back to article Small biz told to sort TV licences for PCs

UK businesses are being warned that they need a TV licence if staff watch live TV broadcasts whether they do so on a TV or via their computers. TV Licensing is reminding firms that they need a licence if machines are plugged in - someone watching live broadcasts via a mobile or laptop is covered by their own home licence as …

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  1. Man Outraged
    IT Angle

    BBC are saying...

    BBC are saying:

    "Employers who state they do not need a licence could be inspected without warning at any time"

    BBC conveniently forget to say that TV licensing don't have a right of access without a warrant.

    Back in uni days our hall warden told us all the staff new to refuse access to TV licensing, thereby giving us a few hours to stash the telly in the room of someone who did have a license, if indeed TV Licensing did come back with a warrant.

    In the one event TV licensing appeared on campus, no warrant was forthcoming.

    I'm not sure of all the facts but this is what the warded told us. Assuming it's legally correct, anyone feel like a Freedom of Information Act request to TV Licensing?

    1.) How many warrants to access premises were applied for and

    2.) How many were granted?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (untitled)

    Just more evidence on how ridiculous this TV licence things is.

    Seems to me the case that a national station is an asset isn't difficult to make so it is right it should exist. Almost everyone watches TV at some time of the year so one could save a lot of expense, and stop hassling folk & companies, by simply funding it out of general taxation. For those who never watch, their contribution will be small, and we all pay taxes for things we don't personally use, for the benefit of society anyway.

    Agree a financial algorithm to work out what the ring-fenced budget should be, and just do it. But of course that is too obvious and sensible. Can't have that.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Buffer

    Doesn't the buffer on most players mean that the "live" news feeds are not actually live (i.e. not technically viewing a broadcast) but a few milliseconds old ? Is it possible to increase the buffer to say 10 seconds at an Enterprise level ? No TV licence required then...

  4. finnbarr

    "required by law to inform the authority of the address of anyone buying or renting a telly."

    Yes, but they don't care whether it's the correct address down at Comet or Currys.

    This is why I keep getting license fee demands for someone who does not live, and never has, in my house.

  5. Aaron Jacobs
    FAIL

    ... and we thought

    they just matched a UK household database with their payment database.

    Oh really...

    I've got a TV licence, have done since I moved to current address 2 1/2 years ago. Every couple of months I get another 'Final Demand' style letter from the BBC. Yet no-one's come knocking on my door! I'm tempted not to renew the licence next time round.

  6. Anonymous Hero
    Big Brother

    Never seen a detector van in real life

    I ditched my Sky box and TV license almost two years ago and have yet to have a visitation by these fabled enforcers. Do they really exist?

  7. Paul Powell
    Grenade

    Super Secrecy - not

    Not one person has, as far as I am aware, ever been prosecuted using evidence from a detector van, nor has a search warrant been served on the basis of such evidence. If they had then the defence would be able to ask for details of how the technology works, and how that establishes proof. Just consider all the protests against wrongful conviction with speed cameras.

    Of course the BBC refuses under the FOI act to give out details of the technology, the number of vans, the prosecution rate, or just about anything other than their own FUD.

    I did however write to them telling them that I am withdrawing their implied right to access to my property (so they can't even come up the driveway) and to my surprise got a polite letter back from them for the first time ever.

    Still, the sooner they remove the wretched licence and fund the beeb out of general taxation the better.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    TV licensing can suck my balls

    Along with the PRS.

    That is all.

  9. RichyS
    Flame

    Riiiiggghhtt....

    Ultra secret detector nonsense. My arse. Are the TV Licensing numpties really going to go to the effort of developing some super-secret technology, when a list of addresses from Royal Mail cross referenced with a list of addresses from their sinister database will equally well do the trick?

    I don't think so.

    I pay my TV tax once already thanks. I'll be buggered if I'm going to pay the tax to watch the same old rubbish somewhere other than my house. I can only watch one thing at a time -- why should I have to pay double/triple/whatever?

    It always used to be that a license/tax was required for equipment 'capable of receiving a TV signal' (whether you actually had it hooked up or not was beside the point -- as long as it /could/ receive TV, you had to pay the tax). Has that now changed? What's their definition of a TV signal? My mobe is /capable/ of receiving TV (or so my operator keep telling me). Does that mean if I plug it in to charge it up at work, it suddenly becomes 'installed', and I have to pay the tax again?

    How about the BBC stop paying Graham Norton such an obscene amount of money for the dross he turns out, and stop taxing the rest of us? Crazy, I know.

