[Closed] Not paying your TV Licence

What's a 'tv licence'?

They can come round, but you dont have to let them in.

We don't have one, and we only watch Netflix/iPlayer/downloads etc.

what i find hard to believe is that the fines for not paying it are more than the penalty id get for speeding and driving without insurance.

I didn't have a TV for 18 months, you get gradualy more threatening letters and jobsworths coming round trying to trick you into saying you use iPlayer to watch live TV etc. But nothing actualy happens.

If you have a TV you need a licence. If you have a 52" monitor on your PC then you don't, unless you watch live TV on it, although I'm not sure where non-BBC streams like RedBull covering the Ammericas Cup would fit into that.

^^^ tax avodiers

^ Massive assumption maker.

For 3 years as a student i didnt have one, told em to do one whenever they came to the student flat. Now i do have one (i've caved!), wish i didn't. it reall boils my piss when i see some of the crap the BBC spends the brass it takes from us on. I reckon the Beeb should find its own funding, if that means adverts then so be it, the programming is not worth nearly £150 and i've only got one cos i cant afford a grands fine if they do turn up and catch me.

the programming is not worth nearly £150

Radio 4 is worth that on its own.

I'd rather buy 150 quids worth of music and films/ programmes i want to listen to/ watch. A netflix and spotify account together wouldn't be much more and the choice and convenience would far outweigh anything the beeb offers. But aunty says i must pay and the budget doesn't stretch that far.

Radio 4 is worth that on its own.

^^This!^^

Not to mention the BBC website, their sport coverage (6N, world cycling, track cycling, TMS etc). Add in a smattering of Attenborough and Cox, all manner of fascination on BBC4, the plethora of comedy on the 1830 slot* and on Radio 4 Extra, etc. etc. etc.

*Although, I demand a refund for "Fags, mags and bags" or whatever it's called. Utter pish.

If you have a TV you need a licence.

Only if you watch Live TV. You don't need one if you TV is only plugged into an Xbox or a PS3 for example.

Before Jan last year I wrote to the BBC saying 'keep it', wrote to the licence people saying 'don't need it', TV is put away and I don't miss it. There's now so little that I want to watch that I can do so on i-player or whatever, about once a month. And since then the licence people wrote an automatic reminder, and that's all.

No problems, no doorstepping, no nothing. Though maybe they'll visit my small town sometime, and check on me: they haven't in twenty months.

Note that you can legally watch stuff on i-player >24 hours after broadcasting.

I'm happy to pay the TV license as it pays this guy's wages:

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/sep/18/bbc-presenter-broadcast-paper-ipad

The other stuff he's done is pretty good too 😉

Plus the Olympic coverage we had last year was superb. On digital there was about 15ish dedicated channels, the yanks had one, which only showed highlights.

Also I would gladly pay £150 a year to remove adverts from ITV etc. Do my bloody nut in adverts do.

Then again if you barely watch TV then I see £150 a year for something you dont use could be annoying.

[i]"Fags, mags and bags"[/i]

Would that be East Enders?

Nah it was set in Glasgow.

I liked it, but then being brought up in a similar part of the world I could probably relate to the characters and situations a bit better than CFH.

Never had a TV. Never had a TV license. Still get rude letters, but haven't had anyone knock on the door for a while now. Which means I haven't had to tell anybody to foxtrot oscar for a while now.

Have akways paid my TV licence and for the following reasons:

Proper News
BBC RScotland football and Bryan Burnett/Vic Galloway
R4
R2
R6M
5live
BBC 2
The website.

No institution is perfect and alternative forms of entertainment are available, but none are so broad, comprehensive or reliable, they do get it wrong sometimes but the alternative is worse. Have you seen French/Italian/American TV (delete as appropriate) The BBC is why the "other" channels/providers are good at what they do, without the BBC frankly it might go Pete Tong, another reason for the BBC.

You have seen the fuss about the beeb throwing money at executives, haven't you?

If you have a TV you need a licence.
Only if you watch Live TV. You don't need one if you TV is only plugged into an Xbox or a PS3 for example.

No institution is perfect and alternative forms of entertainment are available, but none are so broad, comprehensive or reliable, they do get it wrong sometimes but the alternative is worse

Well put.

I'm pretty much in agreement with all above. TV - not worth it, Website and Radio 4 - worth it.

What if Radio 4 did a play based around the life of a sausage in a school canteen?

I quite like BBC4

[i]Also I would gladly pay £150 a year to remove adverts from ITV etc. Do my bloody nut in adverts do.

[/i]

Amen

Last time I tried to watch anything at peak time it was 5 minutes of adverts in every 15.

Top Gear doesn't pay for itself you know.

My understanding of it is that you have to pay it simply if you have a television capable of receiving live broadcast. (ie, you would have to remove all decoding hardware from the set before you could claim it is only a monitor).

You understand wrong. It's only if you use it to watch live broadcasts.

