I recently – and rather belatedly it seems – found that the BBC currently has a live beta version of its “simulcasting” service which, as you can see here, streams shows from the BBC as they’re appearing on TV. There’s a small disclaimer on the page which states, “Don’t forget – to watch TV online as it’s being broadcast, you still need a TV Licence.”

Now, in all honesty, if you don’t own a TV set or any equipment that flags you up on the Licensing Authority’s database as owning such gubbins – and therefore making you liable to pay the license fee – would you really pay the fee of £142.50, knowing that you can’t be detected watching BBC online? I have to say, I wouldn’t. In fact, were it not for the fact that I’d face a fine of possibly £1000, I wouldn’t pay it at all.

This made me question the fairness of the TV license fee given that if you have a computer and a broadband connection, you can watch the BBC for free, and you can’t be detected doing so. But if you don’t have those facilities and watch TV on a telly, you can and will be fined if you don’t buy a TV license.

Speaking about internet TV to The Telegraph newspaper in November of last year, Philip Davies, a Conservative MP who sits on the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee, said, “This is the kiss of death for the licence fee. People are already refusing to pay the licence fee because of the Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross affair and I think that this will only help to kill it off…

“It’s going to make a mockery of the way it is enforced and collected. What are TV Licensing going to do? Go to people’s homes and check their computers to see whether they have been watching live television online?”

Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned, if you watch the BBC’s simulcast, you’re supposed to have a license but if you watch iPlayer, you’re not required to have a license. So again, I consider that unfair; it’s free to watch ‘delayed’ programmes or repeats on your PC, but you still have to pay the fee if you watch the same shows when they’re repeated on a BBC channel on your TV set.

Regular readers of Primetime will be aware that I’ve often and vociferously voiced my opinion that the license fee is outdated and cannot be considered a fit-for-purpose charge as it no longer provides the service it was designed to fund. And of course, the BBC has been called to task by many authorities who agree that the license fee is, at bottom, almost a stealth tax. Here’s an example of one such lashing the BBC received about the concept of their ‘original’ programming.

There’s also a growing rebellion against the license fee on the ‘net via sites such as this one which is not only petitioning for an end to the license fee, but also tracks the whereabouts of the dreaded detector vans. And Noel Edmonds very publically took a stance against the license fee back in September last year when he refused to buy a TV license citing the BBC’s “threatening” enforcement tactics.

My main concern about the BBC enabling simulcasting however is that anyone who isn’t ‘net savvy or doesn’t own a computer – and at the risk of being ageist, I’d guess this is primarily some elderly people – will still be charged a fee from the BBC for a service which many of us are getting for free. How can that be fair and justified?

Demographically speaking, the elderly in Britain are among the poorest of our citizens and in making pensioners pay a license fee if they own a TV set – but not being able to enforce the fee if BBC is being watching on a computer – regardless of whether they actually utilise BBC or not, this group of people are being unfairly penalised.

Presently, the only pensioners to be exempt from paying the license fee are those over 75 but what about those under 75 or the millions of viewers who, in the wake of the credit crunch and recession, are living on the poverty line? Why do those people have to pay the same fee that someone who earns, say, £200,000 a year does?

I firmly believe it’s time the BBC was dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century and made to take on commercial sponsors, as every other TV channel in the country does. They advertise their own products and services after almost every show, so the argument that viewers enjoy an “ad free” channel falls flat on its face in that regard.

The BBC’s other argument that the fee funds original programming also fails to impress many of us, me included, when rival channels such as ITV manage to produce original programmes without needing to make the poorest in society cough up £142.50, which is more than double the weekly income of some people. For those people, their TV set may be their only form of entertainment.

So what do you think? Is it time to abolish the license fee or do you believe it’s a fair and justified means of providing the BBC with an income? Let us know.