    I'm fed up of being fiscally raped by the powers that be...

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    TV Licensing is waste of time

    Why do they waste so much time and effort when Govt could simply add 0.000001% of whatever onto tax or NI and then do away with all of the TV licensing infrastructure ?. Surely it is simpler to have an all inclusive system for things such as TV Licensing, Car tax , Car Insurance and then save millions on the stacks of people needed to enforce those things individually ?. Could even allow those that dont have Cars, TV's etc to prove that they dont and then get set refund ?.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    refusing access

    I thought it was the law that they can gain access even if PC Plod has to wait outside.

  12. dunncha
    Thumb Up

    Has TV Licensing been taking lesson from PRS

    Of course if you visit the BBC Website which the whole world does you should pay your license fee.

    'Its the way we are funded that makes us different'

    No it because we produce quality programmes (mostly) and not the crap which ITV produce

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tempest certification

    Read up on Tempest certification of equipment.

    http://www.surasoft.com/articles/tempest.php

    For the simplest signals, they can even see what your watching... stick to DVI over VGA and LCD over CRT and it's far more difficult.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Detector Vans

    Do Exist. but are useless for PC viewing! In fact the last set of six vans are probably too old to be on the road still!

    however I do think that iPlayer should be account driven linked to the TV License and should work abroad and for foreign subscribers. however since TV licensing is a seperate institution to the BBC there are dataprotection issues between the BBC iplayer users and the TV licensing databases it'll probably never happen. which is STUPID!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    re tempest certification

    That won't help, it's not the RF flyback from the display that's used. That's all I can say, on pain of pain.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dont have tv but still treated like a crim

    Got fed up of the letters so called them to tell them i have no tv.

    "25% of people lie to us so you can understand that we wont just take your word for it, an enforcement officer will still come round".

    Well since you refuse to make an appointment, and you call me a lier then you wont be coming in.

  17. Tom yng Nghymru
    Thumb Down

    Top Secret Technology - My Arse!

    When I bought my house there was a lot of work to be done, and I didn't move in stright away. during the first two months I had three reminders about my TV licence, making all sorts of threats about what they would do if they discovered I had a telly.

    TBH I just ignored them because I didn't have a telly in there. When I actually moved in I got my telly license the same day as a fourth threat came through the letter box.

  18. Jess
    Thumb Down

    Isn't this an unfair trading practice?

    By streaming live TV with no requirement for a login, the BBC have made any computer on the internet with suitable flash installed into a TV installation.

    This means that technically, unless the end system specifically blocks live TV, it needs a TV license.

    This is totally unfair. (Much the same as if a milkman decided to leave milk on all the doorsteps of a road without asking and demand payment.)

    The BBC (and other channels too) should require authentication before they stream. This should be based on the TV license and and require a simple registration (ie to restrict that login to one ISP, to protect employers from liability).

    It would make sense to use the same system to limit BBC catchup - perhaps treating the black and white license as a lite service (it would obviously not permit colour streaming) perhaps with a 5 hour weekly limit on downloads.)

  19. Jacqui

    TVL = capita

    Our TV died some years ago and we decided not to replace it - a see if we get more done without it sort of thing. Then the written threats and nasty phone calls started. We were going to get a new

    TV but decided not to "Give in" to the intimidation. We have been without TV for nigh on 4 years now

    and apart form the TVL threats we are doing without the crap quite niclely thank you.

    Oh and as I pointed out to one local company who was paying 400UKP per year to TVL for company laptops that just happned to have TV tuners built in, *standalone* self powered devices do NOT need a licence. He contacted the BBC who apologised and told him his company did not need to pay the 400UKP per year to TVL - who still send his business threatening letters...

    By the way you did not post up the pictures of the empty "TV detector" van someone thoughfully

    parked in a local supermaket car park...

  20. Vulch
    Thumb Down

    @Buffer AC

    > Is it possible to increase the buffer to say 10 seconds at an Enterprise level ? No TV licence required then...

    Nope. Last time the rules were updated it was done so that the timing at the original server was what mattered, not at the client. Your enterprise level buffer is still receiving the broadcast in near enough real time and so needs a licence, just as a VHS recorder would even though no-one is watching it as it records.

  21. Guy 3

    @RichyS

    IIRC, the 'not being plugged in' thing is due to an exception that has always (well, for the last couple of decades anyway) existed, that receivers powered solely by an internal battery are exempt.

    I believe this was put in to appease caravanners who could then be covered under their home licence when away from home.

