TV Licence

[Flatbellyfella]

How many people will own up to not having a Television Licence on MN?
with the absolute crap the BBC bombard us with over the last multiple years, I feel we should all boycott paying for it.
I purchased a license at 11-55 pm on the last day of the month of April, thinking it would start on the first day of the next month, Oh no, it was back dated to the first of April, what a con. for the sake of 5 minutes I was well & truly stuffed.

Why are you suspicious?

I think it much more likely with the greater range of options nowadays that people are simply using other platforms

And only on MN do I see "but what did you watch the royal wedding/coronation/funeral on?" as if it's some gotcha that people must be lying because they couldn't possible miss these events - not that that's is precisely what you are saying, it's just a more general theme I see on MN threads about this

Obviously some people genuinely don't, but I imagine many others either don't know or conveniently forget that they need one for certain things (for example watching on a laptop rather than a television).

Fine if you take the laptop and plug it in at an address that is covered by a licence.

Yes I've always had one, have a direct debit set up so don't think about it. Watch some iPlayer stuff and occasionally the BBC so I do use it.

I don’t watch bbc and don’t have a license but even if I did watch it I still wouldn’t pay for one

I think that now so many people have opted out, the licence model is becoming unsustainable.

Why do some people say this? The fee was £2 in 1946, equivalent to £70 according to the inflation calculator. Today it's more than double that at £170. In the past, the population was lower and the percentage of households with a television was lower. So what are they doing with all the money now?

Maybe the bbc could cut their coat according to their cloth.

TV licence funding does not all go to the BBC
Its a tax for broadcast television, and as the majority recipient the BBC are now responsivle for administering the licence

When Channel 4 began they were funded by the licence despite also having advertising

The licence also funds Freeview, Freesat and YouView services etc

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/what-does-your-licence-fee-pay-for-top13

The reason why non BBC live streams online require a licence is because they are broadcast television as defined by the Communications act
YouTube live streaming by a ‘broadcaster’ requires a licence but live streaming by a blogger etc doesn’t

I moved into a rented place 5 years back which had a pile of letters threatening demands for TV licence payments even though the place had been unoccupied for several years. I phoned them to explain this and set up my payments. They treated me so suspiciously as if I was lying to them and then insisted I pay that year and the following year together.

Well I moved out after 18 months and so then had to apply for a partial refund. They insisted on proof I was moving out (I was moving in with someone who had a licence already) and were really difficult about giving me the money back, which I eventually got back via cheque.

Fast forward to now, I live on my own and don't have a licence partly because of this experience. My aerial never worked anyway so just watch netflix and Disney on the rare occasions I watch TV.

They started with the threatening letters again to this address but I just ignore them as I don't want to engage with them after my last experience. Found it all so unpleasant. Sure I'm not the only one.

I just remembered a horrible experience I had when I was a student. I was only 19 and I was the first of my flatmates to move into our new flat before term started. I was on my own, and because no one else had moved in yet and we were young, we hadn’t sorted the TV licence yet. I literally moved in that day.

Two men knocked at my door saying they were from the TV licence agency. I was absolutely terrified and let them in. They sat and interrogated me, taking notes and saying threatening things about fines and jail time. I was totally cooperative explaining I’d just moved in and would sort it straight away. But they were really nasty and I felt scared and like a criminal. So intimidating being a young woman on my own being grilled by two big blokes.

Bullies.

My TV licence costs in a year about what we pay Sky in a month (we have Q, sports, TNT, the lot). Absolute bargain. Though I agree the enforcement tactics leave a lot to be desired. I pretty much only watch football on Sky- would love to be able to just pay for that and cut all the other 1000 crap commercial channels with ads every five minutes that I never watch.

I watch loads of stuff on iPlayer and listen to podcasts on BBC Sounds, far more than I watch Netflix etc. I would pay the licence for programmes like The Responder, Blue Lights, Pointless, House of Games, Strictly and The Traitors, and to have no ads is also brilliant.

They sent enforcement officers around to me during the first lock down. I have a really bad chest, brittle asthma and was trying to be careful. The guy tried to bully his way into my house even though I had filled in the form to say I didn't need a licence.

At the time I planned on getting a licence later, once we had someone round to put a satellite dish up because we are in an area where you can only get free sat.

I was so shaken after the experience because the man was so aggressive, both verbally and physically that I had no interest in funding a company that uses contractors like that. And it's not like it's an isolated incidents there have been loads of complaints about similar experiences

If Tesco send someone round who tried to force himself into my house to bully me into shopping there I wouldn't take my custom there either

I'm quite happy with Netflix and Disney, neither of whom have physically threatened me.

@MrsJackThornton
That's terrible! How were they even able to work through lockdown? Threatening people isn't essential work.