If someone had asked me twenty years ago to list numerous reasons for being proud to be British, I would have included the BBC. Obviously, it would not be at the top of the list, that must go to the UK's three pin plug! I have yet to find a better foreign plug and socket combo. I have even had to prop a plug in to a socket in Germany, allegedly the home of 'quality' engineering, to maintain contact across the contacts. No, the BBC would probably sit somewhere between inventing most of the world's popular sports and music made between the 1960s to the 2000s. Brits made the best music in the world, if one ignores Abba of course.
I had this naive belief that anything made by the BBC was world class and thus head and shoulders above ITV and the Americans. Especially their comedy (Fawlty Towers, Porridge, One Foot in The Grave, early HIGNFY etc) and documentaries, particularly those narrated by David Attenborough such as The Blue Planet. Fast Forward (little pun there for those that remember VCRs) twenty years and I now hate it with an equal passion. So why did it all change for me?
It was not when one planned an evening in front of the telly, and the news we watched was always the nine o'clock News on BBC. Or, if they were showing a decent film on ITV, you would forego the BBC News and watch the ten o'clock News on ITV, or whenever that film finished. Then ITV stupidly moved their news to 11, which then encouraged the BBC to move from 9 to 10. I assume ITV then saw their News viewing figures nosedive, after all who stays up to quarter to midnight to see the main/local news? They then moved back to ten, thus coinciding their News with the BBC’s. Please correct me if I got the previous detail wrong, I am just going from memory, and mine is poor. No, I cannot blame the BBC for that, it was obviously down to ITV in creating this situation. Even then the choice of the clashing news channels in our house was still a BBC default.
By the time the 2010s came around I had stepped away from watching much news, believing it should be renamed 'Bad News' as it was usually so depressing. I could not blame the BBC for covering all the miserable news, they were after all, only reporting the facts! I think it was around that time that ITV had introduced the light hearted article at the end of their 10 o'clock News to try and lift the spirits after the previous 25 mins of misery!
Nor was it ‘Eastenders’ Which is TV to make want you to commit suicide. It was all about confrontation. I had to leave the room as soon as the theme music came on. At least Emmerdale had good looking women in and Les Battersby was good for a laugh in Coro!
The date for me seeing the BBC in its full biased light was 31/01/20. A date familiar to all of us ‘racists’: we officially left the EU. The News was on at 11:00 PM, which was obviously Brussels midnight time, the last day of membership. I stayed up to watch the coverage, on the BBC of course: Wow, that was underwhelming! Hardly anyone celebrating in Parliament Square. Yet an on-scene reporter did manage to get a few bigoted words from one woman, then coverage moved on to either Glasgow or Edinburgh, I forget which, where it appeared that a far larger crowd had mobilised to protest against leaving the EU than those celebrating in Parliament Square.
The next morning, I tuned in to watch, via YouTube, Julia Hartley Brewer on TalkRADIO. She showed drone footage from Parliament Square, in which JHB had been celebrating in her Ginger Spice Union Flag skirt. There were clearly huge numbers of people in attendance, and not at all as the BBC portrayed it. The penny finally dropped, and I cancelled my TV Licence soon after.
This then started a saga of a one-way correspondence from ‘TV LICENSING’. I cancelled my TV license via an online form sometime in June 2020. Between then and Nov 2023, when I completed another form that seemed to pacify them as they sent my final letter saying “No Licence Need Confirmation. This is valid until November 2025” I was inundated with escalating threats. It seems that they want me to complete this online form every two years! And even their last letter contained a threat: “ …we may still visit you to confirm this”.
In total, I received 18 letters, 19 if you include the refund cheque, as I was paying by direct debit. So I knew I had cancelled it correctly, yet the letters just kept coming. The contents of these letters just got increasingly more threatening, and eventually started to come in bright red envelopes, which must have entertained my postman. I am just looking through them and, strangely, the first seven have my name on, thereafter that becomes “The Current Owner“ as a one off, “The Legal Owner” for numerous, back to my name for a one off, then the last one states “The Present Owner”
Headlines on these letters include:
“You’re about to lose your license.” - I know it expired: I cancelled it!;
“URGENT: your TV Licence expired on 30 September 2020. Act today." - I know it expired: I cancelled it!;
“Only 10 days to go. You haven’t got a lot of time, so we will keep this short”;
"You are breaking the law if you watch TV at this address”;
“You can stop our investigation just by picking up the phone”;
The above two had ‘fake stamps’ “ENFORCEMENT: INVESTIGATION AUTHORISED” and “ENFORCEMENT: INVESTIGATION ONGOING” respectively;
“Be prepared for this investigation to lead to prosecution”;
‘Your address has been scheduled for a visit by an Enforcement Officer”;
“OFFICIAL NOTICE”
“Will you be in on the 9th September?” With another stamp: “ENFORCEMENT: VISIT APPROVED”. We were in, but we had no visit!
You get my drift; it appears they must have a whole department tasked with changing the wording to these letters. And trying to frighten the bejeebers out of people. Where the funding comes from for all this is unknown to me, whether it is from TV Licence funds or general taxation. But it is you, dear reader, that are the source for that funding.
You only need a TV Licence if you watch any channel of ‘live’ TV or BBC catch up. We watch neither, so I am confident if an Enforcement Officer does turn up, we are doing nothing illegal. And unless they have a warrant, you need not give them entry, and you are under no obligation to reply to their threatening letters.
There are various sources for help and information. On YouTube: ‘ChilliJonCarne’ specialises in it, and ‘The Black Belt Barrister’ often covers it. And finally, I recommend the Defund the BBC site, which is running a campaign against the BBC's telly tax.
Graham Bedford
Editor's Note: I too have been on this journey. Growing up the BBC was just part of being British, universally accepted as the best. My disenchantment started when I was in Manila during the Peoples Power revolution against the Marcos regime. I saw a well known BBC presenter stand smirking while his team went around trying to provoke a riot. I cancelled my license about 15 years ago and have had all of the letters Graham mentions and more, enough to wall paper my house with. I compost them. I have never replied and, in 15 years of threats, have never had a visit. If they do ever come, they will be told, politely, to leave and not come back.
How does the BBC get away with it? Imagine the BBC's fury if it was Netflix or Amazon sending out these letters.