    Conveniently, a laptop (when not plugged in) falls under this definition, meaning it is covered under the exception.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Armed with bluster, spots and very little else

    "Rumours that telly licensing's famous detector vans contain nothing more than a man, his sandwiches and a Thermos are strongly disputed on its website."

    Dispute all they like, if they were anything more than a second-hand Transit with a bit of bent coat hanger on the roof (and a bloke with a thermos inside) we'd have had endless pictures of "busts" on late night ITV (or even peak time these days). Instead contracting out to breathless capitalists has reduced their most fearsome weapon to a spotty 20 year old with an aggressive manner (easy to deflect by telling him the facts of the law then ending the conversation with a big finger and a slammed door) and enough creepy, threatening mailshots to create a papier mache model of a small Himalayan mountain chain.

    This would all be fine if their mighty database got its facts straight if they didn't unleash the youth and the equivalent of Nanga Parbat in paper to people who have always had a licence, but made the foolish error of buying a new telly. How very new Labour.

    I strongly support the licence fee, but really despise being threatened for something I haven't done.

  23. PJ H

    Re: Riiiiggghhtt....

    RichyS Posted Friday 2nd October 2009 10:50 GMT

    "It always used to be that a license/tax was required for equipment 'capable of receiving a TV signal' (whether you actually had it hooked up or not was beside the point -- as long as it /could/ receive TV, you had to pay the tax). Has that now changed?"

    It's been "actually used for receiving a TV signal at the time of broadcast" for some time - e.g. you can have one TV in your house for sole use with a Wii and not for actually watching broadcast TV, and you do not need a licence, even though it's technically capable of being used to watch TV.

    From http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp

    "You must be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV."

  24. John Murgatroyd

    Crapita

    The beeb do not send out the threats. Look to CAPITA for that.

  25. JasonW
    Thumb Up

    @Aaron Jacobs

    I've been that soldier - but took it all the way to court. When asked what evidence I was offering for my defence, I produced TV licences going back 10 years. At no point had anyone from TVL asked to see one, if they had I would have shown it.

    In my case it seems to have been a cock up at the Post Office - although since we moved (and I told TVL that we had and continue to have a TVL...) because they have a slightly different approximation to my address than is on the licence, I get the letter and the licence in the same post each year (5 now).

  26. Chris Miller

    Not a waste of time

    The argument for a separate TV licence is that, were the govt just to add 0.5% to the basic rate of tax* and 'promise' to pass the money on to the Beeb, they immediately have our semi-independent broadcaster by the short and curlies. Next time there's something they don't like on the Beeb, a quiet word from the Treasury will soon bring them to heel.

    There's a far better case for simplifying National Insurance, which is no longer ring-fenced to pay for the NHS and OAP (if it ever was), and has simply become another way for the Chancellor to lie about 'not increasing income tax'.

    * Which would be much fairer, linking the cost of the Beeb to ability to pay.

  27. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Top Secret Technology

    Well, explains where all our licence money has gone, coz it sure ain't on quality programmes.

  28. Hairy Scary
    Happy

    Yes it is possible

    To pick up signals radiated from a TV set.

    Way back in the 60s I knocked up a small device with a hand held aerial. It could easily receive the radiation from the timebase circuitry in a tv from inside a car being driven along the street -- you could tell which room the set was in (the aerial was very directional) and you could tell which station was being viewed if you had a tv receiver with you to compare the timebase sync with. I was passenger in the car, not driving just in case anybody thinks I was using this thing whilst driving!

    I knocked the thing up just to prove it was possible to those that said "na, it cannae be done"

    Have never tried with a computer (none were around back then) so I don't know if such a device would pick up anything from a modern LCD type display -- maybe I should build another one to see if it's possible :-) .

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too agressive

    Like Jacqui, I don't have a TV.

    I don't answer demands for a licence as a friend, also without a TV did that, ticking the "No TV" box. Then he got even more frequent demands for money!

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Knock-on-the-door-chappies do exist

    Never had a TV. Had guys come round twice, I think. Told them to fuck off.

    Btw, my girlfriend called the licensing office when iPlayer first came out to see if we needed a licence to watch it and they said it was only necessary for live stuff. Quite how anyone checks up on this I don't know.

  31. Tom 7

    @hairy scary

    The detector vans used to use the heterodyne frequencies to see what was being watched:

    the received signal is mixed with another to generate a standard frequency for simple amplification. These all transmit at some small level easily detected using primitive electronics.

