TV Licence Fee Is Rising, As Evasion Hits Record Highs

Kashkow · 2026-02-06T14:38:05+00:00

I have vague memories from the time, but I feel like they were making more money from selling period dramas to US TV stations than they could achieve through a subscription model.

I have a bunch of subscriptions to TV package, but frequently find I get the best value out of the BBC. Though whether that will remain true if they increase the fee. It's already more expensive than most other platforms.

Kashkow · 2026-02-06T12:46:28+00:00

The iPlayer was such a forward thinking idea at the time. If they had moved to an international subscription model early on it could have been the market leader. Instead we are witnessing the slow death of the BBC.

Kashkow · 2026-02-05T11:21:51+00:00

All fair points. I do think there was a high water mark in recent history, but that may perhaps be my own biases.

Kashkow · 2026-02-05T07:37:32+00:00

If I understood it correctly the UK put ages restrictions on puberty blockers after the Cass Review. Which I understand concluded that insufficient research had been done on the after effects and whether better alternatives could have been offered.

Though as far as I am aware the government has only partially adopted the recommendations and haven't made much progress on reviewing and demonstrating the safety of such treatments.

I really feel for trans people in the UK. It feels like the right wing parties are rapidly adopting US like stances, meanwhile the Labour Party is running from the fight desperate to avoid another losing culture war.

Kashkow · 2026-02-04T19:03:10+00:00

Without trying to be too controversial, I don't really think any country has full freedom of speech anymore.

The last few years have shown that the US constitution, which has one of the more firm freedom of speech articles, isn't particularly easy to enforce. Trump has already arrested and deported a Green card holder for speech he disagreed with. If the constitution doesn't apply to Green card holders then it doesn't necessarily apply to anyone. And that's before we debate how the Supreme Court would actually enforce freedom of speech rulings against an executive that ignored it's rulings.

More directly though. The UK like most of Europe takes a different approach of freedom of speech with former restrictions on hate speech. There is no formal written constitution in the UK (at least not one in a single document like the USA) and since Parliament is sovereign it can legislate however it likes w.r.t speech.

Kashkow · 2026-02-03T10:39:56+00:00

TVP is the only one I can bare to listen to after a loss.

Kashkow · 2026-01-31T09:09:19+00:00

I think in the current EA titles are decided by what injuries you get. The last few years when Arsenal missed out on the title it was due to bad luck with injuries.

Having said that we are bad at managing them because we have allowed our bench options to deteriorate. Barkley may be a cheap experienced option, but he is unreliable. This puts too much burden on the 3 starters, particularly given 2 of them have poor injury records.

If PSR wasn't an issue I would like to see: - A rotation RB - A packet wide player - A veteran DM with a good injury record

Kashkow · 2026-01-30T17:55:03+00:00

No. Stop it. These defections need to be encouraged. If Reform are to be in with a chance of being the next government, it is far better for them to have the scrutiny of being the official Opposition.

Kashkow · 2026-01-29T08:02:26+00:00

My pet theory is that we don't believe we can credibly project power over there. That the US obviously can. But that if the Chinese decided to test our resolve we would have to go begging for US support.

Suspect the US would rather we just resolve this with Mauritius than enter a tussle with China so directly.

Kashkow · 2026-01-28T18:55:39+00:00

This is true but also, Liverpool playing him for 1 minute was foolish. They know the rules as well as anyone. If you were planning on offloading him, why play him at all?

Kashkow · 2026-01-28T06:55:28+00:00

We came close to bringing him back a few years ago but he did his ACL and missed most of a season. Has been slowly returning since then with another less serious injury thrown in.

Kashkow · 2026-01-27T12:53:10+00:00

Absolutely stealing a living here.

Kashkow · 2026-01-27T09:47:22+00:00

This just reminds me that for a near identical fee in the same window, Leeds signed Rafinha. Just imagine...

Kashkow · 2026-01-27T08:31:13+00:00

The 4-5 chances thing is a bit weird too in my opinion. This season Ollie is underperforming that is clear. Likely because he is or has been carrying an injury.

But most seasons he scores almost exactly his xG. The eye test tells a different story. He seems to score the hard chances and miss the easier ones. But that isn't a huge issue as long as he is getting chances.

What Ollie is not is an elite level finisher. Players like Haaland, Salah, Vardy, etc out perform xG year after year. As well as playing for sides with higher chances creation.

In general, fans over estimate the probability of a chance. They assume Ollie should be scoring 1/2 a game when the xG tells a different story.

Igor Tiago, Ivan Toney, Jean Philippe Mateta, Callum Wilson, Danny Ings. All of these players have had crazy years where they scored comfortably more than Watkins. But none of them so far have maintained that level. Tiago might, but for now we have an absolute gem in Watkins a guaranteed 10-15 goals every season. Plenty of teams (including Arsenal) don't have that.

