TV / television licensing MEGATHREAD

[ubermaus]

Its quite legal to own a TV and not have a TV license.

 

---------- Post added 07-03-2015 at 11:57 ----------

 

You claim to watch broadcast TV without having paid for a TV license.

True or false? (So far you've refused to actually answer a straight question, presumably you're scared).

 

The answers are all in this thread.

Edited March 7, 2015 by ubermaus
...

[the_bloke]

Again read licence as receipt. It is NOT a licence.

 

Well, you managed to not answer the question I put forward in your wall of text. If the payment of the TV Licence was optional - and yes, I call it a licence, because that's the official name for it, no matter if you consider it a licence or not - how would you make sure non payers didn't get BBC content?

 

Or is your solution that nobody pays, and we litter the BBC with advertising content like the other TV channels, radio stations and websites, and abandon the Royal Charter in the process that defines it's impartiality?

 

(If you think advertisers don't influence content, then go look at the recent Telegraph scandal)

 

Next time you think adverts are fine, use that god awful ITV player and compare it to the iPlayer.

 

If you think commercial television and radio is so good, perhaps you should consider the important 'firsts' that the BBC managed in the UK, without the interference of having to make everything commercial to be able to sell slots to advertisers.

 

The first outside radio and television broadcasts.

The first sports reporting.

The first radio in Sheffield.

The first national radio coverage.

The first radio DJs.

The first transmissions of television.

The first broadcasts in languages other than English from an English speaking organisation.

The first organisation to record it's output instead of it being lost following broadcast.

The first broadcaster to have a current affairs TV programme (Panorama)

The first TV news.

The first to broadcast TV in 405 lines, 625 lines, and in Nicam stereo.

The first non subscription channels in HD and 3D.

The first to show childrens television.

The first to broadcast radio in stereo.

The first to broadcast TV in colour.

The first computer generated idents (the BBC2 logos)

The first to the creation of a consumer affairs TV show (Watchdog)

The only media organisation in the country to help create a home computer to aid school and home computer use. The first BBC website was also created to support an educational TV programme.

The first breakfast TV show.

The first to broadcast an event on radio and TV at the same time (Live Aid)

First radio station to stream live to the Internet.

 

If commercial radio and TV is so good, why hasn't ITV got a list as long?

[ubermaus]

http://www.tvlicenceresistance.info/forum/

 

More info on capita goons etc.

 

---------- Post added 07-03-2015 at 12:13 ----------

 

Net closing around Britain’s No 1 TV Licence Evader

 

A man who has never bought a TV licence but who watches hundreds of hours of television a year, is just days away from capture, TV Licensing has announced.

 

The man – known only as No 1 Licence Evader (1LE) – has even goaded TV Licensing by sneaking into the BBC Television Centre and watching the entire 60 episodes of The Wire before being disturbed.

 

‘Our extensive database reveals that this serial licence evader owned a black-and-white portable in 1958 and didn’t even have a licence for that. For the past half-century he has watched thousands of hours, many in colour, of television with impunity,’ a TV Licensing spokesman said, ‘but his days are numbered.

 

‘A fleet of our detector vans is closing in on his location and we have received information about his movements through the usual channels.’

 

1LE has been spotted in various parts of the UK watching television in shop windows – a sighting of him watching Strictly Come Dancing in Dixon’s in Devizes, and the Simpsons in Curry’s in Walsall. Sometimes he takes a chair with him and spends hours glued to up to twenty screens and taking in several different programmes simultaneously.

 

‘He has been known to enter an electrical retailer’s showroom under the pretence of buying a television set, leaving abruptly when his programme has ended,’ the spokesman said. ‘He has visited relatives, friends, an ex-wife, a very sick patient in hospital, and neighbours under various pretexts. His one and only purpose for these visits is, of course, free television.’

 

The spokesman claims 1LE has even talked his ways into homes by pretending to be a TV engineer. ‘He spent a whole week with an elderly couple by telling them he had to check the line hold.’

 

But 1LE seems to have gone too far when he pretended to be an official from TV Licensing checking licences. ‘He would spend an hour looking at a licence. Of course, he had one eye on the television screen.’

 

The spokesman concluded:

 

‘Licence evaders should be aware that TV Licensing now has global reach. Recently we tracked down a licence evader living on the Afghan Pakistan border. He was very cross and threatened apocalyptic retribution, but we had to point out to him that you still need a TV licence even if you do just live in a cave and claim to watch only Aljazeera.’

 

LOL!!!

[woodmally]

To call it a poll tax is very dim. It is nothing of the sort.

 

I agree with the previous poster that the BBC (in all its forms) is excellent value for money, but it cannot continue to make such varied and high quality programmes unless everyone who watches them (whether live or via catch up media) pays for it. I've always thought it was ridiculous that people can exploit the 'not live TV' loophole so easily. I suspect it was simply because TV detector vans couldn't pick it up, but the technology exists now, and the vast majority of the population does either listen to the radio or watch TV.

