BBC Funding and TV License?

[Ron Earp]

I was listening to a piece this morning about England and the TV tax. You guys have to pay like $220 to have a TV in the house? And what if you have four TVs, do you have to pay $880? What if you promise not to watch BBC programming?

Sounds a bit scary to me. Wasn't there a little war a good while ago over taxation without representation?

 

[Dave]

The law in the UK states that you only have to pay one TV licence per household... as long as the extra TV's aren't in rooms with a lock on the door.... it's so that lodgers / people in student accommodation don't get away without paying TV licence.

If you have a TV you have to pay the licence..... that's it.

 

[Simon Rider]

Ron, one TV licence covers any number of TVs. If you have any any kind of a TV reciever then you must have a license. The BBC has always been funded this way since it's inception and as a result it keeps the quality of the programming to a high standard without ad breaks. I for one do not begrudge it as i feel you get a lot for your money.

The from auntie beebs website:
The BBC is paid for directly through each household TV licence. This allows it to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests. 92.5% of the UK population used the BBC every month in 2006/2007.
The BBC provides 8 interactive TV channels, 10 radio networks, more than 50 local TV and radio services, the BBC's website bbc.co.uk, and the on-demand TV service, BBC iPlayer.
BBC World Service is funded by government grant and not the TV licence fee. Profits from separate BBC commercial services help to keep the licence fee low.
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[Malcolm]

It isn't actually a TV tax, it is more of a fee for receiving TV signal within your property. Therefore no issue on how many TV's you have (thank goodness!) but if you can recieve TV through say your lap top and have no TV at all then you still need a license. Also if you are say a student in a hall of residence you need a licence for your room, if you plan to watch TV. A shared private house though is one licence only I think.

Also it used to be cheaper to have a black and white TV licence over a colour TV licence but I wonder how many B/W tv's are still out there?

Then of course you have to pay your subscription on top if you want satelite TV and get 1000 channels of crap!

 

[Malcolm]

Crikey, we all posted at once! Must have a hit a raw nerve on taxation.....

 

[JackW]

I lived inthe Uk for 2 years and thought the whole thing was hilarious. Whilst I did pay my TV license I always thought it was pretty funny of how they would ever enforce it if you didn't pay. For example when I bought my TV I also bought an Xbox and they made me register my address at the store. Now if I didn't pay I was told that people with whote vans would come around with some sort of scanner that could tell if I was using my tv. All well and good in rural areas where thereis only one house, but I lived on the 8th floor of an apartment building in East London, The chances of them being able to determine if I was watching TV illegally or not where nil. Even if they truned up at my house and wanted to come in, by the time they got upstairs I could have removed the antenna wire and claimed I just used my tv for video games. It was as an Aussie as strange a concept as I came across in the UK. That and how bad you English are at all sports.

Cheers

Jack

 

[colin artus]

We don't need to be good at sports, its enough that we invented them all.

 

[Simon]

We don't need to be good at sports, its enough that we invented them all.

Excellent!

 

It's good for the"ENGLISH" to pay the tax.

They Have better stuff than what we have here;

Benny Hill

"Faulty Basil"

Naked Women

No NASCAR

BBC (although high on usual propaganda, they actually do report on the other 90% of the Planet that does not speak English)

 

[Ron Earp]

It's good for the"ENGLISH" to pay the tax.
BBC (although high on usual propaganda, they actually do report on the other 90% of the Planet that does not speak English)

Yep, BBC News is the second tab in my Firefox browser and I enjoy seeing a non-Americentric news source.

Still not sure I agree with the TV tax. I like the BBC and some programming, agree with the no commercial thing, but should public money go to providing some of the shows on the BBC like The Weakest Link Eastenders, and so on? Do like that Neve Campbell that is in some up and coming BBC show.....

 

[Mal]

I lived inthe Uk for 2 years and thought the whole thing was hilarious. Whilst I did pay my TV license I always thought it was pretty funny of how they would ever enforce it if you didn't pay. For example when I bought my TV I also bought an Xbox and they made me register my address at the store. Now if I didn't pay I was told that people with whote vans would come around with some sort of scanner that could tell if I was using my tv. All well and good in rural areas where thereis only one house, but I lived on the 8th floor of an apartment building in East London, The chances of them being able to determine if I was watching TV illegally or not where nil. Even if they truned up at my house and wanted to come in, by the time they got upstairs I could have removed the antenna wire and claimed I just used my tv for video games. It was as an Aussie as strange a concept as I came across in the UK. That and how bad you English are at all sports.

Cheers

Jack

Two things Jack.

With modern electronics, it would be quite possible for Mr Inspector to walk around any apartment block passageway and detect and direction find operating receivers and tuners. They would then have the benefit of a computer access to the license database via a small laptop and wireless internet to verify license details. Want to swap the antenna over to the games unit every time someone knocks at the door.

Us Aussies had a similar license scheme to fund the ABC for many years, both for radio and for TV. It was abandonned when Pay TV legislation or colour TV was introduced, can't recall exactly when.

 

[Cliff Beer]

It's like everything in Europe, there's a charge/fee/tax of some kind. You want to sit down with you esspresso? That's extra. You want ketchup? That's 5 pence. That local phone call you just made cost you 4 euros. Even worse, everything is half-sized - one slice of pizza at Costco is the the same size as the whole damn pizza in the UK!

So, for god's sake, stop charging for TV, put some commercials in there, then go get 400 channels so you can endlessly surf channels and be surprised how there's still nothing worth watching!!