Yes, there are other broadcasters :D.
Traditional commercial networks, and subscription channels. But you need a TV licence if you watch or record any live TV, not just the BBC who get the money.
The way the TV licence fee is set up is intended to be one of the things that insulates the BBC from government interference. The government reviews the charter every few years, including recommendations about the fee, but the BBC collects it directly in the guise of TV Licensing. So while it does have the authority of the state behind as far as funding goes, the government does not run the BBC.
Just to be clear, the government does not run the BBC, not in any way shape or form. The common refrain is that the both the government of the day and the opposition both complain of BBC bias. That suggests that the BBC gets it about right.
And no, I suspect our cell and internet rates are pretty competitive.
I pay £18/month for a 50MB speed, unlimited internet and £15/month for unlimited cell data and texts plus 500 call minutes.
For the cost of the licence fee (£12/month)I can access Freeview and Freesatfor no additional charge and use pretty much any DVR box I like to record it with.
The licence people can inspect your property, and when you purchase a TV from a store, they have to take your details so the purchase can be cross-checked against the licencing database. So they do pick up on people who have upgraded.
As for Detector vans, on old analog TVs the tuners were electrically noisy, and you could quite easily detect an operating tuner with an aerial and a simple tuner, or generate enough interference to induce snow on local tvs with a recovered tuner from an old TV and a suitable power supply (according to a friend of mine who used to annoy his sister that way). Also, the flyback transformers of CRTs had a pretty specific frequency, too. I remember when I could still hear the squeal of a CRT (15kHz). I cannot any more - too old and too much rock 'n roll. I just get 15kHz tinnitus.
However, digital tuning circuits have long since replaced those old tuners, and they are nowhere near as noisy - probably undetectable. And no more flyback transformers, either. Just backlight inverters.
So I think that the vans really have now gone the way of my 15kHz hearing - something from the past.
I’m pretty sure that’s not correct. They have no legal rights beyond those that any citizen has. Householders don’t have to let them in or answer any questions. Some people even go so far as to withdraw “implied right of access” so that, legally, they cannot approach the property.
Let me correct that slightly - apparently there is provision in the relevant law for the TV Licensing authority, i.e. the BBC or its representatives, to apply to the courts for a search warrant which may be granted if there is reasonable evidence of licence fee evasion. The warrant should only allow for looking for and inspecting TV equipment.
I guess this means that the police force is not the only organisation in the UK that can be granted search warrants! Although it is apparently rare for TV Licensing to get one.
It’s like advise/advice and practise/practice; the verb has an S and the noun has a C. It’s easy to remember with advice/advise because of the pronunciation difference.
Out of curiosity, why do blind people get a 50% discount on their TV licence but deaf people don’t? It seems like they’re both only getting half of the service.
Yeah, subtitles and signed programmes help quite a bit, I imagine. I even use subtitles myself sometimes, what with British TV’s infamously bad sound recording and probably me being half deaf.
Maybe. But there’s still a lot of information conveyed by sound which you miss even if you have captioning. Plus the licence also covers radio broadcasts which the blind have full access to while the deaf miss completely.
Wow! I had no idea the UK TV fees were so high, I thought they were more just a token amount. And isn’t the primary reason for them still just so the BBC can remain non-commercial? Forgive an ignorant, capitalist yank, but this just seems silly. Aren’t there plenty of commercial networks in the UK? And aren’t the majority of viewers watching via cable or satellite instead of aerials? Here in the US I don’t think I know a single person who has a (non-satellite) TV antenna on their roof. Is it just a matter of British stiff-upper-lip pride keeping them from showing commercials? Or the Social Democrat (or whichever) politicians insisting on its continuation?
You need a licence to watch live TV. It doesn’t matter how you watch it. So antenna, satellite, whatever is irrelevant.
Yes there are lots of commercial stations on UK TV which is why it’s nice to have one that isn’t. They show an hour and a half film straight through with no breaks during which people try to sell you toothpaste. Then, when that’s over, they have a couple of minutes previews for upcoming programmes and then get straight on with the next programme.
Don’t you hate commercials? I thought everyone did.
Every household that watches live TV has to pay, but only about half of households in the UK have pay television. There are a lot more over-the-air channels, though.
Oh, ok. I’ve had a TiVo for over a decade and so I never watch live TV (i.e. commercials). It still seems a little outdated to fund a commercial free network via essentially a TV 'tax" (of course here in the States that’s kinda exactly how PBS works). Why doesn’t the BBC simply get its revenue from cable & satellite providers the way HBO and other commercial-free, unedited networks do? IOW become subscription?
You really think £145.50 per year per household (or (£45 if you do without colour) is “so high” do you? :dubious: It is not very much more than I was paying per month for cable when I lived in California. It doesn’t just give us no adverts on the BBC, it gives us better quality TV overall (with fewer adverts and higher quality even on the commercial channels, which have to compete for viewers with the BBC), and it also gives us many channels on non-commercial radio, including BBC Radio 4, which is like a higher quality NPR without guilt tripping pledge-drives. Ask any expatriate Brit living in the USA and, chances are, you will find that the thing they most miss about not being in Britain is the BBC.
Whether one watches via cable, satellite, or aerials has nothing to do with the issue, as the TV licence applies to all of them. However, with the Freeview digital broadcasting system now in place in Britain, one can get numerous channels over the air without having to pay anything extra, so there is less incentive for purchasing services like cable or satellite channels, although they are available, and some people do have them.
Most of the rest of the world, outside the USA, does not consider early 19th century style laissez faire capitalism (supplemented by tax-subsidized charity) to be the latest and greatest way to run absolutely everything. We tried it, and didn’t like it. America is a little outdated.
As relatively few people get their TV via paid for cable or satellite services, but free over the air, not much revenue could be raised that way. The BBC is meant to be a service for the whole nation, not just for cable and satellite subscribers. (And, of course, the system was in place long before cable or satellite existed.)