    We have a TV license - we also get lots of final demands! Having lived in the US I'm more than happy to pay for a TV license. I do object to paying for stupid collection organisations who seem to think we should subsidise them by phoning in to correct their mistakes!

  32. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    (untitled)

    I don't believe that "next time there's something they don't like on the Beeb, a quiet word from the Treasury will soon bring them to heel.". All government needs to do is to ensure the legislation says that the finance algorithm shows this much required for any particular year; and can not be changed without an overwhelming majority voting to do so in parliament. That way it only gets changed if the reason is legitimate.

    Besides if government has control then the same objection can be raised regarding the licence scheme. If the Beeb did something unpopular Government can presumably decide to reduce the licence cost to near zero and watch the Beep's income go into free-fall.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Detector Vans

    Made by http://www.dbbroadcast.co.uk/

    The real McCoy Features on the homepage!

    if you see an TV Licensing advertising Van it is just that!

    Oddly the Project to supply 6 Vans in 2003 has disappeard from the historic projects page... Hmm.. suspicious?

  34. slooth
    Thumb Down

    Signals??

    Surely a TV signal is one that is received through an antenna. So how do they get around the question of the internet (no signal as such?????).

  35. Chris Miller

    @AC 12:44

    But if the BBC's revenue came out of taxation, they'd have to join the line at the Treasury every year and it would be all too easy for them to be told: "sorry, we need to build a new hospital/increase the pension/invade another country, so your share of the tax take has been cut". Of course any govt with a majority of 1 or more in the Commons could abolish the licence fee and tell the Beeb to raise the money commercially. I suggest that this would be highly unpopular and destroy one of the few areas in which it is still possible to take pride in being British*.

    * Anyone who doubts the superiority of the BBC's programming should be made to watch nothing but RAI and Fox News for a year.

  36. John Savard

    Solution

    Why haven't the British people simply refused to vote for candidates for Member of Parliament of any political party that fails to include the abolition of the receiver license fees in its platform? Of course, the answer is that they would be effectively disenfranchising themselves, as neither of the two parties most likely to govern Britain, Labor and the Conservatives, has offered this... not even Margaret Thatcher herself considered abolishing this intrusive and vicious tax, but then that's perhaps because it is also regressive.

    The BBC can be funded from general revenues (obtained from income tax, paid at higher rates by the wealthy) or it can run commercials, or both. People who prefer to watch Channel Four ought not to have to subsidize the BBC to a greater extent than those who do not watch television at all.

    Or they could fund the BBC through an additional tax on gasoline, which produces carbon dioxide when burned.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    ULTIMATE QUESTION:

    IF BBC cannot access TVLicensing Database to make iPlayer available to Licence Holders, Can TVL see who is connecting to BBC iPlayer in order to prosecute?

    Probably Not.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Dear Fuckwits

    This is an IT website and you lot are like how do they know who is watching iPlayer??

    iPlayer is streamed - Ever heard of streaming..?

    it relies on client to server connection - Ever heard of an IP Address?

    They dont need no friggin Vans!

    Do you understand Yet??

  39. This post has been deleted by its author

  40. david bates

    To be fair (although it sticks in my craw)

    I sent a particulalry vicious letter the the TVL people after pointing out to the dolt on the phone several times that it was hardly my problem that their system would not let them turn off the three monthly reminder that I MUST be watching TV, regardless of the facts, and that he'd better get it sorted.

    I got quite a nice grovelly letter back, and have heard nothing since.

    Bring back the radio licence and I'll gladly pay it for Radio 4, but Im not paying for the mindless pap that infests 90% of the TV schedule.

  41. Lionel Baden
    FAIL

    Oh yes

    Please may i redirect the attention of everybody here

    http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/10/02/sony_wireless_power/

    LOLOLOLOLOL

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Greg J Preece

    Similar to my mother-in-law. A few days after my father in law died, she had threatening letters about the TV licence because there was no longer a 70 year-old living in the house (she is 70 next year anyway, and nobody else is there).

    Sensitivity, none. Why are they allowed to demand money with menaces? I thought that in itself was a criminal offence.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @John Savard

    The reason that no party wants to cancel the license fee is very much like no party wants to stand on a platform on privatising the NHS, with a few exceptions (very vocal exceptions, as you can see from comments above) everyone wants to keep the beeb. It's one of those sacred cows that you just don't fuck with (well, not too much.) At the moment, the torys think the beeb is too left wing and Labour think the beeb is too right wing, which pretty much means they're doing exectly the right thing.

