31 ms·

TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

• comprev 6y ago
  Ireland also requires a TV license for each home. If you have any device _capable_ of receiving a signal you're required to pay.... even if you only use the TV for games consoles or Netflix.
  • zapdrive 6y ago
    Wouldn't it make sense to just add the license fee/tax at the source of sale, just like electronic waste recycling fee etc.
    • orange_tee 6y ago
      No because it should be per household or per person, not per device.
    • boomboomsubban 6y ago
      In the UK, the fee is £157.50 a year, €160 in Ireland. Any workaround to try and tie it to the point of sale would make buying a TV cost a fortune.
      • midasuni 6y ago
        You’d just buy the TV from the north of Ireland did it that way. If U.K. did it that way you’d buy it in the south. In Ireland you could also buy from the rest of the EU.
    • azornathogron 6y ago
      It might. But currently you pay the license fee each year, and it's one license per household. So if it gets bundled in the price of the receiver then you're changing the price model - now if you buy a TV for a spare room you're paying the license fee again, and if you replace your TV earlier than the average you lose out, if you keep your TV for longer than average you win. I expect it could be made to work, but I have no doubt people would complain about it. And the license fee is not a pure private contract - there is government involvement (hence all the political arguing about whether the BBC should be allowed to increase the fee or get rid of the exemption for senior citizens). So if there's a big change that lots of people complain about then it might be blocked for political reasons even if it actually makes sense over all.
      • mejutoco 6y ago
        If you share a flat with other people this exact same thing happens. In the german form, at least, you can specify that somebody is already paying for that flat (and you put their details) and they will stop asking.
    • rtkwe 6y ago
      Only for one time fees, most TV Licenses style taxes are recurring. If you try to base it off an 'expected lifetime' you're just guessing how often people will replace the TV and either get under or over charged based on how long they keep devices.
      • sjwright 6y ago
        Perhaps you could make it mandatory for a voucher good for 1 year of license to be sold alongside every TV. You can then credit that voucher to your household account. (If you bought more than one new TV per year, your TV license account would be in perpetual credit. I don't see that as a problem.)
        • rtkwe 6y ago
          That's just a tax with extra steps of dealing with the voucher. The average replacement timespan is 7-8 years so what's the point of including it in the first year?
          • sjwright 6y ago
            Increases compliance rate, reduces losses from non-compliance, improves monitoring/statistics around non-compliance.
    • sys_64738 6y ago
      When you bought a new TV or video recorder then you used to have to supply your name and address. The selling business had to provide that info to the TV Licensing body by law. This was the mid-90s so it might have changed. I remember paying 300 quid for a VCR and giving them a fake name and address before leaving with my JVC under my arm.
      • new299 6y ago
        Not since 2013 it seems: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/business-and-organisations/tv-dealers-aud18?WT.mc_id=r033&x=0 https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/business...
  • secondcoming 6y ago
    The UK only requires you to have a TV licence if you watch BBC iPlayer, or watch any live TV / stream, even if that content is not produced by the BBC. Also, recording something live in order to watch it later requires a TV licence. So, if you watch something live on Amazon Prime or YouTube, you need a TV licence. I don't know if the BBC define what 'live' actually means, there's always a delay. I have a TV but don't have a TV licence. I don't own an aerial cable and it's been factory reset to detune all the channels (I used live in a house that had a TV licence). I use it with a Chromecast. I have one of the 'threatening letters' next to me right now. They're all addressed to 'The Legal Occupier'. That's not my name. They can go **** themselves. Live TV is awful. https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ95 https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ95
    • midasuni 6y ago
      Live is something as broadcast by a U.K. licensed broadcaster. YouTube lives wouldn’t count for example, nor do zooms.
      • ardourdev 6y ago
        Unfortunately that is incorrect. You need a TV license even if you only watch foreign broadcasts: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ16 https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ16
        • midasuni 6y ago
          Commmunications act 2003 sec 368 specifies it applies to television programmes A Tim Dodd livestream of a spacex launch, or Potato McWhisky live-streaming a civ6 session is not a television programme. (If they were they would be subject to various ofcom rules)
  • Osiris 6y ago
    Maybe that's one reason some TV manufactures have started removing OTA tuners. My Visio is not actually labeled as a Television, I believe it's a home theater display, because it has no TV tuner.
    • comprev 6y ago
      Which model do you have?
      • Osiris 6y ago
        I have a 2018 M series Visio.
  • Aachen 6y ago
    Same in Germany, or at least it used to be that way and somewhat recently they just got rid of the requirement to have a TV. It's just yet another tax. Moving to Germany feels a bit like they pretend to keep "tax rates" low by splitting out various things and making it "not a tax". In the Netherlands I had income tax and that was it, from that the govt just pays development aid and old age money (AOW) as needed. Here, you have church tax (if your parents signed you up for that party), new states support, broadcast fee, pension contribution, and probably more I'm forgetting.
    • llampx 6y ago
      Sounds like the options list when you buy a new BMW. Now I know where they got their inspiration from.
    • bigmattystyles 6y ago
      I’ve also seen this done on fines; it seems the fine is set by legal statute but, (and it’s just an impression), they get around this here in California by tacking on court fees, etc..
    • matthiasv 6y ago
      While these things feel like taxes they are not because they are not managed by the government. Taxes (no matter their labelled purpose) are pooled and spent according to the yearly budget. Other fees collected by an agency are spent just for that purpose maybe propped up by money from the tax pool. Besides budgetary reasons, having a separate TV fee prevents (in theory) the government from interfering with the public media as there is no direct dependency.
    • _ph_ 6y ago
      The fee not being a tax in Germany is an important distinction for a very basic reason: The government has no direct control over it. The whole reason for the public TV and radio to exist is to create independent media, especially also independent from the state. So while the government is involved as far as it guarantees the system, it has no further control about it. So the government can't threaten to cut funds, just because they don't like critical reporting. And guess what, the right wing extremists are constantly asking for the end of that system.
