The current government would love to kill it completely but they can't do that directly.
They haven't, yet.
>There are pretty strong ethical reasons for why you shouldn't get a criminal record and, possibly, face prison time for not paying for a TV licence, so it would be politically quite easy to pass.
One doesn't face prison for non-payment of the license fee.
A custodial sentence can only be imposed if one fails to pay the court-ordered fine imposed as a punishment for non-payment of the license fee.
- Taskmaster: Channel 4 (originally Dave. In fact before that it was a Edinburgh Fringe Festival show written by "little" Alex Horne)
- Would I Lie To You: BBC
- 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: Channel 4 (interestingly it's a spin off of "8 out of 10 Cats" which was C4's sort of version of "Have I Got News For You" but C4 did an anniversary series of one off comedies one year, including bringing back "15 to 1" and a few other quiz shows from the channels early years. The "8 out of 10 cats does countdown" show was "Countdown" with the cast of "8 Out of 10 Cats" (hence the name) and proved so popular it became it's own show).
As for the classics in that list. While most were BBC, it's also fair to say most wouldn't have been the same low budget as Taskmaster et al.
Dave is owned by BBC Studios, which is the commercial arm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC.
It's probably also worth noting that the BBC does also have a few subsidiaries like BBC America which are also commercial entities and operate independently to BBC Television. They are at least owned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (albeit sometimes only in part), unlike Channel 4.