    As for funding from general taxation - If the bbc were funded from general taxation they would become an arm of government, the whole point of the bbc is that they are neutral. Even when we are at war, they refer to "The British" rather than our boys and whoever the current enemy is, which really got on Maggie's tits during the Falklands war.

  44. A J Stiles
    FAIL

    Missed opportunity

    As a family member of a former BBC employee I may be somewhat biased, but I fully support the TV licence. The BBC are unique: they sell programmes to audiences, whereas other broadcasters sell audiences to advertisers. Yet they aren't directly funded from general taxation, and so (at least in theory) are not beholden to the whims and caprices of the government either.

    I just think it's a massive pity that the decision wasn't made, as part of the planning stages for the digital switchover, to mandate the fitment of a viewing card reader to *every* digital TV receiver. Then, the BBC channels could be broadcast scrambled, while the advertising-funded channels were broadcast in the clear; nobody would be watching programmes they hadn't paid for; and what's more, all this could be achieved without the use of heavy-handed bully-boy tactics.

    Of course, this would necessitate a shift from per-address licencing to per-receiver (and remember that a video recorder is also a receiver). But there are always winners and losers with any change -- and who's to say that those who lost out had just been getting away with it too long? If it was done similarly to the old analogue Sky system, where cards could be swapped between receivers at will and would work in any one, having more sets than people needn't be unnecessarily expensive. There might also be a market for "limited hours" viewing cards for people who watched only a few hours of TV a month.

    And I can confidently predict that the "well, I never watch the BBC, I don't mind a few adverts anyway" brigade wouldn't last a fortnight .....

  45. Dick Emery
    Thumb Down

    CRAPITA

    CAPITA are just another debt collection agency who earn commision from the BBC for every person they manage to nab.

    As with ALL debt collection agencies. NEVER let them onto the premises without a valid warrant and police officer attending. As with ALL debt collection agencies do not leave accessible windows or doors ajar. They are allowed to enter premises this way and can return without warrant if they have done so previously.

    If anyone comes calling do not entertain them in any way whatsoever. Close the door on them if you already have opened it. They have NO power over you until they get a valid warrant (Unlikely).

    Make sure your TV cannot be seen or heard from the street. Some sneaky bastards will try to look through your window, look and listen through the letterbox or look for the telltale signs of flashing lights through the window at night.

    It really depends on how how agreesively they pursue it.

    I had a few demand letters. I sent the last back months ago stating I was the landlord and the premises were now empty. Not heard anything since.

    I plan on getting a new LCD or plasma type TV in the future but I will make damned sure that I pay cash and provide a relatives details (who has a TVL) for warranty reasons.

    I refuse to pay a tax for a service that I may or may not watch. ITV, C4, C5, Sky etc are all paid for by advertising and subscription. Why this archaic system is still in place 'by force of law' I do not know. The other broadcasters don't receive any money from the licence fee either. It's not a TV Licence it's a 'BBC' licence and I refuse to be coerced into paying it!

    Where is our freedom of choice? To not own a TV? I don't call that choice. You can choose not to subscribe to Sky. They don't come knocking just because you have a Sky box that 'might' be used to recieve their signals.

  46. David 45

    Mystery people do exist

    I moved house and my TV (which was not exactly in the first flush of youth) didn't survive the move. I had more than enough on my plate to occupy me rather than watch TV - I was watching less and less at the old place, in any case so I didn't renew. No tele - why should I? I kept receiving letters addressed to the previous occupant from TV licensing (it was on the envelope) but I kept returning them as "not known". I eventually opened one in error one day and it almost promised fire and brimstone, hell and damnation if I didn't get a licence and promising "a visit" by the firm. I just ignored it, as I resented the presumption of guilt. Someone did turn up one evening. I was somewhat surprised how meek and mild the guy was. Kept him at the door, on principle, as they do not have to be invited in. Told him I did not have a working TV on the premises at that time and he went away. Amazing.

  47. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    the TV license should be ditched.

    Apart from Top Gear, the BBC do absolutely nothing of value, and Top Gear isn't worth £150/year. The BBC should either use ads like everyone else if they want money, or encrypt their channels and people can CHOOSE to pay for a skybox style decoder (or pay for it on their Sky/Vermin Media package) so the vast majority of people who consider the BBC terrible value for money will stop using their channels.

  48. Doug Glass
    Go

    Oh Brother!!!

