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

It's in our contract!

What exactly is in your contract.... having to pay your TV licence or being forced to sing S A and W songs on a Monday

- That's got to be some kind of BBC mindcontrol exercise

I pay my TV licence, but I'm not 100% sure on where exactly it's listed. It may well be for my previous flat. I guess I'll have to check that...

I have been done in the PAST (careful wording needed. )For just having the equipment that did not work properly. The reason being that it could!

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I wonder if TV licensing isn't some legal gibberish. Taking money from people simply for having some equipment, without proving that they use it.

*Surprised that no-one has yet mentioned the link between the licence fee and h2g2 yet *

BIG BROTHER is watching? far to paranoid to comment any further.

I think you will find I mentioned it on the other page!

I've friends from Northern Ireland who've moved over to England and they are decidedly annoyed that they now have to pay for a TV license. Licensing was not particularly strongly enforced over there, as it was seen as a poor career move to go and knock on people's front doors and say, "hello I represent the State"

I have a TV and pay the licence but I do not watch it, and have not watched it since I moved house on March 9th. I haven't even turned it on to find out if I need to retune it. However my sofas arrive on Wednesday, so I expect I'll retune it later this week.

If you don't watch TV you don't miss it. It is addictive, like chocolate or smoking.

I have spent a lot of my life without TVs and at one time had to fill in a form saying why we stopped having a TV. Most of the questions boiled down to 'I am now too poor / in debt / generally f**ked up to have a tv'. Not a single one of them said 'It's a bunch of tosh, and I have decided to live my own life and not other peoples'.

My ideal service would be the music channels and QVC. And maybe those bizzare American housebuilding shows on Discovery.

Ben
*Square eyed from the Internet, but not from TV*

It's not that I actually enjoy paying my TV licence fee but it after all only a tax and if you want services to be there when you want them, like it or not someone has to pay for them. So in order to pay for and support the development of public broadcasting in the UK I will carry on buying it (by DD).

Radio alone is worth the licence fee. (Although I think that there ought to be some rebate arrangements in order to cover local radio and Nicky Campbell!)

PP

In Ireland I pay the slighly higher RTE license fee AND IT HAS ADVERTS!

Well, I tried to set up a direct debit about a week ago and today one of the fascist bullyboys dropped round with a threatening letter. I wasn't in. I'm going to phone tomorrow and ask what they're playing at.

It's a really bad system. I would like to suggest that we stop funding the royals through direct taxation and instead use that to fund the BBC, which I suggest is more important to the nation internationally than the royals. Then, following a suggestion in Viz magazine, we could have a pay-per-view monarchy.

Best wishes

Otto

Well as I've said elsewhere I have digital and I resent having to pay for the adverts.However I do see the point of having state funded television.It's one way of ensuring that there is some quality on at least one channel and that minorities do get some sort of look in.If it was left to the commercial tv producers we'd be paying for all sorts of public events and have to WATCH ADVERTS at the same time.Which brings me back to why am I paying to be advertised at?Guess I'll never get a satisfactory answer to that one.

Incog.

In answer to a question posted earlier, the correct spelling is 'aerial'. At least, it is in the UK. It wouldn't surprised me to find that Americans have dropped the 'e'. They often do (e.g., hemoglobin instead of haemoglobin).

Xanatic: a snitch? No, I've just been thinking about buying a TV to hook up to my computer which has a DVD player so that I can watch movies on a bigger screen and was wondering if I had to pay a licence if I didn't want to watch TV. now, I don't think I'll bother. Most of the people I know don't pay for the service of watching TV and have told me all sorts of stories about what the law regarding it is.

I feel (coming from Canada, 100chanles, all commercials) that paying for not having commercials is worthwhile. I also feel that the BBC has provided other great services (example, bbc world service.) Is the TV licence the only place that BBC receives funding to keep up its services?

I suppose the TV licence is a voluntary tax, like speeding, if you speed and you get caught, you get a ticket. If you have a TV, then you get a licence? I'm a bit of a geek in the fact that I don't like watching TV. But if I did, then I would gladly pay.


Always asking questions, though today in a shy hurt fashion, (I should have known better than to ask about TV licences, as I now see)

The real reason I pay my licence is 'cos I'm a coward and don't want any trouble! I would die of shame if I didn't have a licence and got caught. I pay by debit card over the phone when the reminder comes in. I also subscribe to digital TV (n-t-hell) so get to see most of the new channels that seem to appear every other day.

However, before I *went digital* BBC1 kept showing *adverts* (should probably call them trailers) for BBC Choice and all the NEW programmes available thereon. I don't think this is fair. The BBC should only show new programmes on terrestrial BBC 1 or 2 until analogue is fazed out. Why should someone who faithfully pays their licence miss out just because they cannot afford digital? For instance - "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" was shown on BBC2 last night immediately followed by a trailer for the new series on BBC Choice. Wrong! It should be shown on BBC2 first - then on Choice later that night (like Eastenders)

Just to clear up a common misconception - the license fee does NOT pay for the BBC world service - this comes from direct taxation via the foreign and commonwealth office (IIRC).

I am in an odd situation. I work away from home during the week so have rented a flat nearby to the office so I don't have to live in B&B and eat takeaway food all the time. I don't have a TV in my weekday flat yet but I will probably get one - the silence is driving me barmy, I like to read but I like noise in the background (could just get a radio I suppose).

If I get a telly, do I have to have two licences? This would seem to be unfair as I am either watching at home or watching away - not both at the same time. On the other hand I have equipment in both houses - so is it a tax for me and all my tvs or is it a tax on the location of the tv regardless of the fact that I already have paid at home?

k suspecting she isn't going to like the answer.

That snitch thing wasn't meant seriously But you might want to be careful giving up TV. If you one day stop paying license, in many cases they will believe that you still have a TV and just don't pay anymore. And then it is basically your task to prove yourself innocent.