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Maandag, 19 Mei, 2008

Door Patrick West | Sommige diensten van de overheids openbare informatie of reclame namens de staatsdiensten veranderen nooit. De de voorlichtingsadvertenties van de dronkenschap bij het rijden kenmerken onveranderlijk een vóór-en-later verhaal, dat met mensen begint die hebben van een vrolijke oude tijd worden getoond bij pub, en het einde met voornoemde revellers entombed in a bloodied, verdraaid hunk van metaal. De de rekruteringsadvertenties hebben van het leger altijd voorgesteld dat door omhoog te ondertekenen u een soort ersatz, globale sociale arbeider worden, sommige vaardigheden kunt leren, of een het opwekken tank drijven; zij vermelden nooit dat het zijn in het Leger dodende mensen of weggeblazen het krijgen van uw hoofd kan eigenlijk impliceren. En hebben de TV- vergunningsadvertenties zich altijd op het betrouwbare oude bericht gebaseerd: `Wij weten waar u' leeft.

De TV- vergunningsadvertentie die momenteel de onze schermen vereert is de het meest dreigend en overheid die tot op heden dreigt. Het schildert een stad die in de vorm van innards van een computer af opschept, dat de computers van de overheid toegang tot elk van onze details hebben, die in het proces voorstellen dat de staat ons als geen burgers, maar als aantallen, stukken gegevens, radertjes in de machine beschouwt. Nooit identiteits op kaarten, waarom letten zij in plaats daarvan brandmerken ons niet enkel met ijzers?

Het is verleidend om te zeggen dat dit aan Nazi Duitsland of Orwell verwant is 1984. Het is waar dat deze zinspelingen maar al ongeveer te los en ongepast bandied. Één denkt aan de reactie van Fawlty van het Basilicum op gasten die slechts over zijn incompetentie klaagden: `dit is precies hoe Nazi Duitsland' begon. Maar toch in het geval van de dreigende vergunningsbedreigingen, kan men debatteren dat dergelijke vergelijkingen met het verleden worden verdiend. Uit alle vormen van ongewenst bestuur, één van de unieke eigenschappen van totalitarianism zijn afhankelijkheid van bureaucratie, technologie, statistieken en toezicht als middelen is om mensen te ontmenselijken. Onze maatschappij kan niet totalitarian zijn zodanig dat de volkerenmoord wordt toegelaten, maar het wordt zo op de manier dat het contract tussen staat en burger wordt geïnterpreteerdr. Zeker, begint het UK op landen zoals Singapore of China te lijken, waar de politieke en burgerlijke vrijheden in ruil voor economische liberalism worden ingekort.

On the other hand, one may interpret this latest advert as a sign of panic and of weakness (after all, who’s going to be afraid of notoriously cack government databases). The case for the abolition of the licence fee has never been stronger, and I suspect that the government knows it. The licence fee is in its death throes.

First of all, since many households have Sky, Freeview or Virgin, the BBC, just like its commercial counterparts, Channel 4 and ITV1, does not command the share of the audience they once did. People are watching other channels, and thus compulsorily paying for a channel they use less frequently. This is partly what made the old radio licence fee so unjustified, which, since the airwaves were liberalised in the 1960s, was abolished in 1971.

The expansion of the television network since the 1990s has also in turn dismissed the unfounded fear that commercial television is incapable of producing sensible and high-brow programmes. The wealth of documentary, news, foreign language and film channels suggests the market can provide - the quality found here is ironically highlighted by the fact the BBC now puts its sensible fare on its non-terrestrial BBC4 channel, and that in order to place EastEnders and its profusion of Casualty spin-offs in prime-time, Question Time comes out just when most people are going to bed, leaving poor old Andrew Neil’s jolly politics show, This Week, to languish in the middle of the night.

The BBC really is its own enemy at times, and antagonises those who are otherwise sympathetic to the Reithian spirit. Radio 4’s jaundiced, liberal-left take on the world is a particular scandal. I don’t mind people being left-wing, I just object to people thinking it is normal - and that anyone who is not is wicked or stupid and in need of re-education.

Auntie is shooting itself in the foot in another area currently, by reminding viewers that they can watch their favourite shows on the BBC website. By doing so, the Beeb is spreading the realisation that you don’t necessarily need a television set to watch television programmes anymore. Many teenagers and young adults are increasingly eschewing television altogether, preferring to watch YouTube. Just as landline telephone lines are vanishing from our homes as mobile phones have made them redundant, I suspect greater technological interactivity will one day see television sets go the same way. So with no TVs, why a TV licence?

By watching programmes on the internet, we can by-pass irritating commercial breaks, whose presence on the other channels has always been cited as a reason to keep the BBC as it is. But commercial breaks will also soon be a thing of the past. The internet and the Sky+ record and fast-forward facilities are making them obsolete, which Sky knows all-too-well, hence the bulk of its revenue comes from subscription charges. There are moves afoot at present to lift the ban on product placement on television programmes, a direct reaction to the waning influence of commercial breaks. So, soon, viewers of Coronation Street may no longer have to endure the unrealistic spectacle of someone asking for ‘a pint of bitter’ at the Rover’s Return (no-one asks for generic beers in pubs) but, perhaps, ‘a pint of Boddington’s’ or ‘a pint of John Smith’s’.

I won’t predict that the licence fee is definitely on its way out. Nor will I necessarily applaud it if it does go, because you know what’s going to happen as a consequence. Australia abolished its TV licence fee in 1974, but its government still funds the Australian Broadcasting Commission to the tune of A$800m per year. India abolished its in 1977, Portugal in 1992, Holland in 2000, Hungary in 2002: all of these countries replaced it with direct state funding. The only difference this made was to cut down on administrative costs, and to alter a tax on televisions from a regressive tax to a proportional one.

So, in a way the issue is not whether to abolish the TV licence fee. The real question is: what should come after? In essence, the quandary remains: should we be taxed to watch television?

See More:Big Brother UK News 

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Surveillance, Civil Liberties & Human Rights News, General . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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