TV license? A Monty Python skit or what? [Archive]

Arclight

03-03-09, 10:14 AM

In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, a television licence is required to receive any publicly broadcast television service, from any source. This includes the commercial channels, cable and satellite transmissions. The money from the licence fee is used to provide radio, television and Internet content for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Welsh-language television programmes for S4C.Seems similar to the fee you pay to the cable company. Here in Holland (US too?) you only have to pay for the commercial stations, but apparently in the UK you have to pay for public ones as well.

Would explain where a public station like the BBC gets the money for all those excellent documentaries. :hmmm:

Thomen

03-03-09, 10:22 AM

In Germany you need one as well. But not just for TV. They want to see monies for every kind of device that is capable of receiving public broadcasts.. TV, Radio sets, Car stereo, PC's, etc etc

Those guys are even more hated then the tax collectors.

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 10:24 AM

We have the tv-licence system here in Finland too. When I lived in my student flat I didn't pay for it, usually when someone rang the doorbell unannouced, I didn't open and just stayed really quiet. :) Off-duty cops get extra money by scouring the neighbourhoods for people watching telly without a licence. It's the truth, although Americans probably won't believe it.

I used to have a graphics card with the option of watching telly trought my cp, I guess I should have paid the licence for that too although I never let the cop inside the apartment to check the situation.

porphy

03-03-09, 10:27 AM

In Sweden we do have TV-licences. :yep: Link to Radiotjanst (http://www.radiotjanst.se/en/)
If you own equipment to receive TV broadcasting you are obliged to pay a yearly sum, which finances the national non-commercial TV-channels. The idea is that everyone should contribute to the channels that work without commercials or specific interests, that is TV as public service.

The video you linked to is both real and humorous at the same time. In Sweden you can get a knock on your door if you haven't paid for a licence, and a guy will ask you if you own a TV. They presume most people do. The thing with a van using mobile tracking equipment to track a TV-set inside a house is more of a spoof. :doh:

Myself, I don't own a Tv-set, so the whole thing doesn't apply to me at all. If you own a TV and don't pay you basically just have to refuse the guy to get inside your house. Of course it's not that easy to deny ownership of a TV if you have the TV set blaring in the background or a 40" screen visible from the front door, when the guy pays you a visit. :)

cheers Porphy

Tribesman

03-03-09, 10:30 AM

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 10:33 AM

Off-duty cops get extra money by scouring the neighbourhoods for people watching telly without a licence. Really ? thats not very efficient .
I thought most authorities now just go on the assumption that every house probably has a tv and just call to any residence that hasn't bought a licence .
Well actually when I think about it they must be on duty but just in civilian clothes. It's a kind of a extra job that cops do. And yes, sometimes they call, sometimes they just appear at the door, I'm not sure by what logic they carry out the tv-licence control operations.

And I've had the tv-licence cops at the door even when the licence was paid, not sure if that was a mistake from their part or what. Don't like the buggers too much, I might add.

clive bradbury

03-03-09, 10:41 AM

Well, Neal, you got me started!

1. As mentioned above, the UK TV licence funds the BBC, and it is an offence not to own one.

2. The monitoring system is not quite as advanced as the licensing authority likes to portray. I know someone who used to work for them, and the electronics are all pretty much a smokescreen - the technology they use most of the time is simply looking through the house window to see if a TV is there - the vans with the electronics are false.

3. Their methods are rather aggressive, though. I went for about five years without a TV, but as one had previously been licensed in the house the authority bombarded me with letters wanting me to pay up. I refused to answer them, on the grounds that it was not my duty to tell them I did not have a TV, so the letters came almost weekly - which I threw away every time. My argument was that the onus was on them to prove I owned a set, not the other way around.

4. Personally, I would love to see the BBC become a commercial station and let's get rid of the licence. Yes, the programs can be good - would 'life of earth' ever be funded by a commerical enterprise, I wonder? Pretty expensive and time-consuming to produce. But, conversely, the BBC waste a lot of public money as well - especially over-paying performers, so I would like to see the licence go. Why, for example, should the taxpayer fund the obnoxious antics of people like Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. Search the web for the recent controversy involving those charlatans and the 'Andrew Sachs' incident. Should we be paying for that?

