If over 96% of households owned a fishing rod and operated a taxi firm, they probably would
TV Licence Super Thread
- Thread starter Ken
- Start date
On a pragmatic basis if it stopped you bothering me for two years and if I didn't you'd become a nuisance, why not, it's 2 minutes, it's nothing.
some people don't have that experience. I will find out soon enough. I cancelled mine a while ago, got a refund off them and then the other day got an email off them saying your license is about to expire.
They are discussing dumping the 200 quid TV licence in Sweden and putting on a new tax instead, effectly increasing the already ludicrous fee here.
No opt out according to the GF.
Not even per household.... Per freaking person.
I'll have to read up on it but I'd love to see the UK do the same. How many people would defficate in their beds.
No opt out according to the GF.
Not even per household.... Per freaking person.
I'll have to read up on it but I'd love to see the UK do the same. How many people would defficate in their beds.
Caporegime
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- Dormanstown.
To be honest, I don't understand why I pay a TV license.
We pay for Virgin, why do I need a license to watch the content I'm already paying for?
We pay for Virgin, why do I need a license to watch the content I'm already paying for?
They did similar in some other countries. But people just don't bother to pay that tax and instead use delay tactics to create a never ending pile of paperwork for the authorities to get through lol
The BBC needs to go commercial and fund itself, like other stations this century.
Well i've seen from this thread alone that a lot of people get hassle...I guess me and my other family members who've all done the same thing of cancelling and had no hassle are just lucky.
I'd be all for getting rid of the licence, however we'd just get stealth taxed another way, i'd rather the people who have to pay it do so and i'll carry on saving that cost each year.
thing is it is so wasteful and its going to have to change anyway. more and more people are ditching it. Should just come out of central tax and also reduce their remit. Should be what the government deems necessary. New, education, research not all the filler show and everything else they spend money on.
Associate
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- 30 Jan 2007
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- West Sussex
Seems a subscription service would be more in touch with modern habits, only problem is it would work out at ~£12/month which i think a lot of people would find expensive
When it's put like this to people, I think most are gonna think Netflix is the better choice (which I think is the case anyway).
The TV licence pays for more than just the BBC.
It might do, but the BBC are the primary benefactors and have some part to play in the enforcement process.
But then you actually knew this, you just wanted to be able to say that as a way to discredit the other poster, right?
Don
- Joined
- 20 Oct 2002
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- 17,051
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- In a house
I find this confusing.
I have paid my license fee dutifully over the years, but find i watch almost no tv on bbc, and recently, nothing on iplayer. If i had no license, and didn't have the ability to watch bbc channels, i would be at worst, mildly inconvenienced every few days.
I listen to radio 4 live in my car, and watch some other channels on sky live every now and again (F1 races, and cricket mainly). Kids do like "milkshake" on channel 5 I think.
I (wrongly) assumed that I could get rid of the TV license, as I don't watch the BBC. However, it seems that i have to buy a TV license:
Licensable activity – under the Communications Act 2003 and Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 (as amended) licensable activity broadly means using or installing any device to: a) watch or record any television programme service; b) watch or record any television programme at the same time (or virtually at the same time) as it is being shown on any television programme service;
This seems wrong. Over 90% of this fee goes to the BBC, whose services i do not wish to watch (see below):
How is the money spent?
Over 90% of the licence fee is spent on BBC TV channels, radio stations, BBC iPlayer and online services.
Monthly spend in 2015/16 - £12.13 per household
Television: £7.02
Radio: £2.06
BBC World Service: £0.83
Other services and production costs: £0.79
Online: £0.76
Licence fee collection and other costs: £0.67
The costs of administering the TV Licence are less than you might think. For every £1 taken in licence fee payments, just 3p is spent on collection3.
Part of the fee also contributes to the UK broadband rollout, funding local TV channels and S4C, the Welsh language TV channel, as was agreed with the government as part of the 2010 licence fee settlement.
In 2016 the Government announced that the licence fee would rise in line with inflation for five years from 1 April 2017. A standard TV Licence now costs £147.
What I want to know, is, why do we all have to pay for it as a lump sum? Why are BBC channels lumped in with others? Why am I paying sky to deliver me TV channels that i choose to pay for, and BBC for channels I do not choose?
I have paid my license fee dutifully over the years, but find i watch almost no tv on bbc, and recently, nothing on iplayer. If i had no license, and didn't have the ability to watch bbc channels, i would be at worst, mildly inconvenienced every few days.