• offtop5 6y ago
  Pretty sure this was outted as fake. The idea of a van watching you is enough for many to change their behavior
  • dtech 6y ago
    Yeah, this reminded me of the dutch broadcastings association 1969's april fools joke. In which they said to have developed a device that detects "zwartkijkers" (blackwatchers), for use by mailmen [1]. Funny detail, the reporter asked "Can this devise detect all televisions?" to which the fake interviewee answered, "well if you wrap your set in aluminum foil no, but otherwise yes". The next day aluminum foil was sold out nation-wide. [1] https://www.facebook.com/AndereTijden/videos/1-aprilgrap-journaal-1969/1487107314681791/ https://www.facebook.com/AndereTijden/videos/1-aprilgrap-jou...
  • superrad 6y ago
    Yeah I thought it was just a scare tactic and something the licence 'enforcers' could say (i.e. 'our detector van says you have a tv') to try and catch people out. They surely can't get too much of a return paying people to check up on only potential licence 'evaders' so investing in a fleet of actual vans with drivers and operators would further reduce any return.
  • mhh__ 6y ago
    > Pretty sure this was outted as fake. The technology is completely sound, MI5 invented the rough idea for hunting spies (Operation RAFTER), but whether it was widespread or not? Seems unlikely.
  • scrooched_moose 6y ago
    I believe the current theory is they simply look for light leakage. If they see a "flash - 200ms - flash - 400ms - flash - 350ms - flash" pattern leaking through your curtains precisely at the moment the same pattern occurs in a live broadcast they know you're watching.
    • beerandt 6y ago
      You say simply, but I think that's much more difficult than just detecting the presence of em noise conforming to a broadcast standard. Anyone that's put an AM radio next to a CRT TV knows it emits em noise. The CRT itself is, to over simplify, a high voltage capacitor. It's one of the most popular devices used to power hobbyist Tesla coils... I don't know why everyone seems to think that just because TVs were "receive-only" devices, that they wouldn't emit any sort of easily detectable signal. Also, when this enforcement began, broadcast was the only source of TV content, so the presence of a TV was generally proof of watching broadcasts. There wasn't really any need to prove the TV was tuned to any particular content. Now, whether it is a practical, effective method of enforcement that was actually used is another matter.
• myrandomcomment 6y ago
  I have said this before and I will say it again...Dear BBC, please allow the rest of the world to pay for a subscription to the iPlayer. Just take my money, really, please?
  • robertlagrant 6y ago
    It's astonishing this doesn't happen.
    • nisa 6y ago
      Not really. There are probably ton's of licence boilerplate that requires extra money for the possibility that someone might watch from a different country. Even content that appears to be directly from the BBC is probably created by some firm that and gave it under some licence terms to the BBC. There was a stalled imitative to end this bullshit at least inside the EU but the content-lobby was stronger.
  • CodeGlitch 6y ago
    Geniune question: what is on the BBC that you would want to watch that you can't get elsewhere?
    • bitcharmer 6y ago
      BBC has awesome content in areas such as nature, science, history. For example go check out BBC Earth or BBC knowledge series.
      • CodeGlitch 6y ago
        Check out History Hit TV [1] - a lot of stuff by Dan Snow who is a great presenter IMHO. [1] https://tv.historyhit.com/ https://tv.historyhit.com/
        • bitcharmer 6y ago
          This is great; very valuable content. Thanks for sharing!
• CodeGlitch 6y ago
  With Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YouTube, etc. the BBC have a hard time justifying the license these days. The only exception would be live sporting events, which is something I don't watch. Given I only watch about 1 hour of "TV" a day I was very glad to stop my license last year. It will not be missed.
  • chrisseaton 6y ago
    It's called a 'TV licence' but know that it also pays for all your radio. I don't watch much TV but I do listen to a lot of radio every day, like many British people.
    • CodeGlitch 6y ago
      I've not listened to the radio in 10+ years - my audio consumption is all from Podcasts, which IMHO blows any radio out of the water. It's not live but I don't need it to be.
      • chrisseaton 6y ago
        > Podcasts, which IMHO blows any radio out of the water Can you please share which breathtaking podcasts you're listening to, because I've never found anything even close to as good as landmark BBC radio shows like Today, PM, Today in Parliament, In Our Time, The Moral Maze, Blood, Sex, and Money, From Our Own Correspondent, The Essay, and Night Tracks.
        • pm215 6y ago
          I listen to In Our Time as a podcast :-) It's actually better than the radio-broadcast version because it includes 10-15 minutes of extra time with the guests where they have a bit more discussion. (rss feed: https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/b006qykl.rss https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/b006qykl.rss)
          • chrisseaton 6y ago
• andyjohnson0 6y ago
  I haven't seen a marked TV detector van for for over 25 years. I'd kind of assumed that digitisation of the TV licence records some time before that, as as well as migration away from CRTs, meant that sending reminders/demands was simply more effective. And I'm really not sure I believe that they correlate room light fluctuations with broadcast programming, or even that this is technically/economically feasible. Sounds more like disinformation to me.
• rock_artist 6y ago
  Israel had similar fee for many years. (The public television was deeply inspired by the bbc). But here they solved it by a much easier way. * once you got married, you were automatically assumed to have a TV set. * any tv that was sold were reported to the communication ministry. * a car owner would pay by default. Assumption was all cars would have and use a radio. * to show you don’t have a TV set or it’s not receiving any over-the-air broadcasts you were suppose to wait for random check ups. Once finally someone came, they can decide if you don’t need to pay. But the most interesting story any Israeli know is the “mehikon” (Eraser in Hebrew) and its counterpart (anti-mehikon). Back in the days, the countrie’s manifest at least was socialism. It wasn’t “fair” someone would have a color tv while others can’t. So the communication ministry required the broadcasters to wipe colors. So even color tv was shown as b&w. in order to “fix” that, The anti-mehikon was made. A device to “restore” the faulty tv signal and get the colors back.
