h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have decided that I don't want to pay for a TV licence, so I decided not to have a TV.

How many of you have a TV licence? Who feels it's right to pay for the service? Does anyone know the exact law regarding having a TV and not receiving signal?

I *think*, from memory, that English law states that if you have equipment capable of recieving TV signals, you need a licence.

It gets borderline when you have a TV, but no aerial, either internal or external.

A word of warning- if you currently have a licence, and it then expires, after you've had all you'your TV licence is about to espire', 'your TV licence has expired' etc letters, they will send a detector man around. It will take a few months, but when it does happen it would be a good idea to either have no TV, or have had all your aerials removed. I know they will do this, becuase our TV licence lapsed by about a month, and even after we'd got a new one, we still got the letters, showing the organisational skills of the Government to a Tee. We even got the bloke coming knocking on the door, in a rather rude manner, demanding to be let in because we had no licence. We duely showed him it and told him to off and learn some manners!

I have no problem with paying for the service at all.
In fact, I always find it hilarious when people moan about the licence but then admit to having Sky, which they pay for AND then have to put up with adverts as well.
Whenever I get to thinking that the licence is bunk, I stop and look through the book of Blue Planet. Blows me away every time, and worth every penny of my licence fee.

Not only did I pay my licence fee (which is mandatory) in the UK, I now pay for membership of two local radio stations (one NPR, one entirely member-supported), and one PBS tv station - all voluntary. If you want to have something you jolly well ought to pay for it, unless the people providing it are offering it for free, like a lot of the software on this pc.

I wouldn't mind paying for a TV licence if I watched a lot of TV. But seeing that if I had a TV (which I don't) then I would most likely watch about one hour a week. (according to how much I watched when I did have a TV readily at hand)

At £107 per year (more or less, according to the annoying letters I keep getting) that works out to being about £2 per hour. I'd rather get out a DVD and watch it on my computer, or go to the movies.

It is a good idea though. Especially because of the lack of adverts.

The UK TV license works out at £2.10 per week or a bit less than £8.50 per month. Whenever there's 'nothing on TV' (i.e., terrestrial channels) I take a look at what's on Sky / digital / cable channels. I frequently find that there's nothing I would want to watch on those channels either. Occasionally there's a good film on somewhere, BBC4 does good programmes from time to time, and there are sometimes repeats of good drama series from way back, but that's about it. I have yet to find a week's worth of programmes on satellite or cable that I would consider worth the subscription.

One question, though. You can still get a 'black and white' license, which is appreciably cheaper. If you change from having a colour license to a 'black and white' license, does anybody come round to check that you actually have got rid of your colour TV and replaced it with a black and white one?

Just turn your contrast all the way down, and you're fine.

I have the interesting situation of having a TV and video, but no ariel, therefore I don't pay (well, I'm a student and no-one in Halls of Residence pays anyway).

But, being a reasonably skilled engineer, I earthed my TV to the window frame so I could watch the US Masters last weekend, thereby creating crystal-clear reception with nothing more than a metre of wire and a soldering iron. That certainly makes a case for all TV owners to pay, ariel or not.

B

Actually, I don't think not having an aerial is considered a good enough reason for not paying, after all, you can hide an indoor aerial anywhere when someone comes to visit.

I think you _can_ get away with not paying if the TV is hardwired into a video player and has no aerial socket. IE the connection TV - VIDEO is soldered and the input to the video has been removed, apart from that, if you've got a TV, you pay.

I used to live in a tiny village in the Lake District where TV reception was lousy, you couldn't pick up BBC1, BBC2 had that many shadow images that it felt that you'd just come out of the pub after 12 pints and ITV was just a snowstorm with sound.

One of the villagers actually went to court for not paying his licence fee in the vain attempt to have reception improved (ie a new repeater station built) He lost!

It's a lot of effort to remove your video input, though. And it'd invalidate your warranty. If you pay a trained TV engineer to do it, you may as well buy the license in the first place.



Sorry, nagging point has just been brought up. How on Earth do you spell arial/ariel/aerial/aeiriaaal?



B

Hmmm has any one questioned the wisdom of discussing not paying the license fee on a BBC website?

B

Why do you think my response was so carefully worded in that Rowan Atkinson/Not the 9 O'clock News 'I would gladly sell my house and all its contents to support the BBC' manner?

I'd just like to say I have a TV, I do not pay the BBC for a TV licence and have no intention of doing so, also that I would urge other users of this site in my position to do likewise....










(and before you all rush to yikes this post.... 'in my position' means I live in France )

I'd rather pay a licence fee for all channels, and not have adverts.

Adverts on list currently complaining to the ITC about:
2

My new license arrived this morning , paying by direct debit is less painful and I don't have to think about it.

Those detector vans are way too scary for my liking and I would rather pay up and have one less worry on my mind.

My guess is Ray of Sunshine is a snitch trying to lure non payers out of the closet so BBC can get to them

The Editorial team have to pay - it is a sackable offence not to have a TV license!

you mean you don't get it F.O.C?

We should be so lucky!

OMG - It's only monday and Abi's started singing old Stock Aitkin and Watereddown songs