I listen to radio 4 live in my car, and watch some other channels on sky live every now and again (F1 races, and cricket mainly). Kids do like "milkshake" on channel 5 I think.
I (wrongly) assumed that I could get rid of the TV license, as I don't watch the BBC. However, it seems that i have to buy a TV license:
Licensable activity – under the Communications Act 2003 and Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 (as amended) licensable activity broadly means using or installing any device to: a) watch or record any television programme service; b) watch or record any television programme at the same time (or virtually at the same time) as it is being shown on any television programme service;
This seems wrong. Over 90% of this fee goes to the BBC, whose services i do not wish to watch (see below):
How is the money spent?
Over 90% of the licence fee is spent on BBC TV channels, radio stations, BBC iPlayer and online services.
Monthly spend in 2015/16 - £12.13 per household
The costs of administering the TV Licence are less than you might think. For every £1 taken in licence fee payments, just 3p is spent on collection3.
Part of the fee also contributes to the UK broadband rollout, funding local TV channels and S4C, the Welsh language TV channel, as was agreed with the government as part of the 2010 licence fee settlement.
In 2016 the Government announced that the licence fee would rise in line with inflation for five years from 1 April 2017. A standard TV Licence now costs £147.
What I want to know, is, why do we all have to pay for it as a lump sum? Why are BBC channels lumped in with others? Why am I paying sky to deliver me TV channels that i choose to pay for, and BBC for channels I do not choose?
Bah. After several years I'm getting the presumption of guilt and threatening letters again. I don't watch TV at all and haven't done for years with the exception of Top Gear on catchup on iplayer up until a couple of years ago (partway through the last season of Clarkson, May and Hammond) and a couple of series in the form of boxed sets of DVDs.
Now they're saying I'm a business premises. I don't know why. I've been living here for 20 years and I've never had a business running here. Maybe their systems don't even allow for the possibility of a person not watching TV at home so marking me as a business was the only way they could stop hassling me.
I would be fine with the BBC being funded from general taxation. I think it's a good idea to have a national TV and radio service that at least partly tries to be unbiased and I'd be willing to pay tax for that. What I'm not willing to do is accept presumption of guilt and pay an annual fine. And yes, it's a fine. A licence is permission to do something. If you don't do that something and are forced to pay for it anyway, it's a fine even if they call it a licence.
So...what's the most efficient thing to say when I phone them up to try to stop them bothering me?
Now they're saying I'm a business premises. I don't know why. I've been living here for 20 years and I've never had a business running here. Maybe their systems don't even allow for the possibility of a person not watching TV at home so marking me as a business was the only way they could stop hassling me.
I would be fine with the BBC being funded from general taxation. I think it's a good idea to have a national TV and radio service that at least partly tries to be unbiased and I'd be willing to pay tax for that. What I'm not willing to do is accept presumption of guilt and pay an annual fine. And yes, it's a fine. A licence is permission to do something. If you don't do that something and are forced to pay for it anyway, it's a fine even if they call it a licence.
So...what's the most efficient thing to say when I phone them up to try to stop them bothering me?
They ask why, as if it was a barely conceivable thing. I phoned them up and they told me to tick the "No receiving equipment" box, even though I do of course have devices that could receive TV. I don't use them for that, but they do have that functionality. I have a computer and an internet connection, like almost everyone nowadays(*). Their website doesn't have an option for "I have a computer that I don't use for TV and I don't have a TV" in the reasons.
If they claim that my declaration is false for that reason, I will be annoyed. I've noted exactly when I called and who I spoke to, just in case.
* That has brought to my mind how outdated the whole thing is. My mother predates TV and was a youth when her parents became the first people in the street to have a TV, which they bought to see the Queen's coronation. Now she carries a handheld computer in her pocket that can be used for a myriad of things including watching pretty much any TV station anywhere in the world. The whole concept of TV licencing is wildly outdated.
tell them why, say you only watch netflix/amazon and dont watch live tv.]
and when tyou say they dont have the option, thats a lie isnt it.
they ask you to pick from the following
and when tyou say they dont have the option, thats a lie isnt it.
they ask you to pick from the following
So why you would pick the last one which is obviously wrong.
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With the added bonus that, when you don't pay, nobody at NetFlix sends threatening letters/turns up at your door.