  • saberdancer 6y ago
    Thank you for "mehikon" reference. It sounds as something out of a bad soviet joke. Your point about random checkups is probably how it was done in most countries. You could opt out, but you would have to allow them to enter your home for a checkup. If you refused, you would have to pay again.
  • TheGuyWhoCodes 6y ago
    "Solved" is a strong word. People suddenly had to pay licenses for at least 7 years with fines and interest that shot up the "price" by a 1000% The public television involved lawyers as collection agencies and threatened people with writ of execution. Good riddance.
• hwestiii 6y ago
  I think this is the basis of the "Cat Detector Van" skit on Monty Python's Flying Circus
• lqet 6y ago
  > The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. When I was a freshman student 10 years ago, things were a little bit different: an inspector (the "GEZ man") came by my apartment a few months after I moved in. He wanted to have a look inside. I declined. He came back a few times, but I didn't open the door. I never paid the fee (and I didn't have to, because I received BAföG [1]). Even if I would have had to, there was just no way for them to prove I was actually owning a television. Here, those "detector vans" have been an urban legend for 60 years. I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they never existed and where basically "created" to fear people into paying the fees. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkabgabe https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkabgabe [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesausbildungsf%C3%B6rderungsgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesausbildungsf%C3%B6rderun...
  • glandium 6y ago
    You can add France and Japan to the list. In France, they don't go door to door, though, it's only a check box on some tax returns forms. In Japan they do come door to door. I've never heard about "detection vans" in either, though.
    • ohgodplsno 6y ago
      They actually can go door to door in France! And the fine for having lied is quite unpleasant. Not that they have time to anymore since almost every single public service got their budgets slashed.
    • tripa 6y ago
      They do come for a surprise visit if you tick the box in France. Used to, at least, circa 2009.
    • ssmiler 6y ago
• ktpsns 6y ago
  The situation was (is) the same in Germany: There is a fee of about 20EUR/month per household in order to fund the public service broadcasting. And in the last century, these "TV detector vans" also have been a thing in Germany. While the detecting technology can work in theory, it will perform poorly in practice. Think of any dense settling, such as apartment blocks. It will be kind of impossible to determine the exact source of radio signals from the street, at least in the frequency domain and signal strength in question.
  • jansan 6y ago
    They had fee collectors in Germany in the 90s. When I was at university it was common knowledge that you do not have to let them in if they come to your home. A friend's roommate let them in anyways, which cost him 400 DM (that would now be about 500€).
    • hef19898 6y ago
      I assume the 500 Euro includes inflation, doesn't it? Oherwise, I have to agree, back the day you didn't have to let these guys in. You didn't, you were save. Just another reason why the switched to a household fee. Regarding that so, not having a TV cable connection at our home, we do watch German public TV through their apps for Fire TV, so not oaying the fee and still wtching would be kind of using "alternative" streaming services, which I did too before Amazon prime and Netflix came about.
• IshKebab 6y ago
  > To encourage compliance, TV Licencing regularly sends sternly worded letters to those who have let their licence lapse or have not purchased one. This is an understatement. It would be fairer to say they constantly spam you with scare mail. > In the event this fails, they may arrange a visit from enforcement officers. That's what they want you to think. In practice it never really happens. Too expensive. Hence the spam. > These officers aren’t empowered to forcibly enter homes, so in the event a homeowner declines to cooperate with an investigation, TV Licencing will apply for a search warrant. I would be quite surprised if this has actually ever happened. It's pretty obvious they don't do any fancy detection these days (if they ever really did). It's just way too expensive.
  • Veen 6y ago
    > That's what they want you to think. In practice it never really happens. Too expensive. Hence the spam. It happened to me. A very nice man knocked on the door and delivered a speech about the licence fee. I told him we just use the TV to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime. He filled in a form and we haven't had one of those annoying letters since.
  • Nextgrid 6y ago
    The TV license collection & enforcement is outsourced to a terrible consulting company (Capita) which employs goons on commission so they have an incentive to lie and misrepresent themselves or what they’re allowed to do in order to sell a license. This makes me feel bad for the people who actually do need and pay for a TV license since a chunk of that money is wasted on this scum instead of being used to fund the BBC or whatever the license is supposed to fund.
    • mnw21cam 6y ago
      It's worth noting that the goons are private contractors, and have absolutely no rights beyond what the average bloke down the street would have. They can't enter your house without permission, and they can't force you to sign documents. In the UK, we have a legal theory called the implied invitation, which means that it is implied (because it would otherwise be ridiculous) that any member of the public is invited to walk on your property up to your front door. This allows the postal service to put letters through your letter box, and people to knock on your door to say hi. However, this right can be revoked. You can write to Capita and state that you are withdrawing the implied invitation to all its members and agents, and that they are not welcome on your property. Then, they are not allowed to enter your property and are trespassing if they do, and you can call the police straight away without even warning them (because you did warn them already by post). Capita (despite its many faults) does seem to obey this. I did this for my property shortly after I moved in. A little while later, a group of people did wander down the road. Half of them came onto the property and knocked on the door, claimed to be from Sky, and asked if we wanted to get satellite TV. The other half were wearing a different uniform and stayed outside the property. I strongly suspect that half was Capita agents who asked some Sky employees to help them out. Unfortunately, it was my wife who answered. Although she told them to go away, I would have been angry at them, because they had made the Sky employees into Capita agents, and therefore they were trespassing. The threatening letters are atrocious. They are scary for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing, as they almost imply that your door is going to be broken down and you'll be hauled off to prison. I called Capita out on this. I wrote to them declaring that any further threatening letters from them would be classed as harassment, and that the police would be involved. They stopped sending them.
