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Rather than shelling out £12 a month for a broadcast TV licence for my new house Could you explain this for those of us not familiar with the UK? You have to p
by bconway 15y ago
Rather than shelling out £12 a month for a broadcast TV licence for my new house
Could you explain this for those of us not familiar with the UK? You have to pay to watch TV that is already broadcast OTA?
- waterside81 15y agoIn the UK (as in South Africa incidentally), the public broadcaster (BBC) gets its money via a license fee that tv owners pay rather than out of the government budget as happens in Canada (CBC).
- fauigerzigerk 15y agoNot owning an actual TV set doesn't exempt you from buying a TV license. If you own a computer or mobile phone you need to buy a license for £145 per year. It's basically a flat tax imposed on every household.
- ivanr 15y agoYou are correct in pointing out that a license is required no matter what device is used to watch or record broadcasts. However, just owning such a device does not mean that you have to automatically pay. If you use your TV only to watch DVDs, or your computers to only watch on-demand material, you don't have to have a license. The key word here is "broadcasts".
- shabble 15y agoThe tricky part is convincing the TV Licence goons that you either don't have any receiver, or that you don't use it. It used to be that you could have the RF unit specially mangled as proof you don't watch broadcasts, but now with set-top boxes and TV tuner cards and iPlayer and whatnot, it's a lot harder to demonstrate conclusively that you don't use any BBC services. So they just keep sending you threatening letters.
- Ecio78 15y agoSame in Italy, for 2012 is 112 Euro for a year (145$). According to this chart http://www.abbonamenti.rai.it/immagini/grafico2011.gif http://www.abbonamenti.rai.it/immagini/grafico2011.gif this kind of fee is quite common for public tv in Europe.