    And you guys tell us we have moronic laws in the USofA??? Big Brother has brown teeth!!

  49. Roger Garner
    Go

    Didn't have a TV or license once...

    First place, no TV. Kept binning the demands for money as they'd turn up every 3 months or so.

    After a year someone actually came around to check if I had a TV, showed him the empty aerial socket on the wall, he thanked me for my time and left. Probably 20 seconds of my time... never received another demand again after that.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Dick Emery

    1) XMBC on an old XBOX - £25.00

    2) Server or NAS - £30 ish or less

    3) Torrent, torrent, torrent - free! Or borrow DVDs from library, friends etc if you want to stay good.

    simples

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    I call BS

    "Some aspects of the equipment have been developed in such secrecy that engineers working on specific detection methods work in isolation - so not even they know how the other detection methods work."

    That is so much bull shite. You poor Brits - The US model for TV is not real pretty but it is a lot better than what you have. Perhaps you can copy our model of TV while we copy your model of health care.

  52. Martin Juggs
    Megaphone

    You've got it all wrong!

    Don't moan about the tax you should be paying now.

    Instead, start to make a fuss and raise the profile of how you can legally watch TV now. What must not be allowed to happen is that the goalposts are moved. They will try to redefine what watching TV means, and this *will* include iPlayer and other ways. It's just a question of popularity.

    If more and more people stop paying the tax because they are using other things (I haven't had the TV on all night) they will start to lose revenue. Then they will want to get that from users of other media. If you make it clear that this is politically unacceptable *before* they try to soften us up, it will help prevent them from moving the goalposts.

    Do nothing and they will, eventually, simply redefine the tax and rape you in the end.

    So shout and tell them you *are* legal -- and will not pay the tax. Ever!

  53. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    re: I call BS

    The US model is better - you are kidding, right? I can only presume you are basing that on not having to pay 140 quid odd a year rather than the quality of programming. I've spent enough time living in the US in the past to know and appreciate the difference - the frequency of the advertising alone is enough to give any sane person a nervous tic, and with a very, very tiny number of exceptions (news certainly not being one) stateside TV programming is simply vile, brainless filler for advertising. Even assuming the programmes were worth watching ( a questionable assumption), you lose 20 minutes of an hour to ads (currently, likely to rise - growth, you know). Watch 3 hours a week and you lose an hour, and even with a modest hourly rate you'd earn enough to pay the licence comfortably - and even work beats the shit out of watching ads.

    Anyone in the UK who is lauding the "innovation" of US TV, clearly hasn't been there. The imported stuff we get is rarely great, but it is stellar in comparison to the stuff that isn't exported; repeated bilge mixed to the same tired, 50 year old formula that every network trots out, day after nauseating day. No wonder most americans appear to be dead from the neck upward.

    Feel smug, keep you 200 odd dollars and pay a cable channel instead, take our healthcare model if you want. But please don't lecture us over TV till you can produce something worth watching with a script that isn't dictated by the commercial interests of advertisers or Rupert Murdoch.

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The funny thing is...

    I was doing my annual return for my small business and I added up my total purchase of Andrex Toilet Roll for the last year from my Tesco till receipts, it came to £141.60. I was 90p short of the £142.50 required payment of my licence fee for my employees use of the bbc website, you can guess what I did, I copied the bbc format - and produced a another small amount of so called sh** to make up the total.

  55. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Guilty until proven innocent...

    Hmm. Now everyone who buys a PC, laptop, netbook.. pretty much anyone now has to pay. Sounds like the beginnings of a Police State to me.

    Expect a large jump in "TV blocking software" scareware very shortly.

    As for paying £400 a year just for having laptops with built in tuners.. has no-one ever heard of disabling them in the BIOS, then locking it with a random key? Can't be that hard, requires effort to remove and can easily be verified.

  56. This post has been deleted by its author

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Biggest rip-off going!

    Really narks me!

    I have a nice big LCD TV, I watch nothing but bought and paid for DVDs, ripped to a HD and streamed from my server. For that I have to pay £150 a year to TVL for that!

    I haven't watched a live broadcast for over 4 years now, my missus has watched a total of about 6 hours of TV broadcast in the last 18 months, where's my pigging rebate?!

    TV is full of mindless, lowest common demon drivel, filmed for shell-suit wearing, druken chavs, and that's the good stuff! Dog Whisper, FFS?! Come Dancing?! Let's not even start with Big Brother and it's spawn of Satan ilk!

