article clearly explains that there are two factors in play; firstly, people are choosing not to watch live TV (the legal bar for needing a BBC license) and, secondly, license evasion is increasing. The BBC statement says:
The overwhelming majority of households – approximately 9 out of 10 – are licensed and receive brilliant BBC programming and services across TV, radio and online for 44p a day. Licence fee revenue is holding up well and has fallen by just 1.6% in the last year despite the pressures of increased choice in the market and the rising cost of living faced by all media organisations. Our focus is ensuring we continue to find new ways to serve all audiences
What the BBC is doing and it is part of their policy and quite cynical and deliberate is implying, subtly, that it is not possible to choose not to watch live TV and therefore not to be legally liable to pay for a TV license. The households are “not licensed”. The hint is that they are doing something wrong. The BBC runs a very nasty campaign based on identifying all households which do not have a TV license and bombarding them with extremely threatening letters – many of which imply completely untrue facts, for example; in red “this letter is about your upcoming court appearance”. Many of the recipients of these letters (and occasional doorstep visits) will be frightened and intimidated even though they have broken no law and do not need to buy a TV license. If this was a commercial firm operating in this way, forcing people to buy its products by unlawful threats, regulators or the courts would stop it. Because the BBC is part of the state the other organs of the state, the police, courts, parliament and regulators all turn a blind eye.
Notice also “receive brilliant programming”. It is part of the modus operandi of contemporary PR ops to use such teenage slang rather than normal formal speech – such as “high-quality programming”. It is the populist touch; they are trying to hide the yawning gulf between their privileged elite lives and the lives of 80% of the population by using trendy language. Politicians do the same.
On another BBC story. Another report in the Daily Mail today [2] describes how an internal BBC employee survey asked people about their sexual orientation, giving options: bisexual/gay/other and prefer not to say. No heterosexual. The BBC claimed this was an “admin error”. Anyone who believes that is not paying attention. This is the logic of what the diversity lobby is trying to do. It is not about “equality”; the aim is to reverse the situation so that heterosexual people now suffer the repression and discrimination that gay people used to. They don’t want to be equal. They want to rule.
Notes
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12377289/Mass-revolt-2-8million-claim-dont-need-pay-BBC-licence-fee.html
- https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12376975/BBC-diversity-survey-ridiculed-employees-discovered-heterosexual-not-listed-sexual-orientation.html
