The TV Licence takes no account of your ability to pay, nor how much (if any) of the service you use. It hits the lowest incomes hardest by percentage of income. When it was created, there was only one broadcaster so a kitty type setup was fine, this has fragmented so much now that the BBC are a minority entertainment service that you can't unsubscribe from. It's nothing short of a legally enforced extortion racket. The BBC forces itself onto the airways and we are required to pay for its upkeep regardless of whether or not we watch it. If we want to watch ANY TV channel we are forced to pay for a TV Licence which only covers the BBC. The BBC is a public broadcast service but it competes for viewers as if it were a private company. All the live shows on the BBC have premium phone numbers to call for competitions and the like. The BBC sell advertising space on all their sites, all you need to do is visit the bbc website using a proxy from a different country and you can see links to buy advertising space. They make money from selling DVD's, Books, The BBC Magazine goes out to 88 million people a year, they must make a fortune. This is a complete monopoly. You wouldn't pay £140 a year to tax a car that you dont use would you At £139.50, The Tv licence is a joke. Every other channel funds itself by advertising or pay per view, so why can't the BBC do the same.