• unixhero 6y ago
  In Norway too.
• hprotagonist 6y ago
  “Ministry of Ousinge?!” “Ministry of what?” “Ousinge. It were spelt like that on t’ van” “Van? What van?” “The Cat Detector Van.” “... You _are_ a loony.”
• sys_64738 6y ago
  The vans were real. I remember one sitting outside my apt in England with the twirling antennae looking for felons who had a TV without paying a license fee.
  • Nextgrid 6y ago
    I think the main question is whether the detection technology was real and worked as expected or they were just decoys.
    • jansan 6y ago
      It would be much easier to spot a TV flickering through a window. My guess is that's what they did, and then claim that they had detected it with their super duper high-tech antennas.
      • camkego 6y ago
        I believe the technology used to detect the signals as described in the article was also used during World War II to detect radio transmitters of spies and other operatives. It’s very real technology.
        • jansan 6y ago
          But transmitting is different from receiving. How do you detect a receiver?
          • xorcist 6y ago
            There is a lot of HF leakage from an analogue TV set up close. Not many users put their TV in a Faraday cage.
          • vaduz 6y ago
            Rather trivially, as any superheterodyne receiver from has an intermediate frequency oscillator that is mixed with the signal - and it is hard to not emit RF from that. Modern equipment just tends to be better designed to tighter tolerances as both the standards on inadvertent emissions and manufacturing have been tightened so it emits much less - but still not zero.
• 4ggr0 6y ago
  A bit off-topic maybe, sorry. I am not from the UK, but quite a large chunk of things I watch on YouTube are british panel shows. I'm just in love with them. Which seems funny to me, because as a non-uk twenty year old, I don't think that I'm the target demographic for these shows. "8 out of 9 cats does countdown", "Would I lie to you?" and of course my favourite, "Taskmaster". Thanks for all of these great shows. "Blackadder", "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" and "Monty Python" are great as well...
  • KnobbleMcKnees 6y ago
    Taskmaster is a fantastic program that everyone should watch at some point. The premise, the tasks, the twisted comedy of the hosts. It's perfect.
  • tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    There is a lot of those shows because they are cheap to make. In reality the BBC's funding has been squeezed for years, largely for political reasons. The current government would love to kill it completely but they can't do that directly.
    • hnlmorg 6y ago
      A lot of those shows aren't BBC though. Take that list in question: - Taskmaster: Channel 4 (originally Dave. In fact before that it was a Edinburgh Fringe Festival show written by "little" Alex Horne) - Would I Lie To You: BBC - 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: Channel 4 (interestingly it's a spin off of "8 out of 10 Cats" which was C4's sort of version of "Have I Got News For You" but C4 did an anniversary series of one off comedies one year, including bringing back "15 to 1" and a few other quiz shows from the channels early years. The "8 out of 10 cats does countdown" show was "Countdown" with the cast of "8 Out of 10 Cats" (hence the name) and proved so popular it became it's own show). As for the classics in that list. While most were BBC, it's also fair to say most wouldn't have been the same low budget as Taskmaster et al.
      • croon 6y ago
• wodenokoto 6y ago
  Legend goes that back in the 80's DR (the Danish "version" of BBC) would buy ads on top of taxis, placing a funny looking widget and text on the side saying "This is a TV detector van" to scare people into registering for paying their TV license. According to the story, DR never had the technology (or new it existed) to do an actual TV detection. I heard the story from an old interview from a retired DR manager, who said that they did this. So source wise it is pretty weak, but still a funny story none-the-less.
• Nux 6y ago
  Unpopular opinion: I agree to and support the BBC TV license. I think most of their TV and radio programmes are as good as they come. The Brits are lucky to have it. "But Netflix, Prime!.." - sorry, that's 99% dopamine inducing mindless entertainment, Idiocracy-style. I want more than that, for me and my family. They can never replace quality programmes done without so much pressure for investment returns, engagement etc.
  • mellosouls 6y ago
    I agree with the Beeb being publicly funded too, though would prefer it being part of normal taxation rather than the license fee which is so controversial. But I don't think attacking American providers is a strong counter at all, the days when the BBC led the world in quality are long gone, HBO set the standard for modern drama which no British service has come close to matching; Netflix and Prime provide plenty of quality programmes too. The BBC/C4 still compete on non-fiction, comedy and radio, but not drama.
    • Nux 6y ago
      Yes, in terms of drama other parties have had more success and set the bar higher, but TV is (or should be) more than that. Maybe I am being naive.
  • UK-Al05 6y ago
    Only a small percentage of the BBC is quality educational tv. Most of it is soaps, reality competition shows, and bad comedy(Mrs brown boys). Advocates vastly over estimate how much educational content they put out. It's very small compared to the mindless entertainment part. If you only paid for the education side of the BBC, you licence fee would probably be around 20 GBP annually.
• mothsonasloth 6y ago
  The article fails to point out that today the enforcement vans are replaced by harassing enforcement officers. These are contracted through slimey companies like Serco and Capita (Crapita). I don't normally say it but it really is an example of the nanny state. Check this video out, it's an eye opener https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE&t=608 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE&t=608
  • lucian1900 6y ago
    It’s more of an example of privatisation than anything else.
• boffinism 6y ago
  The BBC is currently dedicating hours of airtime a day to educational content to match our primary and secondary curricula because the schools are shut and lots of kids can't access online provisions. And still people complain about the licence fee in terms of whether or not they enjoy BBC gameshows...
