More than 2,000 caught watching TV without a licence in East Lancashire (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Time to get rid of the T.V licence. How can we make someone a criminal for watching T.V? Some of the trash on the T.V is far more criminal and damaging. The BBC has been government biased for too long. If we need a public broadcaster it easily be paid for from a levy of the many T.V companies, It could then be neutral.

BBC i am sure i read in the news they knew about jimmy and the rest who have been nicked regarding child abuse no wonder there is so many not buying one p

Yes, some folk won't buy a TV Licence . . . . but I bet they buy alcohol, lottery tickets, scratch cards and ciggies, spending loads more that £145 each month. Don't even consider adding a drugs habit !!!

The puzzle to me is why so many people DO buy a TV licence. Television is just mass-medication, dumbing people down so that they are just fodder for politicians and business. Do yourselves a favour and dump the TV. I guarantee that most people won't miss it after a month.

there's very little on tv worth paying for, scrapping the licence is long overdue.

TV Licensing, BBC and Captia are operating what can only be described as a protection racket.They use threats of search warrants, "enforcement officer" visits, and "Detector Vans" in order to intimidate you, the general public into handing over £145 to the BBC.Dump your television and cancel your tv licence fee.Do not reply to their letters, and if they visit your property, Do NOT open the door, you are under no obligation to have anything to do with this bunch of con artists and bully boys.

Give them a bigger fine and take away their assets. If they fail to pay up then lock them up for a minimum 12 months. Why should me or any other licence payer subsidise the lazy non-payers again. No licence; no TV - plain and simple.

I think people need to get a grip here, who here didn’t enjoy coverage of the Olympic Games delivered uninterrupted by the Beeb last year? Who enjoys the fantastic nature programs the BBC make usually presented by Sir David Attenborough? Who can say they don’t visit the BBC website to read the news or check the latest sports results. As well as being able to watch it all again on catchup. They give you TV, Radio and online all for £145 pound a year without an annoying advert in sight how much would Sky want to charge for all that? It’s a great British institution and something we should all be proud of.

The BBC produces some exceptionally fine output, in fact on occasion the very best in the world. By the same token much of their output is mediocre and some is sub-standard and embarrassing.

The BBC was a great institution but I regret to say that in some quarters it is no longer held in high esteem.

I first noticed the bias of the BBC news reporting during the boom in house prices when reports of rising prices were given first billing in news reports and the language used was, if not hysterical, then certainly excited. Reports of stagnating prices were either ignored or given merely a cursory mention. Then I began to notice the dreadfully poor reporting of business matters and the stock market, which still goes on to this day.

I then remembered that the BBC had given great prominence to the Equitable Life scandal – the assurer of the elites - but less attention to collapse of Farepack – the Christmas Club for little people.

A couple of months ago something dreadful happened to one of the BBC's well-known national reporters and suddenly BBC output was running features on this type of event. The event was dreadful, but the same thing had happened to other people and yet not a feature or a word from the BBC.

Now I knoiw that I am a bit slow on the up-take but slowly it dawned on me: the BBC was running stories that have relevance for its staff, since I suspected that senior personnel at the Corporation have extensive property portfolios, will have been members of Equitable Life and have stock portfolios. I doubt very much that many BBC producers saved for Christmas hampers with Farepack. Fortnum & Masons, maybe; but not Farepack.

This was the only explanation that made any sense to me.

Now, I don’t mind if private interests of our national newspapers promote their own agenda as ‘news’ but I do object to the BBC doing so and running itself as a club for its own members – staff - and sending me the bill.

Sadly the BBC is playing into the hands of its enemies, which is very sad because the need for an independent broadcaster untainted by private commercial, vested-interests has never been greater.

In the examples above I should make it plain that the collapse of Equitable Life was a much more serious and newsworthy event than the collapse of Farepack but the central accusation that the BBC appears to give priority and prominence to news that impacts upon its staff directly still needs to be addressed.

Today will provide a classic example of the dreadful reporting that now characterises some aspects of the BBC's output.

As I write the FTSE-100 index is down by over 100 points. The BBC's business correspondents will aver that this is a 'bad day' for the market and investors, they may even go so far as to suggest that there has been a 'wave of selling'. Both of these assertions are wrong yet they will pass without challenge. BBC correspondents will then seek out 'experts' to provide a 'reason' for the 'sell-off' and this will be discussed in solemn tones. Here we will have a classic case of the BBC passing-off nonsense as informed analysis and debate.

All we can say when the index falls is that more sellers turned-up than buyers and stock prices had to be lowered in order to get enough buyers to match sellers. In reply to the statement about a 'wave of selling' all we can say is that it has been matched by a 'wave of buying'. The reasons for re-ordering ownership of such entities will be many and varied, but one side of the bargain will be making a mistake and that will become clear in the fullness of time.

If the BBC can't speak truth then what hope do we have? To pay £145 a year for BBC mis-information of the type I describe above strikes me as a poor deal.

The Hangman wrote:
I think people need to get a grip here, who here didn’t enjoy coverage of the Olympic Games delivered uninterrupted by the Beeb last year? Who enjoys the fantastic nature programs the BBC make usually presented by Sir David Attenborough? Who can say they don’t visit the BBC website to read the news or check the latest sports results. As well as being able to watch it all again on catchup. They give you TV, Radio and online all for £145 pound a year without an annoying advert in sight how much would Sky want to charge for all that? It’s a great British institution and something we should all be proud of.

But why should the bbc, tv licensing and capita harrass people up and down the country, regardless of if they watch live television or not.