Top Gear doesn't [b][i]just[/b][/i] pay for itself you know.

ftfy.

Without getting too David Cameron about this, the BBC,(and queue Vaughan William's Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis here), is [i]the great cultural jewel of British civilisation[/i].

*Gazes across the green fields, over the white cliffs and out to a sea stained red by the setting sun*

We don't have a TV, but we have a license as occasionally we watch iPlayer. I'm happy to pay for the BBC as without it there'd be no serious competition and we'd just have Sky News looking like Fox news in the USA, which is just a branch of the Republican Party. Spend 5 minutes watching the news in the US and you realise how amazing the BBC is.

@ cfh

"*Although, I demand a refund for "Fags, mags and bags" or whatever it's called. Utter pish."

I think it's laugh out loud funny, especially last weeks.

Have some sympathy with those that suggest the BBC is getting a bit pricey, biased, trendy liberal but every now and again they redeem themselves with some great tv or radio.

I've never owned a TV and yet the onus is apparently on myself to prove that i do not need a TV license WTF?, I don't own an HGV but i do not need to prove i have no need for an HGV license.......I don't own a dangerous wild animal and i do not need to prove i i have no need for a dangerous wild animal license.... I could go on but hopefully you get the point - they have called at my door and received a curt response and i get letters on a regular basis addressed to "the homeowner" with threatening statements on the front but i return them as "not known at this address".

I would be quite happy to pay for a radio licence as i generally only listen to BBC Radio programming, R4 is a fav despite being only 41 and apparently i am 15yrs below the mean audience rating, Radio Scotland has a few good shows and i'm partial to the World Service as i used to listen to them on my SW radio when in Africa years ago and the World Service is one of our success stories around the world and should be celebrated more, but i would only choose to pay a radio licence fee if it was guaranteed to be spent on radio broadcasting alone.

Have you seen French/Italian/American TV (delete as appropriate) The BBC is why the "other" channels/providers are good at what they do, without the BBC frankly it might go Pete Tong, another reason for the BBC.

That's what I used to think: heading back to the UK for a visit I'd be looking forward to spending a couple of hours stuck to the sofa, enjoying quality UK programming. And it didn't happen. UK TV is just as crap as the stuff Spain puts out - and I include the BBC in that.

I don't listen to the radio, though - so maybe you get your money's worth there.

I've never owned a TV and yet the onus is apparently on myself to prove that i do not need a TV license WTF?

It's hardly a massive inconvenience though is it ?

i get letters on a regular basis addressed to "the homeowner" with threatening statements on the front but i return them as "not known at this address".

By returning the letters (if you actually do) you are just making it more inconvenient for yourself.

Why not just throw them straight in the recycling with all the other junk mail.

(Unless you secretly enjoy the whole process obviously)

Rachel Burden, iplayer say no more !

What if Radio 4 did a play based around the life of a sausage in a school canteen?

😀

One of the dinner ladies would be Eastern European.

There's an Eastern European female character in every R4 play, I reckon its in the BBC constitution.

I think the BBC is amazing in a great many areas, and a total bargain into the, er, bargain. An institution of that size providing something as entirely subjective as culture cannot please everyone, and is bound to make mistakes, but the idea of a BBC-less future is not a pleasant one at all.

We have a 'big monitor' plugged into the PC. Live in a listed property that needed planning permission for a TV aerial, so never actually bothered.

We watch stuff on iPlayer rarely, but never live, as we're too busy in general & dabble occasionally with Netflix etc.

Had letters for the last 6 years of varying different tones, but that's all. I'll continue to ignore them.

wordnumb - Member

Top Gear doesn't pay for itself you know.

I wish it did. It's garbage these days. The licence payer foots the bill for 3 old men to fulfill boyhood fantasies of ever increasing ridiculuosness while they spout contrived jokes, and bank fat cheques for the priviledge.

Isn't Top Gear one of the shows that sells so well abroad that it makes a profit for the BBC, thus lowering the price of the TV Licence?

bails - Member

Isn't Top Gear one of the shows that sells so well abroad that it makes a profit for the BBC, thus lowering the price of the TV Licence?

You're probably right - I know it sells to a huge number of countries...it's still crap though.

No institution is perfect and alternative forms of entertainment are available,

You have a choice with sky, virgin, etc and you don't get them knocking on your door or sending threatening letters just for not using them.

So we're clear I think for what you get from the BBC, it's reasonable vfm.

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Licence fee refuseniks are as morally bankrupt as tax avoiders & benefit cheats.

'But I only watch iPlayer'.

Oh, well that changes EVERYTHING doesn't it?
Er, no, actually, it doesn't.
You're still a parasite - morally, if not legally.

So many of the programmes make massive amounts of money from sale here and abroad that the Beeb has huge profits every year!
That alone shows that the "need" to take money from us for the privilege of having the BBC is utter bollocks!
It's a commercial organisation the same as any other company - just without the commercials.
If you think that they don't take money from "product placement", advertising, etc then you are rather naive....