Re: BBC cutting news jobs

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Sun, 26 Jan 2003 12:25:49 -0500, "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net> said:

> The license fee is just another name for a tax.  It is mandatory and imposed
> by the government on a product.

So the fees US radio stations pay to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are also
taxes?  They are also mandatory, imposed by the government, and
collected by private corporations pursuant to a government-granted
monopoly.

> But to be more specific:  Who imposed the license fee?  The queen?  The
> parliament?  God?

The licence fee is authorized under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts
1947.  The BBC is authorized to collect this fee pursuant to its Royal
Charter, and does so under agreement with the minister responsible
under the Acts.

A licence fee for radios, established by the BBC as a private company
which sold receivers as well as the programming, was carried forward
when the BBC was nationalized in 1926.  This fee has since been
abandoned, so the television licence fee also funds the operation of
BBC national, regional, and local radio (but not the World Service).

-GAWollman