August

03-03-09, 12:09 PM

What if you just have a TV and only use it to play DVD and video tapes? Do you have to pay for a license then?

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 12:23 PM

Tarrasque

03-03-09, 12:24 PM

This is related to the UK variant.

As long as you have equipment 'capable' of receiving television signals then you are legally obliged to pay. They even insisted to my sister that if she could access the Internet then she needed a license.

They are as irritating as hell. When I was at Uni, I didn't have a TV in the first two years and they kept on sending letters insisting that if I didn't have a TV then I had to write to them and then they would 'at a time of their choosing' come round and I would have to open the door for them so they could verify I didn't have a TV.

It's a bit flawed system though. They are NOT allowed to enter your property without either your permission or a warrant. So if you don't have a license and they turn up, you tell them to bugger off and then you either get a license/remove your TV!

August

03-03-09, 12:26 PM

gandalf71

03-03-09, 12:31 PM

What if you just have a TV and only use it to play DVD and video tapes? Do you have to pay for a license then?

Here Germany that makes no difference, you have to pay in any case if you own a device which technically allows you to receive the TV program, no matter if you use it or not.

The methods are quite similar to the way Clive described for the UK.

br
Michael

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 12:33 PM

What if you just have a TV and only use it to play DVD and video tapes? Do you have to pay for a license then?
Now that we have digital television (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television) system in place and one needs to have a box-thingie to watch telly I'm not sure if they charge you for just having a tv-set.
You don't need a analog to digital converter to watch DVDs so I doubt it but who knows?

Like Tarrasque said they can be pretty persistant and demand a licence in pretty much every case. And they come around and peek through the window and stuff. What a glorious profession, being a police officer. :doh:

August

03-03-09, 01:28 PM

So how come you let them get away with this kind of strongarm tactics? Peeking in windows? Wow!

AVGWarhawk

03-03-09, 02:37 PM

They did something similar here in the US. It was Comcast televising that they could detect if you were using their cable feed. If found you were using it and not paying, cops would come. I was told by a technician who ran fiber optics for a living that no such device was available to do that (this was around the early 90's). However, the commercial was enough to make those using the cable without pay go get set up correctly with Comcast.

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 02:59 PM

So how come you let them get away with this kind of strongarm tactics? Peeking in windows? Wow!

Well we do have some good quality television that we probably wouldn't have if we didn't have this system. I hear in the US PBS has to work on donations from people and most of the television programming is just mindless entertainment for the tv-zombies.

So given a choice between the two, I'll choose our system. Does this answer your question? :)

August

03-03-09, 03:06 PM

Well we do have some good quality television that we probably wouldn't have if we didn't have this system. I hear in the US PBS has to work on donations from people and most of the television programming is just mindless entertainment for the tv-zombies.

So given a choice between the two, I'll choose our system. Does this answer your question? :)

Given what you hear anyways...

Onkel Neal

03-03-09, 03:43 PM

Man, that's hard to believe. Yeah, we have a public station and several networks we get over the air free. Programming varies, some of it is quite good, some is junk. If you want cable you buy cable, but you don't have to.

But wow, peeking in windows? Afraid to answer the door? Lying on the floor till they go away? That's degrading. :shifty:

OneToughHerring

03-03-09, 04:02 PM

Well the part about not paying the licence and worrying about the inspectors mostly just concerns the student/young population. I think it's a good system in that we get good television and it's paid by the people who can afford to pay. Our commercial television works based on commercial revenue so they don't need the tax, I hardly ever watch their programming.

Tribesman

03-03-09, 05:27 PM

I think it's a good system in that we get good television and it's paid by the people who can afford to pay. Our commercial television works based on commercial revenue so they don't need the tax, I hardly ever watch their programming.
That isn't the case over here , the Irish tv makes crap programs has commercials and still wants a licence fee . At least with the BBC they make some decent programs with their licence fee which they then sell round the world for additional revenue .

heartc

03-03-09, 06:34 PM

So how come you let them get away with this kind of strongarm tactics? Peeking in windows? Wow!

We have no guns.

heartc

03-03-09, 06:40 PM

I think it's a good system in that we get good television and it's paid by the people who can afford to pay. Our commercial television works based on commercial revenue so they don't need the tax, I hardly ever watch their programming. That isn't the case over here , the Irish tv makes crap programs has commercials and still wants a licence fee

Similar here, at least in my opinion.
Though most Germans think that e.g. the News on the "Public Channels" is 100% truth, all the time, because it's under public law, financed by the state through that compulsory fee.