  • saberdancer 6y ago
    What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. My problem with this type of license fee collection is that it bring forward a number of costs associated with it that could be removed if it went directly from taxes and that today everyone has TV so it doesn't really "tax the rich" that it probably was intended to do in the early days.
    • mhh__ 6y ago
      I think the idea is to make it harder to fiddle with the BBC budget
      • saberdancer 6y ago
        I'm sure that is part of it, but I would love to see the breakdown of the costs. When it was first introduced it made sense to have a fee, not many people had a TV so by collecting the fee, you didn't tax the people without it. But today everyone has it, so this no longer applies. Independence argument has some merit, but I would expect that there can be different methods that would provide the same level of independence.
        • vidarh 6y ago
          It's ironically gone from being a pretty progressive tax (only relatively well off people had TV's) to being a very regressive tax ("everyone" has TV's but you pay the same amount no matter how much you earn). The independence argument has largely been destroyed by the government itself - the last few governments have tightened their control of the management of the BBC considerably to a point where budget control matters much less.
• vonzepp 6y ago
  BBC also does fantastic children's content including mobile games app's. Cbeebies is miles better then anything else. Also, you can trust young kids with the BBC. You know there is no targeted advertising, or in game purchases. Most shows are also educational (often secretly). Licence fee worth that alone for me.
  • malinens 6y ago
    Teletubbies were made on drugs. There is no other explanation
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • gehsty 6y ago
      All kids tv is made on drugs. In the night garden is even more trippy than teletubbies.
      • admg 6y ago
        The night garden is definitely trippy. For the occasions that I lose the battle and let my son have some tv before bed, cbeebies actually goes a great wind down job with the night garden.
        • vidarh 6y ago
          If you think that's trippy, you should try turning on "Baby TV" around ~3am-5am or so. At least that was absolutely crazy when my son was a toddler and waking up at 4am. Soothing, but very, very trippy.
      • mhh__ 6y ago
        To quote Charlie Brooker talking about Oliver Postgate (it's a brilliant piece of TV - watch it, it's on YouTube) "Saying what were they on is an insult to the intelligence of the creators" Although I agree some kids TV is gloriously mental
• mfontani 6y ago
  In Italy the TV fee is automatically added to the electricity bill, and is IIRC non-optional. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Italy
  • tsuru93 6y ago
    Every year (usually in January) you can ask for an exemption if you don't own a television.
• blunte 6y ago
  I don't know about TV Detector vans, but I know about Cat Detector vans...
• DavidSJ 6y ago
  Why not just tax TV sales? That's much easier to enforce, and has ultimately almost the same effect.
  • Glawen 6y ago
    In an era where we buy things on Amazon, which is famous for not paying all the due taxes, how do you plan to enforce this? Also, I live 5km from the german border, I will just buy my TV there. What was/is? existing is that every for every TV sales, you had to give your name to the shop, which would transmit it to the taxman.
  • danparsonson 6y ago
    It's not a recurring revenue stream like a subscription though; they'd need to apply a lot of tax to recover the same amount of money (something like £10/month IIRC)
  • Faaak 6y ago
    What if you buy your TV overseas ?
  • ChrisRR 6y ago
    Because the TV licence is something like 140 quid a year and you only buy a new tv every 10 years or so So you'd have to add an extra 1400 quid onto the price of every TV as tax. That'd easily triple the cost of your average TV
  • steerablesafe 6y ago
    You are allowed to have a TV set if you don't pay for TV license. It's just you are not allowed to watch live TV.
  • gpmcadam 6y ago
    One of the alternate mechanisms for funding includes the proposal of a so-called "Broadband Levy" which would be included on all subscriptions in the country and would replace the license fee, given the nature of viewing habits have significantly changed in the past 10 years.
  • 6y ago
• Kreotiko 6y ago
  > The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. This is actually pretty common and almost everywhere in Europe. I will never stop being surprised by how little my fellow British people know about other countries.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• ThePhysicist 6y ago
  In Germany, the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale, which roughly translates as "subscription fee collection agency") also had some of these infamous vans with parabolic dishes on them that allegedly could detect TVs in homes or offices. I never believed this but found it funny to which lengths they would go to get people to pay the public subscription fees for their TVs. Until the mid 2000's they also hired free agents that were paid a commission for every "black sheep" they got to register. Of course these people regularly overstepped their mandate and found creative ways to intrude people's homes, some would e.g. pose as TV technicians and ask if they could have a look at the cable as the neighbors reported some problems, only to reveal themselves as the GEZ guy once they were inside and saw the unregistered TV set. Of course all of that was illegal, and in 2007 (I think) the system was finally changed so that a given household would pay a fixed fee instead of a fee that depended on the number of receiving devices they had, which made using the "collection mafia" unnecessary. Still, the GEZ is by far the most hated agency in Germany and the subscription fees (around 18.5 € / month) are among the most hated taxes people pay. Some people go as far as voting for an ultra right-wing party (AfD) only because they promise to do away with this fee should they come into power. Personally I don't mind paying for it, though I'd prefer to be able to pay more selectively for services I use. Then again, less than 20 € / month in additional tax for a single household isn't anything to really get worked up over.
  • RGamma 6y ago
    GEZ... schon gezahlt? Given the sad state of journalism across the big pond (actually pretty much everywhere for various reasons), I'm glad there's such a system in place (and that there is a large viewership in the first place!). Quality has its price, though I agree, maybe one should be able to pay more selectively for journalism and less for football licenses. But don't change a running system...
