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Posted: 01-09-2001 10:43 Post subject: BBC propaganda?

The recent Sunday evening Channel4 series 'The History of Surveillance' mentioned how the BBC was used during the cold war to promote establishment approved values.

Judging by the type of thing they show nowadays, (home improvement, garden improvement, pet improvement, etc.), do you think that is still the case or are they now just pandering to a perceived demographic?

I really hate broadcasting. Why, with all this glorious modern technology, we still have to put up with it is beyond me. I would love it if I could actually watch THE programmes I wanted to watch WHEN I wanted to watch them. (Thank God for video recorders) I would happily pay per view, 10p a go or something.

-Justin.

Posted: 01-09-2001 17:25 Post subject:

Last year or the year before the TV Licensing Authority took to taking out large
bill-boards in Manchester with a stark black and white message:

"There are XX houses in XXX Steet without a television licence"

A number of real locations were named and shamed in this manner.

There was a time when I swallowed all the piffle about the need for
broadcasts to be free of ads or the end of civilization would follow.

Not any more. I seriously resent the obligation to buy a licence, even
if I want only to watch videos I have bought or taped years ago.

If you do succeed in kicking the telly out of your life for a spell and
take out a licence some three or six months later, they will automatically
assume you were cheating and redate the licence from the start of
the gap. Faced with loud protest, they will relent. [For the record, the VCRs
were also off the premises to comply with the letter of the law.]

I find the whole notion of persuing a minority this way very oppressive.
And, no I cannot be brought onside by the argument that everybody
pays for the cheats. Those who are not responsible for paying Ainsley Harriott are
good eggs in my book.

Rant over. Mad

Posted: 01-09-2001 20:05 Post subject: British Bandit Corporation

Don't get me started...

Nobody has ever explained to me how the BBC can transmit signals into your house without your consent and then take you to court if you decline to pay for them. Surely the onus is on them (especially in the age of digital) to provide a method whereby payment is only made when the service is actually used. It's like S Club 7 miming to their latest up-tempo fiasco in your back garden and then calling the cozzers when you tell them you won't pay them their £40. I'm sure this kind of crap wouldn't stand up in the European courts. Anybody got a spare £1m to test it out?

And another thing... TV detector vans - rubbish! I do not believe and have never believed that 'TV detector vans' exist. TVs are basically receivers, not transmitters. The technology to detect a normal, operational TV inside a house would be not only be formidable (unless directional microphones were used) it would also be completely pointless, when checking for ariels and matching license payments to addresses and looking through windows and listening at letterboxes is surely much cheaper (and is exactly what the bastards do.) Also, I believe that monitoring a private dwelling using a 'detector van' would be illegal under current law.

Posted: 01-09-2001 20:05 Post subject:

I recently bought a TV license for the very first time after finally moving into a place of my very own. The [expletive deleted]'s back dated it to the start of the year! You pay a whole year or none at all which is well AGHT ORDAH!

Niles

Posted: 01-09-2001 20:17 Post subject:

Without getting into the whole BBC thing, how do they actually find out if you have a TV? After all it only recieves, not transmits. And in any case shouldn´t you abe able to hide it with a Faradays cage?

The reason we still don´t have Pay Per View is then they couldn´t get people to pay for 70% crap.

Posted: 01-09-2001 20:28 Post subject:

They have lists that has every address in the country. By each house it will say if they have a tv licence or not. They then go around all the houses who don't and tell them they are in trouble and will have to pay a fine.

A old and now late relative of mine never had a tv and she was always pestered by them saying she needs a licence. They would come into her house and look for a tv. They didn't believe her when she said she didn't have a tv every time she answered the door to them.

They know if you have a tv, well they should do cos the last time one was bought in our house we had to give our address.

lucydru

Posted: 01-09-2001 20:55 Post subject:

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:17 Post subject:

Ok this might be a bit of a stupid question but does a tv transmit any signals if it is switched off?

Only if it doesn't then why don't (the silly fools who don't and will never pay there lisence) just switch off there tv's if a detector van is coming round?

lucydru

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:30 Post subject:

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:36 Post subject:

Then shouldn´t the Faraday´s Cage work? You just have to put an antenna cable inside it.

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:56 Post subject: Totally unconvinced

Also, since 60% of households now have computers and therefore monitors, how do these mythical detector vans differentiate? (I still don't believe they exist, but let's just assume for a moment...)

I've read up quite a bit on these detectors on the net today, and there's an amazing variation on what it is they're actually supposed to 'detect' and what technology they use to do it. Some reports actually say they can detect TVs that are switched off but have been on sometime in the past 7 days! No way! Not possible! I don't believe any of it, and just to check it out, I don't think I'm going to bother paying my TV license next renewal. I'll let you know what happens. Wink

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:57 Post subject:

Not sure if it has ever been tested in court but you do not
require a tv licence for a computer monitor, only for a receiver.

So the detectors are not measuring illegality if they pick up a
cathode-ray tube, not these days anyway. Ripping out and
eating your tv card whenever there is a knock at the door could
be bad for the digestion however. Sad

The whole question of detectors was discussed at length some years ago
on the Guardian's Notes & Queries page. In the end I think the
general consensus was that the best detector was a functioning
pair of ears outside your door at peak viewing times.

I have debated the issue with more scientific minds than mine. Some
believe in the technology and others don't. I think they realised
years ago that detector vans were so rarely seen that the ads. were
regarded as a joke. Then they needed to stress the little hand-held gizmos.

The percentage of homes without a licence is fairly small so as
Lucy points out, they know where you are. I think they would still
need to obtain a warrant to enter your home and search without
permission, though perhaps an elderly woman would be easy to
intimidate.

Depressing. Sad

Posted: 01-09-2001 21:58 Post subject:

And what about plasma screens! Eh? Eh?

Goddam, I'm getting in a right state here. I need to calm down. Cool

Posted: 02-09-2001 17:26 Post subject:

Posted: 02-09-2001 17:26 Post subject: Illegal entry ????

I know that after I'd been in my current house for about six months, a 'tv man' tried to enter the house without my partner's permission to check if we had a tv, even thought she'd told him we had one. The confusion here, was that we'd tried calling the licensing people to tell them that we'd moved house as soon as we'd stepped foot in the new place, but could only get through to a message service. I left a message with all the relevant details and thought nothing more of it. As I was walking up my garden path one night, I saw this man trying to push his was past my partner on the door step, and promptly told him that there was no way he was going to enter my house as we'd been paying the tv licence fee for the five or six months we'd been there. He apologised and said he'd send an amended licence to me, but I've never received it at all. He obviously thought he had the right to check the fact that we had a tv, even though he was informed of the this fact. This has to be one of my biggest gripes in life. I have sky tv, and never watch any of the terrestial tv channels. I pay my monthly sky subscription, and then on top of that, have to pay for this stupid licence, for something I never even watch, ie BBC 1 BBC 2. I can't receieve ITV so I never watch it, and there's nothing worth watching on Channel 5. As for Channel 4, well this is paid for by advertising, so I watch that on a regular basis. There's nothing worth watching on either of the Beebs.

The whole affairs a laughable shambles if you ask me, and I think most of Europe find it highly amusing that we have to pay for tv.

Moggadon