TV Licence?

[Amiga Forever]

What the point of Paying TV Licence when there is quite lots of Repeat program. I see my Bills paper(which I am due to paying on 31 OCT!) saying that you watched it on Game console, Laptop, tablets but I have hardly watched TV apart from the Films that I have downloading from the net

Match of the Day or Champ League is good and maybe films that I have not see before

What if I refused to pay it and they come round to my home and say ooh you got TV but I will say I used for my Amiga

Projector? I used it for gaming....

Need to say more?

 

[Snoozy]

why not just put it on monthly DD, its only around £12 a month.

Yes i don't watch much bbc, but its the law

 

[Amiga Forever]

It is better to pay it one go and forget it about for next 12 months

 

[scrappysphinx]

I agree with the Direct Debit if you can, you pay £24 a month for the first 6 months (so you pay for a year in half the time) then it drops to £12 a month, this way they say you are always 6 months in credit with your license.

I hardly ever turn my tv on (except to play games & watch Match of the Day on Saturdays) but as said, its the law so i just let them take the £12.

 

[FOL]

I agree with the Direct Debit if you can, you pay £24 a month for the first 6 months (so you pay for a year in half the time) then it drops to £12 a month, this way they say you are always 6 months in credit with your license.
.

Really?

Mines £12 all year round. Unless your talking about when you first go to direct debit?

Are we really discussing this on a retro computer site, lol.

 

[scrappysphinx]

Yes we're discussing it lol and yeah i meant when you first join the Direct Debit.

 

[thecellartroll]

Never paid for a TV license and never had to. Stupid, outdated concept. Its funny, there are lots of videos on Youtube of people trying to wind up the inspectors, but in my experience they have always been polite and pleasant. They come in and look at the TV (that belongs to the house so I can't get rid of it), confirm that it can't get any channels, enter some details into their little computer and go away.

 

[Snoozy]

Never paid for a TV license and never had to. Stupid, outdated concept. Its funny, there are lots of videos on Youtube of people trying to wind up the inspectors, but in my experience they have always been polite and pleasant. They come in and look at the TV (that belongs to the house so I can't get rid of it), confirm that it can't get any channels, enter some details into their little computer and go away.

Meanwhile the rest of the public cross subsidise the non payers icard

The videos on youtube are of scumbags giving abuse to tv licensing people.

Hmm i think this may become too political

 

[thecellartroll]

Meanwhile the rest of the public cross subsidise the non payers icard

You can subsidise me if you like. I'll send you my Paypal details and you can fund my next David Attenborough Bluray purchase

 

[Snoozy]

 

[Zetr0]

you do not need a TV License if you do not watch Broadcast Media.

Anything you watch that is on-demand it is perfectly legal to watch. In fact if your friend taped / recorded a show from BBC and then brought it over to yours to watch - this is perfectly legal as well - within the UK.

I do not have terrestial broadcast TV / digital or Sky - yet I have a 42" Plasma - I use this to watch DVD's / Blu Rays and on-demand media such as Netflix and Love Film - this is perfectly legal.

You are under no legal obligation to comply with any wishes made from the License Inspector. You do not have to let them in your home nor do you have to answer any questions. Interestingly enough if they become to persistant you can revoke their right of access - this means they cannot be on your property at all without it being classed as trespassing.

I have been License Free for nearly 4 years - It is one of the best decision I have made - I contacted the BBC - explained that I did not watch broadcast media and do not even have SKY - she asked me when I though I had stopped watching - I informed her four months prior to calling - I got a £65 rebate in the post!!!!

That is a double bonus.

 

[thecellartroll]

It is true that I am under no legal obligation to let them in, but as they have always been polite and they have a job to do and have always rocked up at a time that I am not busy, I let them in for a nosey anyway. If they were rude or threatening then they'd be told where to go, sharpish.

I too do not watch broadcast media. It simply doesn't fit into my lifestyle to watch stuff to someone elses schedule. Services like Netflix are the future for visual entertainment and the TV license was an out of date business plan more than ten years ago.

Claiming that license payers are subsidising non payers would be like me suggesting that cyclists should contribute towards the tax that I pay on diesel.

 

[Lurch666]

It's annoying how the BBC is allowed to charge everyone for a license.We should get a choice of paying or not and if you don't pay you don't get the BBC channels.
But I figure they won't do that cause they know they would lose thousands.

 

[Amiga Forever]

What is Broadcast Media?