• bloak 6y ago
  Proof that old-fashioned television sets transmit: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180
• gyulai 6y ago
  Many people here are commenting on the fact that public broadcasters tend to do documentaries and educational programming which wouldn't be able to survive at that level of quality under a free market system, which seems to be a cause that almost everyone can get behind and an argument frequently being used for defending this system. What riles me up personally: the ludicrous sums of money that these broadcasters pay for rights to broadcast the olympics and other major sports events. I really don't understand why I should be forced to give money to corrupt organizations like FIFA and the IOC to hold sports events that I don't watch and otherwise don't have a stake in, just because I happen to live in Germany, to make this stuff more affordable for other Germans. Another thing that I find infuriating about the German system: You have to pay even if you don't watch and don't even own a television and even non-residential addresses and addresses used solely for business purposes have to pay. The only exception is that a home office within a residential premise doesn't have to pay twice. But in some cases you might actually have to. For example if you have a residential home and run a car repair shop out of your garage, then you have to pay a second set of fees for the shop on top of the fees that you already pay for the residential home, even if there is no programming ever being consumed in either of the two. I also find the collection tactics highly questionable: When you register your business, they send you an invoice for paying that second set of fees for the business and never advise you of the home office exemption. It was only because of how infuriated I was that I did some legal research and then managed to claim the exemption after exchanging some letters with them. I bet most people don't do that and just pay up, which adds to the unfairness of the system.
  • audunw 6y ago
    > I really don't understand why I should be forced to give money to corrupt organizations like FIFA and the IOC to hold sports events that I don't watch and otherwise don't have a stake in, State media has to broadcast some content that's actually popular, that most people want to watch, otherwise they'd soon lose political support. I hate it too, but fact is that these events are extremely popular, especially among people watching a lot of live TV. So I think it's a necessary evil unfortunately.
    • account42 6y ago
• forgingahead 6y ago
  "Television license fees" are a peculiar concept if you've not lived in a country that requires them, but as another commenter pointed out, several countries, mainly in Europe but outside as well, have this "system" in place. Quite frankly it's ridiculous - imagine needing to pay a "fee" to CNN/Fox News/NYTimes/Yahoo/whatever-well-connected dotcom just because you have an internet connection and web browser.
  • mrkwse 6y ago
    > Quite frankly it's ridiculous - imagine needing to pay a "fee" to CNN/Fox News/NYTimes/Yahoo just because you have a internet connection and web browser. This comparison is ridiculous. The license fee is a little outdated in certain aspects but it covers more than just broadcast news as the orgs you mentioned do. The BBC has a broad remit to inform, educate, and entertain. Not in itself radically different to a lot of other broadcasters, and typical for a public service broadcaster, but the universal license fee is a key differentiator. In requiring everyone with a television to contribute, the BBC has a duty to serve the entire population of a country, regardless of their income or demographic. This enables the BBC to produce content that may not be commercially viable for privately funded broadcasters that in term can serve communities that would otherwise be overlooked. BBC's Three and Four channels tend to best exemplify this aspect with content that can often be slightly niche and, in the case of Three, regularly have casts and production crews that are far more diverse than the industry averages. The license fee is also independent of the state budget. The Government does have the power and oversight to adjust funding every 5-11 years, but the royal charter ensures that funding is separate from typical taxation and avoids the Treasury. This also ensures (in theory) that there is more autonomy for accurate, fair, and unbiased news reporting. The BBC has also for most of its existence operated and maintained a lot of shared broadcasting infrastructure (which admittedly is less key as viewing moves away from terrestrial broadcast and towards IP services, and to a lesser extent cable and satellite). In the previous charter they also had a responsibility to improve broadband infrastructure in rural areas. There's also a final aspect to this in that the BBC performs a lot of public service open research into emerging technologies as well as the social impact of them and different forms of media. Most media organisations don't care about anything other than how much of a person's attention they can capture at the expense of everything else. More eyes on a media org = more advertising sold. The BBC's model means they can actually give consideration to what healthy consumption is and how to promote digital wellbeing etc., as well as ensuring younger audiences are better catered for (there's a great article on how YouTube Kids has severely let down its young audiences in the past here: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in... )
• supernova87a 6y ago
  If you have to have snooping vans prowling the streets to catch people listening to what's openly being broadcast over the airwaves to make them pay, maybe you've set up your system wrong...
• gadders 6y ago
  I remember when I was doing my engineering degree asking my Electrical Engineering lecturer if he thought they could tell the difference between black and white and colour TVs. He thought not, which saved me a few quid. Also worth noting that there is a campaign in the UK to get non-payment of license fees decriminalised and made into a civil offence. "In 2017 (latest data available), 72 per cent of all prosecutions for TV licence-fee evasion were against women. This figure is so high that licence-fee evasion accounted for 30 per cent of all prosecutions against women, the single most common charge." https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/tv-license-scrap-decriminalise-bbc-women-feminist-a9250041.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/tv-license-sc...
• skc 6y ago
  Heh, as late as a decade ago in South Africa the national broadcaster used to air scary ads implying these vans roamed the neighborhood and would catch you out. Nobody bought it and they went back to politely pleading with people to pay their TV licenses.
• flower-giraffe 6y ago
  I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK. Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere. The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s. Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as a child that politicians saw the risks of radio propaganda and legislated to mandate broadcast media to be politically unbiased . It’s interesting seeing suggestions on the recent threads about EU funding for a WhatsApp alternative - perhaps the license fee could also fund the infrastructure for something like signal. What is absolutely clear from history is commercial media outlets fuel political bias, and it seems to be increasingly damaging to society. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom_(historical) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_...
  • cheph 6y ago
    > perhaps the license fee could also fund the infrastructure for something like signal Why like signal? Signal has no protections to avoid the same abuse as WhatsApp. While I would agree with the sentiment, I think that if EU funds anything it will just as likely be much worse than WhatsApp than better than it given their track record (e.g. stupid popups on every damn website that makes life just that extra bit worse). But there is some hope in that both the french and German governments have adopted Matrix. The benefit of this manner of funding (through adoption and payment for actual services) is that there is actually a customer/provider relationship - and the potential for more direct feedback. That way if it totally sucks you don't end up with a situation where the people authorizing payment/funding are not affected by how badly it sucks.
