annually, 145 quid i think..

My ex girlfriend used to work for tv licensing in bristol.she said the detector vans were a myth and the only way of knowing if you had a tv was if you put down an address at Currys etc.she also said they sent out different letters depending on where you lived.e.g Clifton in bristol would get “you appear to have forgotten to renew your tv licence. if you could contact the number below… in hartcliffe it would say ” you are breaking the law and will send you to court. disgraceful really

Think i get a circulation of about 4 different letters, each one trying to look more official than the next… erm sorry no such person as Mr Occupier at this address.

license fee is for any device capable of receiving the BBC: tv, cable, satelitte, computer..doesn’t actually matter if you watch the BBC or not, if you have a capable device you are supposed to be paying it.

Nope. You don’t need a TV license just because you have a PC or smartphone.

You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder.

straight from the licensing site.

I do enjoy the BBC and not watching adverts. Just see the collection method as so wasteful. No even Uncle Joe had enforcement officers banging on peoples doors to check they’d bought a piece of paper every year.
When I split from the wife she tried to transfer the licence to her name: “it’s a legal document madam. Your husband will have to write to us”. FFS.

I think the rule is:

Any device capable of receiving a television signal as it is broadcast live.

Some TV programmes are streamed ‘live’ over tinternet, so theoretically you’d need a licence if you own a computer with internets, or a smartphone with internets.

Bit of a grey area, but the TV Inspektor was happy with my explanation that I din’t own any equipment capable of receiving a live broadcast though. 🙂

I’m not paying for a licence just cos I’ve got a computer; they can get stuffed.

TV detector vans do exist, I know a man who builds them.

There may be vans, but I seriously doubt they detect tellies.

I read a paper once describing how such a system may be constructed, but it was based on detecting interference from the electron gun and magnets, so no use for LCD or plasma tellies. Not really practical to deploy in numbers around the country either where one street will have 50 odd tellies masking the signal you’re trying to find.

Why would they bother when they have a big database of everyone that has bought a telly to cross-reference against a list of everyone that has bought a license?

I do enjoy the BBC and not watching adverts

Not having to watch commercials would be nice–the only way to escape commercials in the US is to record shows on the DVR so we can speed through the commercials–amazingly out of a 30 minute show, there are 10-12 minutes of commercials

license fee is for any device capable of receiving the BBC

No, it’s for any equipment capable of receiving TV transmissions. There have been instances IIRC of people having the tuner modules removed from their TVs and then getting out of having to pay – then using their TVs for watching DVDs and so on.

As I understand it (can’t be bothered to Google it) the BBC has a Royal charter to inform, educate and entertain the public. So every so often some kind of committee (not govt or the BBC) convene to decide if it’s fulfilling its obligations and if it continues to deserve the license fee.

I think it’s brilliant tbh. It doesn’t have adverts, fine, but that’s pretty significant in itself, particularly if you have kids. It’s nice to let them watch a bit of TV without someone trying to brainwash them every 15 minutes to make them want to buy some shite. However it’s far more significant than that. Because it has an obligation to educate much of its content is interesting and thought provoking – even stuff like reality TV. Stuff like Bank of Mum and Dad – car crash stuff on the face of it, young people messing up their lives, but if you thought about it a bit you could learn an awful lot of the psychology of desire and denial.

And the quality of the BBC also drags the other channels up with it I think.

Busydog – American shows on the BBC are shown in 40 minute slots. I used to think this was a weird length to make a show then I realised that they are padded with a full 20 minutes of adverts to create hour slots. So the ratio of TV to adverts is 2:1. I *think* there are limits on the amount of ads they can show even on commercial channels here, so some channels make their own short films to show between the adverts and US programmes.

Re ‘detector vayns’: My uncle is a right clever scientist bloke what has worked for NASA and ESA and all sorts, and he sed that such technology is possible, and may well have bin used in the past, but was only ever effective in getting quite vague results, as you need to be very close to a telly that’s on to be able to detect it, and even then, the telly would need to be the only one on in a certain radius, with no other things causing interference (like generators, wash-mashin motors etc), before the gizmo could pick it out. So, might work in a place with detached houses, but never going to work in a terrace or block, as there would be too much interference from other sources.

So, the vayns were pretty much a myth. And apparently would need a bloody great directable dish aerial thing sticking out of the top, and I think we’duv noticed them!

straight from the licensing site.

Yep. So as I said, you DON’T need it just because you have a PC or smartphone – only if you use that device to watch or record live TV.

And apparently would need a bloody great directable dish aerial thing sticking out of the top, and I think we’duv noticed them!

That’s exactly what they had – the visibility was the whole point! They had vans with a dish on the top that they’d park up in residential streets to sh*t people up.

Yep. So as I said, you DON’T need it just because you have a PC or smartphone – only if you use that device to watch or record live TV

I think it’s taken as read if you own one of the devices then you are watching it.

molgrips – fair enough re recieving tv. could well be right there.

As for the bbc, i agree it’s good, great even, in parts and does help keep a certain standard of broadcasting. the news channel can be quite biased at times imo though.

they need you to sign your guilt at the door to proceed with a prosicution, their own “threatening” letters will tell you that if you read it carefuly

I think it’s taking as read if you own one of the devices then you should be paying it.