    I am seriously thinking of chucking the telly on eBay and getting the biggest LCD monitor I can find, ensuring it has no RF, Freeview or and other reciever kit built in and telling TVL to go fill their pipes! I can then meet the very first section of the TVL advice page:

    http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp

    That's a great little paragraph there, nice and ambiguous. Anyone with a VM or Sky box is f**ked, 'cos it constantly recieves the stream live on your behalf, even if you don't watch it, so they greedy sods have you over a barrel!

  58. Graham Whiteside

    Beeb subscription

    With analogue being phased out it would be feasible to make the beeb a subscription only service. That way if you don't pay you don't get it. Therefore no need to hassle innocent people who don't want the service.

    Might also give them an incentive to make some decent telly!

  59. John H Woods Silver badge
    WTF?

    No need for FUD

    It has always mystified me why the demands for TV licencing are so menacing. All the beeb need to do is devote one day a week to 'US style programming' (the average, not the creme-de-la-creme of the US imports) with the same poor quality of programmes and the huge number of - very boring - adverts.

    Then all they need to say is 'this is what you will get when the licence fee stops'.

    I personally would pay 15 / month just to be able to listen to Radios 3 and 4. I think surveys have previously discovered that for many people the problem is not the relatively low cost of the licence, but the heavy handed and error-prone way in which it is enforced.

    PS - why no sale of iPlayer programmes abroad? I know plenty of people who would pay to use the service from abroad!

  60. Richard Scratcher

    @George Schultz

    Following on from AC's reply.

    Unfortunately we've already started to implement the "US model for TV". We now have multiple channels of crap with pointless and irritating channel logos lodged in the top left of the screen (Note that these are removed while the adverts are on. Wouldn't want to spoil the adverts eh?).

    The length and frequency of commercial breaks have recently been increased so that they are almost as intrusive and relentless as those in the US and Australia. Programme slots have not been correspondingly increased, which means that whatever show you tune in to watch has been butchered to make room for more advertising.

    The networks don't seem to be able to afford space in between shows to tell you what's on next, so instead they voice over the film you were engrossed in or have some intrusive graphic pop-up or slide in. I remember watching a film in the US a couple of years ago and right at the climax of the story a large graphic of a car drove in from the right and some little men popped up to change its wheels. Apparently this was to remind me that NASCAR season was soon to begin. Although I'm fully aware that TV is a one-way communication device, I was provoked to scream at it that I didn't give a f*ck about f*cking NASCAR season and invited it to get the f*cking graphic off the f*cking screen so that I could watch end of the f*cking film. I was glad that we didn't have that sort of thing in the UK but knew that it was only a matter of time before we did. Sadly that time has already elapsed.

    I accept that the UK TV licensing system is a joke and that it's doomed because of new technology, etc. but it has allowed the BBC to produce shows that I do not believe would have been possible on any other network. For example, the Monty Python team were given the chance to produce and air a full series of their ground-breaking sketches without the need for a pilot show, pressure and interference from sponsors or advertisers, worry about ratings, target/focus group responses, etc. that stifle originality and creativity.

    But I know that it's only a matter of time before adverts come to the BBC.

  61. jon 72

    Television?

    Oh I remember that, a curious fad that died out completely around 2010...

  62. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    You do not need a license to merely own a TV

    I have not watched TV for over 10 years now and do not require a TV license. I still get the regular threatening letters however and occasional cards that someone has visited while I was out.

    It's important that people understand that you do not require a licence to merely own a TV set.

    You only require a license if you _use_ TV receiving equipment of any kind (VCR, Computer, etc) to _receive or record_ television broadcasts (or 'programme services' as I noticed the wording quietly changed to a year or so ago) while they are being broadcast.

    You do NOT require a license to merely OWN equipment; only if you USE it for the purpose of receiving broadcast TV. i.e. if TV licensing came around and saw your TV connected to your XBox, there is nothing they can do unless they actually catch you in the act of receiving live TV.

    Note that even if you just had a powered up VCR connected into the aerial with no TV and it's tuner was tuned in and receiving, you would be breaking the law without a license, even if there was no tape in the machine and you had no way of watching anything. It's the act of receiving that is illegal.

    Now what I am really curious about is that I, like a number of other people who don't watch TV actually pay for Virgin Cable TV along with their phone and Internet package purely because it's cheaper as a bundle. It would actually cost me more per month to have the TV taken off my account. The cable box is in a cupboard somewhere and has literally never been plugged in, however I believe that iPlayer is available on Virgin and that they have some form of TV on demand service. In theory I should be able to use both of these services with impunity as neither are 'television broadcast services'.