    • flower-giraffe 6y ago
      > Why like signal? Signal has no protections to avoid the same abuse as WhatsApp. I think something like signal could reasonably have sufficient protections from both a technical and legislative perspective. And for that matter matrix too. I was not intending to highlight signal as the only possibility, by like signal I guess I meant a small a capable organisation with a clear non profit agenda.
• 867-5309 6y ago
  note to self: print TELEVISION DETECTION on side of wardriving car
• jeofken 6y ago
  The state not punishing you for publishing is free speech. The state forcing you to pay for their publishing is forced speech. Working for a company like the BBC can not be ethical, if ethics are universal.
  • ookdatnog 6y ago
    Your argument only works under the assumption that money=speech, a belief that doesn't hold up to much scrutiny. AFAIK, it's perfectly legal to speak in support of, say, an active terrorist organization. I doubt it is legal in many places to donate money to support an active terrorist organization. If you believe that money=speech, the law is inconsistent in this matter. Assuming you want the law to be consistent, there are really only two ways to resolve the inconsistency: 1. Speaking in support of terrorist organizations should be illegal, or 2. Donating money to terrorist organizations should be legal. I disagree with both these statements, so to me, money /= speech.
    • jeofken 6y ago
      That’s a fair point! The example should be voluntarily paying a writer to write what I deem truth worthy, vs the state threatening with violence if I refuse to pay for what they want me to pay for. In my country Sweden the state media is very biased and paints my points of views in a bad light - but I am forced to fund them. I encourage Americans here to cherish not having to have that.
      • ookdatnog 6y ago
        > In my country Sweden the state media is very biased and paints my points of views in a bad light - but I am forced to fund them. I understand that that's frustrating for you, my objection with your post is merely your claim that this constitutes forced speech. It does not, unless you believe that money=speech. Some people hold that belief, but I suspect very few of them will be consistent about accepting the logical consequences of that belief (therefore they don't really hold the belief, they just reasoned backwards to justify a belief they _do_ hold). There's nothing in the belief that speech should be free and unforced that prohibits state-owned media (as long as other speech is not suppressed), or even outright state propaganda. That doesn't mean you can't be against these things, merely that being against these things doesn't automatically follow from believing in that free and unforced speech is a fundamental right. If you want to make the case that state-owned media are immoral (which, just to be clear, I don't currently believe), you need to refer to different rights. I've heard some people on the internet make the claim, for instance, that all taxes constitute theft, and that taxes are fundamentally immoral. I don't believe this at all, but that would give you a moral basis to renounce state media. But really, sometimes the state is just going to do something that you don't like, perhaps even hate with a passion, without violating a fundamental right. I know I'd be furious if the state broadcaster started propagandizing a religion, for instance, but as long as they don't infringe on my freedom to believe what I want, they're not violating any of my rights (I could, at most, argue that it's a slippery slope to violating my rights, which may be a convincing argument by itself).
• jsiepkes 6y ago
  I remember from when I was a kid the government used to broadcast commercials (in the Netherlands) about you having to pay up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPr61na7icE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPr61na7icE You don't have to understand Dutch to understand what the doorbell and the "uhooo" at the end of the commercial means... The whole text of the commercial is a hilarious attempt at intimidation. Basically it's about how it's all fun and games until somebody gets busted.
• amelius 6y ago
  Does Netflix have similar vans?
• mattbee 6y ago
  I haven't seen one here for years but I always assumed they were a fake-out! There are definitely criminal penalties to not paying, but mostly it's done by sending threatening letters for addresses that don't have licenses, and visiting as a last resort. I heard in Japan there isn't any penalty for not paying, and I was captivated by a Murakami story of the "NHK man" who raps loudly on apartment doors and can only yell at these closed doors trying to shame non-payers.
• teekert 6y ago
  In 1969 the Dutch Television broadcasters did an April fools joke, they said they could detect people that did not pay for watching TV (zwartkijkers) by driving around with a detector [0]. It could be blocked by wrapping your TV in aluminum foil. The next day aluminum foil was sold out in many places... [0] https://historiek.net/1-april-grappendag/1070/ https://historiek.net/1-april-grappendag/1070/
• sdunwoody 6y ago
  Not read the article, but as a political aside, the licence fee is a big subject of debate here at the moment. It was designed so that the BBC essentially had independence from the government, and as such, they could more easily be politically neutral (if they were funded directly by the government, there would be more pressure for them to cover the government favourably in news programs etc.). Problem is that these days the licence fee is outdated with lots of people just watching Netflix/Amazon etc. A lot of the "right wing" here also think the BBC has a left wing bias, which I think is a bit ridiculous really, as a lot of the "left wing" also think it has a right wing bias. But the consequence of this is that a lot in the current government want to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. This would basically mean that there is no consequence to not paying the licence fee, and assuming the government didn't come up with an alternative way of funding it, it would amount to death by a thousand cuts for the BBC (which a lot of right wingers are actually quite open about wanting). It's quite a tough problem in my opinion. Direct funding from the government would solve a lot of problems, but also make political impartiality a lot more difficult to achieve. A direct subscription like for Netflix would likely result in a significant drop in revenue. Hard to see a good solution here.
  • callamdelaney 6y ago
    The solution is to let people who want to watch and consume bbc content pay for it, and let everybody else not pay for it. It's very simple.
    • sdunwoody 6y ago
      The BBC would face significant cuts if that was the case. It would likely end up at a point where the quantity and quality of content was reduced due to less revenue, which then would cause additional people to cancel subscriptions. This would be quite damaging for the UK as the BBC is a great way of projecting soft power, plus it provides quite a lot of great resources (as has been pointed out in other comments). I'd be more in favour of a system like Germany has to be honest.