No it’s not. They are quite explicit that you only need a license if you use these devices to watch or record LIVE TV. You don’t even need a license to watch BBC iPlayer:

“you don’t need to be covered by a licence if you’re only using ‘on-demand’ services to watch programmes after they have been shown on TV. So, you need a licence to watch any channel live online, but you wouldn’t need one to use BBC iPlayer to catch up on an episode of a programme you missed, for example.”
— http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/technology-top8/

THere is the Public Broadcast System in the US, that broadcasts a lot of music and educational kinds of programs. Every time they have a show worth watching i.e a good concert, they interrupt every 10 minutes or so asking for donations to cover broadcast costs (although the government funds some of it) The interruptions are maddening, but by recording I can skate through them.

A trick tried by a number of people here (who are tech savvy) is to tap into a neighbors cable and one guy even climbed a power pole and spliced into the cable TV main feed and got free cable TV for almost 2 years–he got caught when the cable people were in the area upgrading cable feed from the overhead line to the underground system serving the area. He probably didn’t have much cable to watch from his ensuing jail cell.

I lived in a flat, and watching tv one day, saw a van outside with a part of a shopping trolley on the roof, so went to window, tv licencing, pulled out plug and aerial plug,just as mr tv licencing bod, knocked on next doors flat,i listened behind door, as he gave her a lecture,about a large fine etc.

grahamS, if that’s true(and i do agree that’s what the wording says, couldn’t tell you how it works in practice though), then shirley it’s impossible for them to prosecute anyone watching live tv on any device without an admission of guilt?

I know about this one!

We don’t have a TV licence, it was a deliberate choice, provoked by various things that I won’t go into here…

You only need a licence to watch or record TV as it’s transmitted. You can actually watch the BBC iplayer without a licence but technically if I go on any website that streams ‘live’ TV I’d be breaking the law.

I had the letters but there’s an online option to tell them you don’t need a licence. They even have a tick box along the lines of “I don’t need a licence because I only watch on demand on a computer”.

And yes, I do comply with these restrictions, and I don’t miss live TV one bit!

“Inspectors” have no authority, so they rely on scare tactics.

They do not have right of entry to your property without a warrant. They will only be granted a warrant if they have evidence that you are watching TV without a licence. TV “detector” vans don’t exist(*) so the only way they can really get evidence is have you admit to it.

That said, it takes no time at all to sort out, so I don’t buy the “oh, we’ve been far too busy” line. If you’ve time to ask about it on here, you’ve time to fill in the form online.

Personally, I don’t begrudge paying the licence. I think the BBC output (which is considerably more than a couple of TV channels) is worth supporting, and it’ll be a sad day when the licence fee is scrapped and I’ve to sit through hours of adverts and product placement every day. It’s only a matter of time though, with the prevalence of Internet viewing and on-demand services.

I’m happy that some of you gleefully avoid paying it. It’d be interesting to cross-reference those with the people who whine about uninsured drivers and increased premiums, see how much cross-over there is.

(* – or rather, the vans do exist, but there’s nothing ‘detector’ about them, they just contain aggressive little men in hats.)

who whine about uninsured drivers and increased premiums

never actually bought insurance either so… 😀

I’m happy that some of you gleefully avoid paying it. It’d be interesting to cross-reference those with the people who whine about uninsured drivers and increased premiums, see how much cross-over there is.

Yes, uninsured drivers and people not paying tv tax are exactly the same thing 🙄

Firstly you shouldn’t have owned up to having a TV and just asked him to leave.

Sort out a license tonight. You have a TV and therefore need a license.

As for computers etc – just because the BBC have now put live broadcasts online they have no grounds to make anyone with a PC and internet pay for a license – so they don’t. But for some reason some of the TVL people don’t know their elbows from the bum holes and think you do. Or just because you have a PC and internet they assume you watch live TV on it – guilty until proven innocent it seems. They have tried to move the goalposts and will take you to court over it (I know someone who signed documents when drunk saying he had a PC and internet and they took him to court and he lost the case).

I detest them. Every year they send out letters to every student bedroom in Bristol halls of residence. I used to send them all back telling them that the students only lived their for one year so it was pointless but yet again the following year the same came again. Waste of money and trees because they are too dumb/ignorant to see reason and their letters basically accuse you of being a criminal without any evidence which really gets my goat.

and breathe 😀

PS These days you can ring them up and tell them to stop contacting you and they do. A few years back they tried to tell me I had to let someone come into my flat and inspect it. I had lived in my flat for over a year with no TV and I told them they had no chance and if they didn’t stop harassing me I would seek legal action and bill them for every letter read/written or call I had to make. Stopped them. Then more recently all I had to do was call them (I had a TV and a license but then gave it away) and they said “ok” and stopped contacting me.

uninsured drivers and people not paying tv tax are exactly the same thing

Did I say that? No, I did not.

Your ISP can tell if you have been watching the live feeds – however, you can easily get around that with a VPN.

You have a TV and therefore need a license.

Untrue.

guilty until proven innocent it seems.

‘s about the size of it, yes.

These days you can ring them up and tell them to stop contacting you and they do.

You can do it online too, I believe. Though you’ve no legal obligation to do so, and some people will prefer not to on point of principle, which is understandable. Guess it depends which you think is the lesser of two evils.

Oh stop being pedantic 😛 he has a TV and he watches it so needs a license. 😆

Your ISP can tell if you have been watching the live feed

This may be true, but I’d be surprised if they handed over that information to the Licensing people without a considerable fight.

stop being pedantic. he has a TV and he watches it so needs a license. :p

Still untrue.

he has a tv and uses it to watch live TV broadcasts – that better?

he has a tv and uses it to watch live TV broadcasts – that better?

Assuming that statement is correct and he is watching live broadcasts then yes, agreed.

if it’s not then he can tell em to do one 😀

Indeed. Or ignore them.