  63. Stewart Wood
    Alert

    If they phase out TV licences

    If they phase out TV licences they will only replace it with something worse Much Much Much WORSE

    "Computer licence" "Media licence"

    I hear its going to be MUCH Worse due it covers all what the "TV licence" does now and then goes for your PC being connected to the internet (The Swine's)

    So what would you like to pay for in future "TV licence" or "Computer licence" / "Media licence"

  64. Christian Berger

    I would be happy to pay the license

    People who think the BBC is worthless should look to other countries in which public television isn't as strong as it is the the UK. There the programme slowly drifted downwards in quality. I mean your stations still have the intention to provide good programming. There's something decent to watch on on each of your largest broadcasters.

    Just look at one of the largest saturday evening shows in Germany:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PlGHe4rffw Yes, our public broadcasters spend millions on that stuff.

    Other stations have other types of stupid, but expensive programming.

  65. Mark Eaton-Park
    Thumb Down

    By Jess Posted Friday 11:21 GMT

    Spot on Jess, I have a TV license and even when I didn't have a TV they were hounding me. It would be fairly difficult to pick up a laptop screen but not impossible, if the detector vans are watching what I am doing on my laptop then that is an invasion of privacy.

  66. The BigYin
    Thumb Down

    Scrap the license?

    Hmm...not so sure that's a good idea. Firstly, we'd get shitty adverts on he Beeb and even shittier product placements (why THAT law was ever changed is beyond me. Money talks I guess). So all the commercial channels will become nothing more than 24 hour ads for shite you don't need.

    "Ah, Inspector, how did you solve the case?"

    "Well he said his SEIKO HARDMAN watch was £50. But I checked ARGOS (excellent delivery service) and it was ONLY £35! So I knew he was lying!"

    "WOW! A SEIKO HARDMAN watch with WORKIGN BEZEL and PENTAX CRYSTAL is ONLY £35 at ARGOS!?"

    "Yes indeed"

    and so on....

    This is your idea of an improvement? Jay-zuz people, ever tried *thinking* before posting?

    TVL has issues, they are run by Crapita and are an aggressive bunch of arseholes at times (I've the nasty letters too), but they are still better than the alternative.

  67. Mark Eaton-Park
    Thumb Down

    @ TheBigYin

    "but they are still better than the alternative" actually no.

    One of the alternatives is to do away with broadcast based media completely and download what you want without adverts as and when YOU want to watch it.

    At present the producers of shows are selling to broadcasters/ networks, if everyone was downloading only the content they wanted the producers could sell direct to their audience.

    Given that the start up for being a distributor would then be the cost of a server and internet bandwidth the delivery costs could come down without the need to flood your audience with rubbish they don't want to watch.

    Adverts have cause loads of problems in society without them giving anything back, the premise that they make it cheaper to watch quality content is false, the vendor / broadcaster just makes more money.

    The BBC has by pure fluke produced some quality programming in the past however if you balance their latest content against time you wonder where your license fee went. I rarely watch BBC as they are not interested in what I want to watch only what is cheap in all senses of the word.

    The media industry is always b1tching about how they aren't making enough money. If I had my way they would be paid after I had viewed their content and decided how relevant and entertaining I thought it was, rather than being suckered by adverts for films and shows that don't live up to their promises.

    If they want to advertise it should be invisible to those who are not interested in seeing it, like this page I can scroll right past the adverts on the top, they don't keep forcing me to acknowledge them every 15 minutes.

  68. Steven Snape
    Thumb Down

    I feel short changed

    I resent paying my license fee to pay for countless naff dramas, Eastenders, Casualty, Wossy, Moyles, Countless angry shouty police based drams, Excessive quantities and duplications of news reporters for their many tv and radio channels, and excessive teams of people and presenters at festivals like Glastonbury.

    I only really watch TopGear and the occassional comedy. Hardley value for money is it!

    I say encrypt the BBC and see how many people sign up then. My guess is that Sky1 might suddenly become more popular without the BBC's unfair advantage.

  69. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    TV at work?

    In my world, we work whilst in the office and dont toss off my company by watching TV whilst being paid. Seems you lot need to wake up and realize your supposed to be working, not watching CBBC!

  70. Matt W 1
    FAIL

    Australia

    Why is it that the ABC needs $840m to cover a continent, and the BBC £4.5bn ?

    Sure there's more depth to the BBC, but not an order of magnitude.

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