      • callamdelaney 6y ago
• galeos 6y ago
  In the late 90's I went for an interview at a Sony store in London. At the start of the interview the store manager told me that he had been busy preparing the shop's regular report of addresses of everyone who had purchased a new TV for TV licensing. I imagine these were then cross-referenced against who had a TV license for potential follow-up. I struggle to see how the idea of TV detector vans were more than 'enforcement theatre', although possibly a cheap and effective strategy in the past.
• ajsnigrutin 6y ago
  > The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege Not really, we have that in Slovenia too. In the past, you could avoid it by claiming you had no tv (and a grey-legal area of letting them verify). Then they expanded and added the "radio" part, where you paid less if you have a radio (and no tv), including car radio. Then they added internet streaming, and expanded the definition of "tv" to "any device, capable of viewing streamed content" (pc, smartphone), so if you have a smartphone, you have to pay for tv, just because you have a device capable of watching a stream. There have been many calls to just encrypt the over-the-air broadcasts, and create usernames and passwords for paying customers for streaming, but they prefer the "catch-all" definitions of "tv", so they can collect monthly subscriptions from pretty much every household in the country. Our private tv stations are not much better... the most viewed one, did a nasty deal with the cable/iptv operators, wanting either a lot of money for their tv channels as a searate option, or less money if their tv stations are put into "basic"(=cheapest, smaller) cable packages, so they forced a price increase for every cable/iptv subscriber and there's no way to cancel just their channels.
  • 0xfaded 6y ago
    I live in Europe now, and I'm fine with high taxation. But for heaven's sake, call a tax a tax. There are so many little things, whether its TV licenses, overpriced interactions with the DNV equivalent, overpriced tolls that were promised to be eliminated. The list goes on. Fortunately most European countries have an awesome statistics office that gives visibility into government wastage. Unfortunately, the the social democracies historically(?) stuffed their public sectors in lieu of full employment policies, and bureaucracy is an existential threat over here.
    • antibuddy 6y ago
      A tax would be fairer than the actual system is. You have to pay a fixed amount regardless of your income. (At least in Germany and the UK)
      • 6y ago
• omginternets 6y ago
  >The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. If we ignore the distinction between a license and a tax, France still levies a TV tax. I believe other European countries do this as well. The van is the unusual part, not the license fee.
• gramie 6y ago
  I can't believe that no one has made a connection between these and Monty Python's cat detector vans (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maz36_q6Fk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maz36_q6Fk)
  • OJFord 6y ago
    ...Didn't Monty Python?
  • sevensor 6y ago
    Never seen so many bleeding aerials!
• technothrasher 6y ago
  YVYAN: [looking at watch] Hey! Turn on the telly! MIKE: Good thinking, Vyv! We need information! [they run to the sofa] VYVYAN: No! I'm just in time for Afternoon Plus! [leaps on couch between Mike and Neil. Rick turns on a the TV. We see a test picture and soft music.] Well turn it over then! [Rick changes the channel. Test picture and soft music] VYVYAN: Well, you might as well try the other one! RICK: Alright! Alright! [Rick changes the channel. Test pictue and soft music. The boys groan, Rick turns off the TV] RICK: Absolutely pathetic! There's nothing on at all! Humph! Don't know why we bother to pay our license! MIKE: We don't. RICK: But, haven't we got a license? MIKE: No. RICK: But that makes me a criminal! [thinks about it] Right on! Yeah, this will shake them up at the Anarchists Society! Occupying the refectories! So what? This is the real stuff! I'm a fugitive! A desperado! I'm going to form a new union society, right? With me as president! 'People Who Don't Pay Their TV Licenses Against the Nazis!' [takes out pad and pen and starts writing] This is only the beginning!
• Chris2048 6y ago
  Imagine if other corps behaved like this. If printer companies managed to get legislation written that allowed them to send people to knock on you door and check your printers are only using authorised ink. Or Microsoft agents checking your OS licenses are in order.
• joostdevries 6y ago
  In 1969 the national TV news broadcast in the Netherlands reported that inspectors would be driving through the streets to catch people who hadn't paid their license fee. "Surely people won't be wrapping their tvs in aluminium foil. So we'll catch them!" Aluminium foil was sold out the next day. The date was april 1st. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_aprilgrap#Jaren_60 https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_aprilgrap#Jaren_60
• nske 6y ago
  a) I think BBC produces good content, but not good enough to warrant the current cost of a TV license. b) Even if it did, I still would not pay for a license, as a reaction to its overreaching approach, obligatory character and dishonest reasoning. They are claiming that you need a license to watch any type of content made available in public in real time, with Youtube LIVE mentioned explicitly as an example -no particular reason this wouldn't include even things like gaming video streams a school kid would share for fun. I don't think BBC should profit from the consumption of content it has contributed nothing towards. I'm not sure if that's more absurd when that content itself is provided for free by its authors, or when it's content you have already paid for.
• ouid 6y ago
  Imagine that the police force had robots that took pictures through your windows and then employed sophisticated object recognition and semantic inference engines to determine what is happening inside, matching it agains a database of known crimes. Then explain to me how that's different from the police officer who looks through your window to establish probable cause for a "search warrant". If your society is principled enough to require warrants to execute "searches", then it should be principled enough to recognize that this principle, by default, excludes any activity which has no measurable impact on society from criminalization. The first piece of evidence in any investigation should come without a search.
• hardlianotion 6y ago
  Great article. I thought TV detector vans were fictional bogey machines invented to scare us into compliance.
• SiteRelEnby 6y ago
  Vans labelled "TV Detector Van". Which are actually minibuses which drop off people who peek through windows.