 

Bring it on, say I.

 

Yes I am confused why people who watch it on iplayer dont need a licence. Whenever I am on twitter chatting to my friends in America they always sing the praises of the BBC be it Sherlock, Doctor Who so I find it excellent value for money. I would quite happily see the demise of ITV and C4 so long as we have the Beeb. A brilliant idea of charging if I say so.

[Cyclone]

Its quite legal to own a TV and not have a TV license.

 

---------- Post added 07-03-2015 at 11:57 ----------

 

 

The answers are all in this thread.

 

Still refusing to actually answer direct questions then.

 

Since you keep claiming the answers are already here, care to say what post number?

[Mecky]

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fatrueindependentscotland.com%2Ftory-government-and-bbc-to-introduce-new-tv-poll-tax%2F&ei=Ojz3VO3MCcm_PN7WgNAI&usg=AFQjCNHnS129aVXaUPitMH5U5LQhrR0DZA&bvm=bv.87519884,d.ZWU

 

Oh dear, another unlawfully forced tax.

 

How is it a poll tax?

[ubermaus]

Still refusing to actually answer direct questions then.

 

Since you keep claiming the answers are already here, care to say what post number?

 

No, not particularly. Be my guest.

[HbroChris]

We've been through all this before.

 

A TV Licence is required to watch broadcast TV, per the Communications Act 2003.

 

Not having one and watching broadcast TV is a criminal offence - people won't directly answer the question because they fear incriminating themselves - they'd effectively be an easy prosecution.

 

There's some disagreement around the margins about exactly what sort of viewing you do (it only counts if you're watching at the time of broadcast - there are odd corner cases about portable devices and power), and whether or not you think that acts of parliament apply to you (hint - they do).

 

Basically, everyone is clear about whether or not they need a licence and whether or not they have one, or are committing a crime.

 

The complexity with making the service subscription only would be about how you differentiate authorised viewers from others. You'd need to encode the transmission. But the only way you decode it is with a subscriber module of some sort, like a card or a set top box. I think that changing the broadcast like this and building a logistics network to get boxes/cards to people and manage that hardware on an ongoing basis would be prohibitive.

 

The only other option is to go completely digital, authenticate with user credentials, and thus alienate the majority who don't watch via some sort of connected device.

 

To sum up, I think one of the main things stopping the BBC moving to a different subscription model is that it simply couldn't, for the reasons above.

[ubermaus]

We've been through all this before.

 

A TV Licence is required to watch broadcast TV, per the Communications Act 2003.

 

Not having one and watching broadcast TV is a criminal offence - people won't directly answer the question because they fear incriminating themselves - they'd effectively be an easy prosecution.

 

There's some disagreement around the margins about exactly what sort of viewing you do (it only counts if you're watching at the time of broadcast - there are odd corner cases about portable devices and power), and whether or not you think that acts of parliament apply to you (hint - they do).

 

Basically, everyone is clear about whether or not they need a licence and whether or not they have one, or are committing a crime.

 

The complexity with making the service subscription only would be about how you differentiate authorised viewers from others. You'd need to encode the transmission. But the only way you decode it is with a subscriber module of some sort, like a card or a set top box. I think that changing the broadcast like this and building a logistics network to get boxes/cards to people and manage that hardware on an ongoing basis would be prohibitive.

 

The only other option is to go completely digital, authenticate with user credentials, and thus alienate the majority who don't watch via some sort of connected device.

 

To sum up, I think one of the main things stopping the BBC moving to a different subscription model is that it simply couldn't, for the reasons above.

 

Funny enough this would not be evidence in court so its really a moot point.

At least 2 people said theyve never bought a license so reiterating that is pointless. The fact is its unenforceable. No evidence. No prosecution.

 

---------- Post added 09-03-2015 at 00:29 ----------

 

Yes I am confused why people who watch it on iplayer dont need a licence. Whenever I am on twitter chatting to my friends in America they always sing the praises of the BBC be it Sherlock, Doctor Who so I find it excellent value for money. I would quite happily see the demise of ITV and C4 so long as we have the Beeb. A brilliant idea of charging if I say so.

 

Watching live broadcast tv is the offence.

[HbroChris]

Funny enough this would not be evidence in court so its really a moot point.

At least 2 people said theyve never bought a license so reiterating that is pointless. The fact is its unenforceable. No evidence. No prosecution.

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The actual offence itself is defined in law.

 

If your point is that some people are not, by law, required to have a licence then you're quite correct - if they don't watch broadcast TV then that's fine.

 

If your point is that a licence isn't required to watch broadcast TV then that is not correct - people that consume the service in this way are criminals, and they do get prosecuted at the rate of about 200,000 per year.

 

I quite agree that it's difficult to enforce in some circumstances, and there are diminishing returns in investing money in doing so. In this sense, some sort of authorised user or subscription model would be useful - I just don't see how the transition would be cost-effective in anything like a reasonable amount of time.