I never saw the rationale behind that logic...

August

03-03-09, 06:46 PM

So how come you let them get away with this kind of strongarm tactics? Peeking in windows? Wow!
We have no guns.

Oh you poor buggers. :DL

heartc

03-03-09, 07:05 PM

... ;)

Onkel Neal

03-03-09, 08:00 PM

So how come you let them get away with this kind of strongarm tactics? Peeking in windows? Wow!

We have no guns.

:haha:

I guess my reservation is the way the govt goes about it. If they tacked on a "broadcast tax" on the sale of a TV, I wouldn't be as disgusted. I don't like the Orwellian apparoach at all.

TarJak

03-03-09, 08:53 PM

The Australian approach is to have the Gov't fund the national broadcaster from general tax revenue. That seems to work. That funds all the TV and radio channels that the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission), is responsible for. Much simpler than asking "Do you have a TV and a license?"

goldorak

03-03-09, 09:20 PM

What if you just have a TV and only use it to play DVD and video tapes? Do you have to pay for a license then?

In Italy yes. The moment you have a tv, doesn't matter if its broken or not, just the fact of possessing it makes you liable to pay the tv license. France has a similar system. In fact pretty much every western nation has a tv license, the most notable exception being the USA. ;)

August

03-03-09, 11:18 PM

What if you just have a TV and only use it to play DVD and video tapes? Do you have to pay for a license then?
In Italy yes. The moment you have a tv, doesn't matter if its broken or not, just the fact of possessing it makes you liable to pay the tv license. France has a similar system. In fact pretty much every western nation has a tv license, the most notable exception being the USA. ;)

Thanks for the reply. It's nice to be the good exception for a change.

Platapus

03-04-09, 07:41 AM

In Italy yes. The moment you have a tv, doesn't matter if its broken or not, just the fact of possessing it makes you liable to pay the tv license.

Glad we don't have that here. I have about four TV's in my basement that I don't want to get rid of. That could be some $$$$ :wah:

Tribesman

03-04-09, 12:20 PM

Thats the thing , with a licence you can have as many TVs as you like as long as you don't use them as a business , one fee covers any house with a TV , while with the other version all houses if they have a TV or not pay for the government funding for TV/radio stations .
Or the 3rd version with tax on purchase where you would just buy from a non taxable source

KeptinCranky

03-04-09, 06:41 PM

Here in the Netherlands you basically pay the cable company for TV access or one of the digital broadcast companies for a receiver and decoder. There is no government enforcement of licences, if you don't pay the provider for access you get cut off, simple really :DL

To compensate for such ridiculous simplicity we have the way Funding for the 3 public channels is done:
partly (mostly) from tax revenues and partly through commercial adverts. there's commercial stations too (lots) those get paid through sponsoring and adverts only.

on the 3 public channels we have there's all sorts of broadcast companies, mostly based on one religious denomination or another. these get their funding from donating members (they have to have 50.000 or more members to get any airtime at all) these companies, and there are many, all share airtime on the three public channels, and they all get airtime and government subsidies based on their membership numbers. the exception is the NOS which is non-denominational and covers the news, sports events, and other things that are considered "for general public use".

The same convoluted construction is used for the 5 public radio channels, and all of it is based on the idea that if every denominational group has an outlet for every sort of public medium (papers, radio, tv, the lot) they won't have to share media and thus there will be less social conflict, this was started around 1900 where everyone tended to stick to their own little group and continued on roughly until the late 1960s, after that things got a bit more intermixed, but this construction is a relic of those days....and hideously expensive because of it :shifty::hmmm:

jumpy

03-06-09, 11:05 AM

Yup, when you buy a TV in the UK (from new) the seller is obliged to take your address and name etc before giving you the TV, in order that the TV licensing agency can send you a bill for about £120.00 a year (I think it is now).

Related item: our dearly beloved labour government has, under the auspices of combating terrorism, (or will be) made it into law that you cannot buy a 'pay as you go' mobile phone without valid identification and address details.

New Labour - New Danger. :yep: