The TV License - legalised extortion?
Is it just me, or is the TV license here in the UK just a big scam?
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m in favour of providing public funding for the BBC. I think that TV in the UK would be worse off wihtout the BBC, but I just can’t get my head around the justification or method for the TV License.
It’s basically a grossly unfair tax on ownership. If you’ve got a device capable of receiving/interpreting a TV signal, you have to pay over £125 every single year in order to legally be allowed to use it, irrespective of whether you make use of it or the services provided by the BBC. Sounds fair? Er, no.
Maybe in the days when it was just the BBC, or even when it was just the 4 (or more recently 5) terrestrial channels broadcasting in the UK, but when you’ve got multi-channel satellite and cable TV, and numerous home entertainment devices that use your TV screen (Xbox, Playstation etc. etc.) it becomes a tax on ownership of a specific device that is no longer solely used for the purpose for which you pay the levy, whether or not you actually use the services provided by the BBC.
For example, I can go to a high-street store and buy an XBox and a portable TV to play it on for under £150. I then have to pay £125 each year to be legally allowed to play my Xbox - more than the Xbox cost in the first place. Every single year!
That means that if I just want to have an Xbox (and therefore buy a cheap TV to use it on) and I keep it that Xbox for 4 years, the total cost of that Xbox and TV is £650. That’s £500 more than it cost to buy!
Oh, and the retailer who sold me the TV has to take my name and address details and pass them on to the good folks at TV Licensing so they can make sure I’m paying up.
And it’s not like you can just get a screen without the TV tuner for a comparable price - you try to find me a straight monitor for £50!
So what’s the solution? Make the BBC a subscription service? Maybe that could work once we go digital, but until then its impractical. Add a fraction of a percent on to income tax? That could more than pay for it, and would be a fairer way of providing a universal public service, but I pity the politician who has to suggest that to the public!
I guess the answer is “I don’t know”.
I will quite happily pay £10 a month for the BBC, but I fundamentally object to the outdated charging model that underpins the whole system at the moment.
January 17th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
Sorry, but your example and large parts of your argument are wrong. If you only have your TV to connect your Xbox to it (or only watch DVDs with it) and do not use it to “receive TV programme services” (I think that’s what the call it), you don’t need a TV license.
January 17th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
It’s a thin line - according to the TV Licensing website
, but they also say
Basically, if you have a device capable of receiving TV, you have to pay, whether you use it for that purpose or not. Just check the “favourite excuses” bit on the TV Licensing website - it all comes down to whether the person has a TV, not whether they actually use it.
January 18th, 2006 at 11:33 am
No, just read your own quotes carefully:
It says “to receive or record TV programmes”, not “owning a TV”. That’s the crucial point. Only using it for your XBox (and having it detuned and not connected to an aerial) is not receiving or recording TV programmes. They deliberately keep this vague to get more people to pay.
January 18th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Exactly. The key issue is the burden of proof of “de-tuning”.
Not being connected to an aerial is irrellevant - a TV still has a tuner and can pick up TV programmes without being connected to what is essentially a big wire.
Basically if you get “caught” and use the “only use it for Xbox and it’s not tuned in to TV channels” justification then you will have a very hard time making it fly.
And that’s what I object to - the very fact that we are having this discussion is due to the vagueries and technicalities of the system. It all comes back to the issue of how the funding is derived. It is no longer relevant to base the charging model for the BBC on ownership of a device capable of doing so much more.
When you can buy a freeview box for a one-off cost of under £50 and increase your choice of channels ten-fold, how is it appropriate that the mere ability to watch less than 10% of the available channels, you have to pay £125 every year, whether you watch those channels or not?
July 25th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
i would like to know when they are going to get ride of the tv licence as it does nothing any more except extract money from people illegally! for no perpose! apart from extortion!
its wrong and not just as we still have to pay for things like sky and pay per view and when the digital comes out we will still have to pay get ride of the licence
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 am
Just don’t let the licensing officer through the door, They cannot do you until they actually lay eyes on the TV recieving the signal and confirm your name. This approach has worked for me for over a decade, I have never paid for a TV license and although I get knocks on the door approx once a month you just wave to them through the window.
They can’t do shit.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I think the TV licence is completely just - the BBC provide some second to none programming - Dr Who, Planet Earth, Heroes, Newsnight (advert free), the best radio stations in the world (all advert free), what most people would regard as the world’s best online news website (again, advert free).
£125 breaks down to just over £10/month for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC World, BBC HD, All BBC radio stations, BBC News 24, CBBC, and the other childrens CBBC channel plus loads more - people pay well over £20/month to Sky and get 500 channels of advert riddled dribble.
Think how often you listen to the radio, go to news.bbc.co.uk, or watch the BBC TV channels - I’m glad we have that, rather than in America where everything has adverts every 5-10mins.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Stuart - I’m not denying that the BBC make good programmes, provide a good service, or should be maintained. What I am saying is that a tax on the ownership of a specific device is no longer an appropriate way to draw funding for output which is no longer the sole or majority purpose of that device.
Personally I’d be happy to pay a subscription for some BBC content (mostly the BBC website, BBC1 and BBC2, with maybe BBC3 and BBC4 thrown in for novelty value, but you can keep BBC radio as I don’t listen to it).
Your point about paying for Sky is exactly what I’m on about - you have to pay the license fee on top of your Sky subscription in order to legally use your TV to just watch subscription channels on Sky.
The current TV License fee is absolutely inappropriate as a charging model for a modern BBC.
September 1st, 2008 at 5:22 am
its high time we stood up and told them where to shove it
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:30 pm
It is not fair that we have to pay over £125 every single year in order to legally be allowed to use it, irrespective of whether you make use of it or the services provided by the BBC.