The TV license covers you watching any broadcast content, no matter if it is received via antenna/aerial, satellite dish, cable TV or over the internet. If it i

The TV license covers you watching any broadcast content, no matter if it is received via antenna/aerial, satellite dish, cable TV or over the internet. If it is broadcasted, it is covered and you need a TV license to view it. It's not exclusive to the BBC. There used to be a loophole that if you didn't watch BBC, it wasn't included - they closed that. Then with the dawn of "live streaming" simulcasted content, you managed to get away with that other than BBC, now that is also closed. If you watch any broadcasted TV, no matter how it is received, it requires a TV license to watch it in the UK. The BBC is funded by the license, but the license is for broadcast TV in general. On the other hand, streaming "on demand" or "catch up", currently only covers the BBC iPlayer. But I expect they will attempt to close that loophole if they continue with the TV license in the UK, because so many people just don't watch broadcast TV anymore, and if you also don't use iPlayer or watch live TV using a service like NowTV, you can watch whatever you like with no license.