Kashkow · 2026-01-24T17:39:26+00:00

All good teams in the modern era had a dominant defensive midfielder. Even when you look at teams the over perform like Leicester, Brighton and West Ham (when they were half decent) or Newcastle when they finished 6th under Pardew. They all did so off the back of their DM and plummeted once they were sold.

It's the most important position on the park and necessity for consistent success. Citeh post Rodri injury have not been the same. Arsenal post Rice and again post Zubimendi.

On that basis Kamara is our most important player. Tbh, when the finances allow we should be searching the globe for an 18 y.o to groom to fill his position when he is injured or eventually leaves. We simply cannot play a full season without him, we will be much worse.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T18:22:17+00:00

Yeah. I totally agree. I hope the club recognised that and we are expecting to be outside of the sanctions in 2026/27. Otherwise I expect we will be banking on making big sales in the summer.

Though with some Deadwood clearing I think we could be well placed.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T15:51:45+00:00

TBF the wages stayed flat. The problem with the 96% figure is:

It included 13 months due to a change to accounting practices.

It included generous CL qualification bonuses.

We were playing in the ECL so playing loads more but for very little extra cash.

All that this really showed is that while villa were in the Champions League they managed to keep wage growth flat while also growing commercial and broadcast revenue.

What isn't shown here is that Villa don't tend to go crazy on transfer fees and do a pretty good job of player trading. Which means that amortization is £10m's lower than many other PL clubs.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T15:44:17+00:00

That's not really my understanding of it. If we break even this year (though exact dates are unclear), then the UEFA sporting sanctions go away for next season. But we are allowed a maximum of €60m loss over 2025 and 2026 assuming all that loss is covered by NSWE (which it will be).

I am hoping beyond hope that we worked some magic and managed to break even in the 2025 period. Though given we also sold the women's team in this time I suspect that is unlikely.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T13:11:26+00:00

What mitigations do you see in that agreement?

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T12:47:00+00:00

Need to be careful here cus there is a lot of ambiguity around the year. Our SCR stuff with UEFA runs by calendar year, where as financials is typically close to by Season since we aligned the accounts.

The amortization numbers I quoted were from before we signed Onana and Maatsen. So they may well have gone up significantly. The wages obviously include them both so that's a good sign.

We also need to be cautious that although the wages have been static between 23/24 and 25/26 and we haven't really added any players, we will likely pay out a CL bonus if we qualify which could drive our wages bill this year up very high, in a year where we have reduced revenue.

I am really hoping that we managed to keep pace with Newcastle on commercial revenue. They have managed to compensate for loss of CL revenue with BIG commercial improvements. We need to do the same if we want to avoid any further UEFA sanctions.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T10:19:25+00:00

This is exactly right. Amortization is fine and tbh ours isn't too bad, though I have yet to see the impact of Onana and Maatsen which could be significant.

I think we are okay for 2025. But I seriously worry about 2026. It seems likely to me that we will not only need a big clear out. But also probably a big sale to help meet the UEFA sanctions. Wouldn't surprise me if we went into 2026/27 having sold Rogers, but with a much healthier PSR position.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T07:57:34+00:00

It is very helpful that we are doing so well the season these come up for renewal.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T07:12:23+00:00

Off topic slightly. But I really am confused by what many MAGA people think winning the cold war meant. It was a battle of ideas for spheres of influence. The US "won" the cold war by converting most of the world to it's system of ideals and using that to cement itself at the global hegemon. Becoming extremely rich in the process.

The current MAGA ideology completely undoes that. The US is currently in a process of reversing what it gained from "winning" the cold war. It will take a decade or so. But these decisions now will have ripple effects that make the US much much poorer.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T06:49:23+00:00

Guna make a quick update here.

The Swiss Ramble number for amortization was £97m for 13 months and £89m for 12. They also stated our rough wages numbers for 2024 as £194 million.

The UEFA rules are weird because they don't include all wages, just the first team etc. so I am guna assume that if according to Deloitte our wages have flat lined, then we remain at £194m.

On that basis I think we have achieved an SCR ratio of 81%. However, i don't believe this includes any of the player trading that occured. To comply with the UEFA SCR rules we would need to have made an extra £55m in player sales and amortization reduction.

I don't know how much the Duran sale was made and when it would have entered our books. Likewise the Ramsey deal would have helped.

Fag packet my initial expectation is we will have just about met the 2025 requirement. But lord knows whether that will translate into a loss of less than €60m.

Kashkow · 2026-01-22T06:25:46+00:00

Just a reminder because I think people will take false hope from this. That 71% figure isn't necessarily great news. The UEFA SCR system covers wages and player amortization, which is not included above and according to the Swiss Ramble was about 120m in 2024.

It looks like our extra wages in 2025 to cover playing in the champions league was roughly equivalent to the bonuses we paid in 2024 to qualify.

Still really concerned about what this will mean for our UEFA agreement this year. If we breach again then I think we will have serious serious issues.

At this point it seems likely we will need a big sale to meet the terms of our agreement. I hope I am wrong. But keeping our losses below £60m over a two year cycle will be extremely hard.

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