For UK members. If you own a TV you must have a licence. WRONG!

reply to post by pikestaff


Indeed. Sky Sports via any outlet is at least £20 a month, whereas ESPN and the BBC show it free to view on Digital (ESPN the PL and BBC internationals). If ITV ever carry an international, they are known to cut to break regardless of what is happening on the pitch, famously a few years ago when they cut off right before England scored.

hi
here is a comment by a reader
www.guardian.co.uk...

At £147m (England only) BBC Local Radio is an incredible waste of money. More than 40 radio stations, many overlapping in geographic coverage, and certainly replicating content.

All of this in competition with local commercial radio, as well as BBC and commercial national radio stations. As with much of our "cherished" Public Sector these stations are immune from the effects of competition and listener choice, so the taxpayer continues to fund these stations, via the Licence Fee, regardless of how few people actually tune in.

It would be fascinating to see "cost per listener" figures for each of the local stations - does anyone know if the Beeb publishes such figures, or would there have to be a FOI request submitted?

I refuse to pay the salaries of this leftist organisation.. I have never had a tv licence and never will..

I recently had a run-in with the tv licence people, there are three of us in the building ( not related ) there are tv's in their bedrooms for them to watch, but owned by me. I was always under the impression that the license covered the house in genereal, but they have insisted that each person must have a license and that if I allow them to watch MY tv, that I can be prosicuted. I have told them that I will remove the other TV's and that has seemed to work, but in the long run, I don't know what will happen.

Incidently, I knew someone who used to drive a detector van in England, he says that the vans were always empty and had no detection equipment in them at all, they were being used to scare people.

For Scotland anyways, if they come to your door and you are daft enough to open it simply inform the swine, no i dont have a T.V, no you cant come in and check, dont give them your name because you are not required too. Close the door and be done with them. Simple!

Be nice to them though, because its always nice to be nice after all!

reply to post by davesmart


Excellent point that, I have to concede that so many local stations is pointless.

Originally posted by EvanB
I refuse to pay the salaries of this leftist organisation.. I have never had a tv licence and never will..

I don't see the problem with it, in principle. But certainly, savings could be made and much less niche content is needed, such as Radio 1Extra, which is code for Radio Black people.

reply to post by stumason



Lets not forget the lavish offices, and the £3.9 million they spent on artwork for their london HQ...the artists paid £8000 to cover scaffolding, £25,000 to fly a toy helicopter over the building to make a 2 minute film...then the ludicrous fees paid to the top presenters....such as Wossy

Then you have the £80 million a year wasted on poor staff management....the list is endless.

To be honest what they do with the license money is neither here nor there. There are plenty of other ways of raising revenue to pay for all the things you pointed out.

Its a stealth tax, like the Lottery

err I am sure that the wording in my TV license states that if you own a computer connected to the web or a mobile phone capable of browsing the web you need a TV license because they can receive live tv.

Thinking about it, you can watch live TV from SKY News or BBC news on their web sites so in theory yes you would need a TV license.

Just face it, it is another tax we all have to pay.
I bet their database only contains people without a license then they go round to the people that do not have a license and harass them routinely.

If you have paid the TV license tax then there is no need to be on their database and wont get harassed.

I am wondering when the 'Human rights' card will be played on this one though.
i.e. its my human right to be informed of news and current affairs so I do not have to pay for a license but must have access to live transmitted TV.

Regarding the BBC offices, are they not moving to Salford or something ?
The BBC sports section is broadcasting from there as from last week (you may have noticed when they do the hand over to the sports section the presenters are not standing next to each other any more).

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
um? TV Licencing fees? Is that a joke? Every person in my country would agree that sounds like a scam.....

We get advertisements. You most likely get advertisements. That pays for the content you watch.

Supposedly the BBC, being funded by the public tv viewers directly, use that to pay for the content they watch, which is supposed to be free from politics and influence.. lol

I am so glad Australia never took this route. I'm wondering if it will ever become a tax in light of the internet and piracy of tv shows.

It is considered a Tax in the UK, and it's a criminal offence to evade it.

What if you have multiple TVs? do you pay more lol.

What if you use your TV's as monitors for your badass gaming pc? Do you still have to pay?

Sounds like a scam that's been working for so long people accepted it

Originally posted by mainidh
Supposedly the BBC, being funded by the public tv viewers directly, use that to pay for the content they watch, which is supposed to be free from politics and influence.. lol

As well as everything else I alluded to earlier.

It doesn't just pay for Downton Abbey and Top Gear.

Originally posted by Qwenn
Incidently, I knew someone who used to drive a detector van in England, he says that the vans were always empty and had no detection equipment in them at all, they were being used to scare people.

A friend of mine also. She would tell of visits to a notorious high-rise housing estate in the midlands where she said she thought people stored old tv sets on the balconies as each time she drove around the estate, people would throw old tvs at the van! So there we go, hidden costs of vehicle body work repairs, courteousy of the license payer!

