The rule about using the TV to watch broadcasts was a court ruling from about 20 years ago IIRC - the original language of the law was that just owning a TV was

The rule about using the TV to watch broadcasts was a court ruling from about 20 years ago IIRC - the original language of the law was that just owning a TV was enough. I'm not a legal scholar, but I think it was with reference to the fact that when the law was written, the only purpose a TV could reasonably have was to watch the broadcasts of the BBC, and so there was no point in clarifying this in the language of the law. With the advent of VCR's, it became perfectly reasonable to own a TV for other purposes than watching broadcast TV, and the court ruled that the intent of the law was to license watching TV, not owning a TV.