Teenage opinions.

The BBC licence fee. So what bright spark asked teenagers for their opinion? It’s like asking babies what flavour breast milk they’d like. It would condemn young mothers to hours of eating strawberries while frantically trampolining. Or a handy foldaway pogo stick for those weekends away when space in the campervan is at a premium. Anyway the BBC asked teenagers whether or not they’d like to pay the licence fee? Now the older generation, never having been asked their opinion in their yooff and consequently not having any, are amazed and amused that this younger generation have opinions about everything. In fact schools even teach learners how to have opinions. (‘learners’ is new school speak for those they child mind during working hours, an exercise in wishful thinking if ever there was one) Learners ‘own money’ is spent strictly on themselves. The thought of a communal purchase is quite alien, especially on an item as vague as a licence fee. Its source, the parent, is stimulated by pressure, very much like a calf sucking on a teat. It’s likely their image of ‘daddies work’ is of offices full of people frantically blackmailing each other for sweets. OK that may be nearer the truth than we care to admit but we do in spare moments achieve things. So unsurprisingly they don’t want to pay the licence fee, especially when the alternative is advertisements, which are not only free but stimulating reminders of all the actually useful items of personal expenditure like hair products, iPods and internet access, and the happy and beneficial results of their ownership. It’s a no brainer. And the Beeb has also shot itself in the foot with its iPlayer. Teenagers are not used to being present in real time. At school they’re playing football with Wayne Rooney in the field outside the classroom window, in the street they’re mobiling with a friend two miles away and at home they’re twittering or visiting a sneezing panda in Beijing Zoo. iPlayer makes real time TV a redundant concept. Plus it has all those stupid boring programs about wild life and global warming, politics and fish. And when any one channel is only good for thirty sends of attention why make programs any longer than a Guinness commercial. So well done BBC for asking teenagers their opinions; next week ask Icelanders if they want to pay back bank debts.