It is BBC Channel? IF yes, well the only BBC Channel I would watched is Match of the day. ITV Champ league and that about it.....I dont think it is worth paying TV Licence just the only channel that I watched :roll:

 

[ShambleS1980]

i do not pay a tv licence.
checked. and i dont need to pay one. i dont have sky i dont have a radio. i dont have terestial or free view tv.
there is no analog signal where i am, So i dont have to have a tv licence. i can watch the things i want to watch over the internet. with xbmc or my pc, provided they arent live. "they are usually 15 mins after the broadcast ends"
I can watch dvd's and vhs tapes.

The only thing i miss to be honest is the news. apart from that everything i want to watch i can watch at my leisure provided i watch it after it was broadcasted.

And as the tv is now ONLY used for xbmc i dont have to wait to watch something later or miss a show i wanted to watch.

i had to tell the tv licence people that is what i was doing. and then they said ok no probs and they never bothered me. but they can come check any time they like. "not a problem because i am doing what i told them, and dont have any thing broadcasted to the house"

so if you can live like that, its fine. no reason to pay for a licence if you can deal with the alternatave, which really is not that bad.

 

[-Acid-]

Controversial it may be but I say if the BBC release a DVD/BR you want just go and download it. After all you have already paid for it and funded it's creation if you pay the telly tax, technically it is already yours.

 

[Zetr0]

Controversial it may be but I say if the BBC release a DVD/BR you want just go and download it. After all you have already paid for it and funded it's creation if you pay the telly tax, technically it is already yours.

Unfortunately, copyright law does not work that way.

The BBC receives over £3.6 Billion pounds per year from the UK Citizen. It pays the License Agency £500 Million pounds per year to collect that. It should be noted that the License Agency is not the BBC and you are under no obligation, legal or otherwise, to comply with any of their requests.

To put that in perspective that would be every hospital in the UK being given a further £11 Million pounds per year in their budget.

 

[protek]

Finland changed from TV licence to media tax. It's deducted from your income regardless whether you watch broadcast TV or not. TV licence was per household but media tax is personal, so if you have income, you pay the tax. In practise our household of two adults and one infant pays a bit more than we did before. Good thing is of course that you don't have to come up with about 120 € twice a year. So you win some and you loose some.

 

[moijk]

Well, you could hope the gov does what it have done in other countries - remove it....

... and tax everyone for it over the income tax.

Just love to point that out to everyone who complains about ours. the countries they point to who doesn't have it, all have a national broadcasting agency that is funded through the income tax. So all in all the bradcasting agency get the same money, just collected differently.

I however probably should have been paying yours, since I watch more bbc than our nrk

 

[ColourWheel64]

The BBC is an excellent service and I couldn't imagine a world without it. I urge everyone to please pay your TV license.

---------- Post added at 08:38 ---------- Previous post was at 08:30 ----------

Controversial it may be but I say if the BBC release a DVD/BR you want just go and download it. After all you have already paid for it and funded it's creation if you pay the telly tax, technically it is already yours.

The way I think it works is thus:

Things cost x amount to produce (including profit margin). This money has to come from somewhere. Additional funds go towards the recalculation of the next year's budget.

As next year's budget increases, two things happen

• Savings are made, which get passed on to the consumer
• Money is re-routed to fund new projects.

It's better not to think of the license payment as a way of already paying your share. It's just like any community. You should aim to work with the system, because by doing that you are supporting it's growth and encouraging its stability.

If you go looking for the cracks and trying to exploit them, you're only helping to make bigger cracks and weakening the system.

To encourage people to pirate Blurays has been your contribution to weakening the BBC system. It's your choice to make of course, but realise what you're doing. It's very much a 'live by the sword, die by the sword' scenario. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the money will be raised by an alternative means in the event of failure in the current system.

I think that you should be grateful that you are free to make the choice of owning a hard-copy or waiting for it to broadcast or appear on iPlayer. Pursuing such a rebellion may result in a restriction of these choices. Just like your security alarm at home or at work, the only reason we implement security systems is because the rebellious side of human nature necessitates them. If everyone agreed to support each other, those resources could be channeled to something more worthwhile e.g. an Amiga in every room!

I am happy to work with the BBC, and if I have a problem with them then I'll write them a letter.

I would be interested to hear what you think you are going to achieve by encouraging everyone to rebel against the BBC. If the money dries up from the sales of the discs then I can only see a future where hard copies are scarcely produced and the license fees skyrocket to cover the people that refuse to pay.