It’s this that annoyed me enough to never get a TV when I moved to the UK. It’s like being required to pay an “ear tax” to support the buskers on the underground. If you’re going to broadcast a signal in the clear I should be able to do what I want with it. I do like the BBC and watch a lot of stuff on iPlayer. I’d fully support a pay-per-view model for for non-license holding iPlayer users.
Not sure about the surveys that suggest people want the funding to change. You can conduct surveys in a way that’ll conclude almost anything you want. You can’t fiddle with the fact that the BBCs services have a 98% reach though (this means that 98% of the people who have the means to receive the BBC choose to do so every month).
Here in South Africa it’s R250, or ~$33 for a domestic licence. That’s per set, BTW. It’s R65 ($8.60) if you’re an OAP, disabled or a war vet. Probably other concessions I don’t know about.
And anything that can get a TV signal is liable.
There’s a financial penalty for not paying (it’s not that huge, maybe double the annual fee for a first offence), but I’ve never heard of them breaking TVs.
The reason for the change is that, in 2004, there was a huge debate about whether or not to charge digital subscribers more. That’s the reason for the low figures. Note also that the figures are about keeping the licence as is, not necessarily getting rid of it altogether.
If I understand you correctly, your primary objection to having a licence is the delivery mechanism of the medium. But you enjoy the product anyway without contributing.
In that case you must be one of those immigrants who comes over here, takes our telly, nicks our radio… 
SEVENTY FIVE??? That’s shamefull, why those old people love their TV. It needs to be lower. Where do I write the queen? 
As I recall that’s not a fair comparison, as, (I think it’s Channel 5) was not physically able to reach more of the UK, simply because of interference problems.
So of course the BBC can reach more, they were there first.
Ages ago when I was living in Germany, you needed to pay a fee to have a TV or even a radio.
They actually had trucks that would go through neighborhoods with a detector that could tell how many people were watching television in an apartment building. If they noted that only 7 people were paying the fee, but 14 were currently watching TV, they would go into the building and listen to see if they could hear the sound of the TV from your apartment and knock on your door and you would have to pay a fine.
The “trick” back then was to have the official forms on your TV and claim you just got it today and fully intended to register tomorrow.
Granted, this was before cable and I often wondered if this was an urban myth, but so many of my friends had those forms on their TV’s that I sort of believed the whole story.
I believe today most homes have cable, so this fee is simply included in the price.
I understand the penalty for not paying the U.K. licensing fee was being forced to watch Full House, but the U.N. intervened.
Not able to reach more, they do reach more. That figure is based on the % of the UK who do listen/watch radio/TV and subsequently listen/watch at least a tiny amount of the BBCs output. It’s a hugely large figure of course but they only need to tune in for one minute of anything to count.
Do you guys get/have to keep a copy of your television licence on hand?
No. You used to have to produce it after a certain time in the unlikely event that someone came to your door to check, but now they have your details on their database.
I’m actually overdue with paying mine. I phoned them up to say, essentially, sorry, I’m waiting to be paid (I’m self-employed) and then I’ll pay it, and they haven’t sent a letter since - they were sending them almost daily for a couple of weeks.
They used to run scaremongering TV ads saying that, if you don’t have a license and do watch TV, you’ll be thrown in a prison till you’re 90, the upside of which would be the free food since all your money for your entire life had gone in fines, but it was pretty much just hype and I haven’t seen such a TV ad in a long time.
Not really. You do get a piece of paper, but it’s just a proof of payment. You don’t have to show it to anyone. And when you buy a TV, you don’t get asked “do you have a licence?”
That said, some people claim that, theoretically, anyone who sells a new TV is supposed to inform the BBC of the buyer’s address. Whether this actually happens or not is unclear, and I don’t honestly see how it would be enforceable. I’ve never been asked that question myself, that’s for sure.
I’ve never been asked explicitly for my address, even the time I paid cash. I suppose a card payment might connect with an address?
I just recall people who have worked in Dixons or wherever swearing blind that they were technically supposed to record the address of anyone who bought a TV. But yes, nobody has ever asked me, as far as I remember.
I have been asked, but it was about fifteen years ago. Two days later I got a TV license demand. Actually, that was the only time I’ve ever bought a TV so I don’t have much comparison.
I am going to suggest a TV licenses fee to Ontario Primer Dalton McGuinty. He never met a tax he didn’t like.
I have never heard of this, but the “enforcement” angle of it sounds frightening.
So can enforcers simply come into your home without a warrant and demand to see if you’re watching TV or not? If not, why can’t you just turn them away at the door?
They can’t, and you can.
Yeah. Red, what gave you that idea?
FWIW, England had similar stories to DMark’s about ‘detector vans’ going round and knowing if you were watching TV without a license. It was a myth. At least by the nineties they simply assumed, reasonably enough, that every home had a TV, so sent them a license demand if they didn’t already have one. It took them a little while to catch up with newer addresses (new-build estates and so on) but they did catch up, usually being alerted by someone at that address buying a license. If nobody at your address had ever bought a license - only really likely in new-builds - then you were unlikely to get a demand.