Over in the thread about licenses, the UK TV license was brought up.
I’ve heard of this before, but that thread got me wondering how this works today. In the past it was simpler. Televisions were only for watching TV, and if you wanted to watch TV, you got it over the airwaves, and that would have meant you were watching BBC.
At least in the US, there are now lots of complicating factors.
I might chose to have a TV, but only watch DVDs, or play video games.
I might subscribe to cable or satelite.
I might get my TV content over the internet, and watch it on my TV (Netflix on demand)
I might get my TV content over the internet, and watch it on my computer
I might not have a stand alone TV, but watch programs, using a TV tuner, on a computer.
How are these options handled by television licensing, or is it assumed that everyone has a TV, watches BBC programming, so pay up?
My impression is that if it has a television tuner, it’s assumed to be used to receive television signals, and it’s taxed. Thus, a USB tuner stick would be taxed, but a monitor would not be. Questions arise if you have a television receiver but don’t use it to receive.
You need a licence to receive (watch or record) TV programmes at the time of broadcast. If you watch a recording later, by whatever means you don’t need a licence. [edit] I see I’m just reiterating RNATB’s point.
The matter of whether the TV is tuned in is a practical one, not an actual rule – if the case goes to court, and the prosecution demonstrates that your equipment was set up and ready to receive transmissions, that is not going to help your defence. So if you have a TV that you only use for games, you might as well leave it detuned.
That’s right; if you have a TV, you pay the licence fee. In fact, when you buy a new TV now they make you fill in a form with your name and address, and they check to make sure you have a licence for that address. They’re not interested in any thoughts of you not using it to watch broadcast programmes. It would be very difficult to prove that you never did so anyway; I’ve never heard of anyone getting away with having a TV but no licence. Maybe that might change after the analogue signal is switched off, and you could show that you had a TV but no set top box.
That can’t be right. Since it is legal to use a TV for certain purposes without a licence, why would you need a licence to buy one? And what if you buy a TV or TV card on eBay?
Anyway, I have bought TVs without giving any proof of address or licence, altrhough admittedly not for a few years.
Guy bought a TV at Dixon’s, was apparently not asked if he had a licence, and got a letter from HMG telling him that they knew he’d bought a TV and didn’t have a licence and was a very naughty boy.
Well, it just so happens that I have been contracted to provide information retrieval and content management services for the forthcoming relaunch of the official BBC TV Licensing website, and as such I’ve had to become somewhat of a subject-matter expert on TV licensing in the UK. So let me take a crack at answering your questions.
Then you need a TV licence. Anything that can get live television reception, whether it’s a computer or a portable device or a traditional television set, needs a TV licence.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t watch BBC programming. If you watch live TV through any means, even if it’s only ITV, or cable, or satellite, you need a TV licence.
Fortunately the burden of proof is on TV Licensing, not on you.
Well, now you have. Not only do I work for TV Licensing (and am, in such capacity, required to be intimately familiar with the licensing rules), but I’ve also recently bought a television without having, and with no intention of ever getting, a licence. The television was purchased from a UK store, and I was never asked if I had a TV licence, nor was I asked to fill in any forms concerning a licence before or after the purchase. (If I had been shown any such forms, I simply would have ignored them, as they’re not legally required.) The television is used exclusively as a computer monitor; it’s in a shop-front window displaying a slideshow of upcoming events. Even though it is perfectly capable of receiving television signals, it does not require a TV Licence, because nobody uses it to watch live television.
Is it possible for someone outside of the UK to pay the licence fee and watch the original British BBC over the Internet?
(For that matter, are there any areas just outside the UK’s borders where foreigners can pick up BBC broadcasts? If so, is there any way of collecting the licence fee from them?
Just BBC TV channels and domestic BBC radio. The BBC World Service is slightly separate and funded directly by the government. TV channels such as BBC America and the British “UKTV” channels are joint ventures between a separate commercial subsidiary of the BBC and other companies. Other TV and radio networks in the UK are advertising- and/or subscription-funded.
Just BBC broadcasts. Other broadcasters make their money from subscription fees (cable, satellite) and/or advertising; the Beeb isn’t allowed to advertise on UK television or radio programming (it can on World Service, BBC America, etc.)
Nearly every household in the Republic of Ireland can receive BBC TV, whether by overspill of analogue (and, to a lesser extent, digital) terrestrial broadcasts from Wales or Northern Ireland, by analogue or digital cable, or by free-to-air satellite. There has never been any attempt to collect a British licence fee from viewers in the Republic, although we do pay our own licence fee.
The fact that BBC and other British channels are openly carried by all cable operators suggests to me that it is actually permitted rather than merely tolerated.
So households in the UK pay about $225/year, for the privilage of watching broadcast TV, even if they are already paying for cable/satellite services. That money is used to run BBC broadcasting, even though the licensee may be watching only non-BBC programming? And if you don’t use/pay for the license, you get hounded because “you can’t really mean you don’t watch TV”.
Wow. I’ll stick with commercials or pledge drives for public television.
What do you mean by “live television reception” in this context? I’m specifically asking about a scenario where someone watches live TV being streamed on the BBC’s website. It would seem that the specific exclusion of a computer from the list of “television apparatus” would deem this to be legal without the requirement of a TV license, or am I getting this wrong?