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
What if you have multiple TVs? do you pay more lol.

No.

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
What if you use your TV's as monitors for your badass gaming pc? Do you still have to pay?

If you only use them for that, then no. If you watch live TV on them, then yes.

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
Sounds like a scam that's been working for so long people accepted it

Not really. You can find out exactly what the licence fee pays for if you so wish, but most don't care and just assume it all goes to paying for TV shows.

Originally posted by Mandrakerealmz
What if you have multiple TVs? do you pay more lol.

What if you use your TV's as monitors for your badass gaming pc? Do you still have to pay?

Sounds like a scam that's been working for so long people accepted it

edit on 22-3-2012 by Mandrakerealmz because: (no reason given)

afaik 1 licence covers all the tv's YOU own in your house - i could be wrong on that - which would cover any device that you watch LIVE TV on, be it a laptop, monitor, tv, projector... whatever it is.

But if you do not watch live tv as it is aired - you can still record it and watch it later (reasonably later) unless this now breaches copyright laws.



The tax/fee has been around since the 50's... It won't be able to bend much more without breaking entirely which means they'll just roll out some mass legislation (I'm sure the profit from the fee is enough incentive to not want to remove it, in place of advertising or other forms of revenue).

reply to post by stumason
reply to post by mainidh


Is their a box thingy somewhere that can tell whether your receiving a TV signal or not.? It just seems implausible to enforce therefore redesign system necessary. Am I understand it correctly that its been sitting like this for decades :/ ?

Originally posted by stumason

Originally posted by mainidh
Supposedly the BBC, being funded by the public tv viewers directly, use that to pay for the content they watch, which is supposed to be free from politics and influence.. lol

As well as everything else I alluded to earlier.

It doesn't just pay for Downton Abbey and Top Gear.

Yeah I know that. I didn't feel the need to go back to the sites I'd been reading to relay every thing it covers, I just wanted to point out to the few who seem to think it's a scam, that it does actually cover costs.

Never seen Downton abby and I avoid top gear when it catches me by surprise.. Ooh I'd go mental if I had to pay to not watch them if I wanted to watch other things.

reply to post by Mandrakerealmz


They claim to have vans that can do that, but as an engineer myself I am dubious such a thing is possible within the realms of accuracy needed for the courts.

Nowadays though, when you buy a TV, the seller (Argos/Comet etc) usually will ask for your address and forward it to the TV Licensing Agency. I buy mine online though, so don't know if that has been done, but then I pay my fee as it's barely £11 a month and not worth bleeting about.

Also, consider you have a TV subscription for satellite or cable. I am sure the TV people could get those lists and compare notes as to who has a license.

It is no more or less enforceable than a driving license though.

Want to watch TV, get a licence.

Want to drive a car, get a licence.

reply to post by mainidh


Cool, just wanted to make that abundantly clear that is doesn't just pay the BBC that's all..

Personally, I have never seen that Abbey thing, not my cup of tea. Top Gear, however, is one of my fav shows and is one of the BBC biggest earners via the World Service. Whoever argues the BBC doesn't make quality programming is deluding themselves.

ironically, the two biggest sellers of TV shows abroad are both funded by the licence fee, in part. Channel 4 and then BBC. The other, private channels don't have anywhere near the success these two channels do. Another thing not to forget.

reply to post by wigit


Great! I love this thread! So good to see those videos, etc of people standing up for themselves and their rights! Nowadays, there is nothing more exciting than seeing assertiveness at work against these brutes that rip us all off continually.

I blame the BBC for destroying British Society and turning peoples' brains into jelly. People are so thick and controlled here in the UK these days. I even mutter under my breath when out in public and faced with the spectacle of what appears to me such similar scenes to Romero's supermarket zombie films "Zombie Robots"!

With the assault on society perpetrated by such garbage as Eastenders they have turned most of the working class women into something so ugly and controlled and all the men have turned into brutes like Phil Mitchell. They are so dumb, man!

I have only paid for a license once many years ago. I hate and despise tv. It is like watching children's programmes all the time. Even the Newscasters speak to us like we are dumb. I cannot stand to have my intellect so abused. Give me a T.S Eliot poem anyday where I can actually learn something about human nature.

People are victims! People are controlled! People are hood-winked! Why do they let these abusers do that to their minds? Yet people abuse their bodies, too, by eating all the junk food and driving around in cars getting fat bellies and clogged up arteries. Then they wonder why the have a stroke in their thirties and forties! Fools, fools, fools I say.

reply to post by stumason
Hrmmmm. I guess they could notice that way but wow what a lot of effort, And yeah potentially not that accurate unless they wasted lots of tax payer money on military grade tech :/

My TV hasn't been plugged into the wall in years. Streaming services all the way