I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK.<p>Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere.<p>The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s.<p>Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as a child that politicians saw the risks of radio propaganda and legislated to mandate broadcast media to be politically unbiased .<p>It’s interesting seeing suggestions on the recent threads about EU funding for a WhatsApp alternative - perhaps the license fee could also fund the infrastructure for something like signal.<p>What is absolutely clear from history is commercial media outlets fuel political bias, and it seems to be increasingly damaging to society.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom_(historical)" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_...</a>
The BBC is currently dedicating hours of airtime a day to educational content to match our primary and secondary curricula because the schools are shut and lots of kids can't access online provisions. And still people complain about the licence fee in terms of whether or not they enjoy BBC gameshows...
Many people here are commenting on the fact that public broadcasters tend to do documentaries and educational programming which wouldn't be able to survive at that level of quality under a free market system, which seems to be a cause that almost everyone can get behind and an argument frequently being used for defending this system.<p>What riles me up personally: the ludicrous sums of money that these broadcasters pay for rights to broadcast the olympics and other major sports events. I really don't understand why I should be forced to give money to corrupt organizations like FIFA and the IOC to hold sports events that I don't watch and otherwise don't have a stake in, just because I happen to live in Germany, to make this stuff more affordable for other Germans.<p>Another thing that I find infuriating about the German system: You have to pay even if you don't watch and don't even own a television and even non-residential addresses and addresses used solely for business purposes have to pay. The only exception is that a home office within a residential premise doesn't have to pay twice. But in some cases you might actually have to. For example if you have a residential home and run a car repair shop out of your garage, then you have to pay a second set of fees for the shop on top of the fees that you already pay for the residential home, even if there is no programming ever being consumed in either of the two.<p>I also find the collection tactics highly questionable: When you register your business, they send you an invoice for paying that second set of fees for the business and never advise you of the home office exemption. It was only because of how infuriated I was that I did some legal research and then managed to claim the exemption after exchanging some letters with them. I bet most people don't do that and just pay up, which adds to the unfairness of the system.
BBC also does fantastic children's content including mobile games app's. Cbeebies is miles better then anything else. Also, you can trust young kids with the BBC. You know there is no targeted advertising, or in game purchases. Most shows are also educational (often secretly). Licence fee worth that alone for me.
> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege.<p>I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. When I was a freshman student 10 years ago, things were a little bit different: an inspector (the "GEZ man") came by my apartment a few months after I moved in. He wanted to have a look inside. I declined. He came back a few times, but I didn't open the door. I never paid the fee (and I didn't have to, because I received BAföG [1]). Even if I would have had to, there was just no way for them to prove I was actually owning a television. Here, those "detector vans" have been an urban legend for 60 years. I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they never existed and where basically "created" to fear people into paying the fees.<p>[0] <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkabgabe" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundfunkabgabe</a><p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesausbildungsf%C3%B6rderungsgesetz" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesausbildungsf%C3%B6rderun...</a>
> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege<p>Not really, we have that in Slovenia too.<p>In the past, you could avoid it by claiming you had no tv (and a grey-legal area of letting them verify). Then they expanded and added the "radio" part, where you paid less if you have a radio (and no tv), including car radio.<p>Then they added internet streaming, and expanded the definition of "tv" to "any device, capable of viewing streamed content" (pc, smartphone), so if you have a smartphone, you have to pay for tv, just because you have a device capable of watching a stream.<p>There have been many calls to just encrypt the over-the-air broadcasts, and create usernames and passwords for paying customers for streaming, but they prefer the "catch-all" definitions of "tv", so they can collect monthly subscriptions from pretty much every household in the country.<p>Our private tv stations are not much better... the most viewed one, did a nasty deal with the cable/iptv operators, wanting either a lot of money for their tv channels as a searate option, or less money if their tv stations are put into "basic"(=cheapest, smaller) cable packages, so they forced a price increase for every cable/iptv subscriber and there's no way to cancel just their channels.
> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege.<p>This is actually pretty common and almost everywhere in Europe.
I will never stop being surprised by how little my fellow British people know about other countries.
The situation was (is) the same in Germany: There is a fee of about 20EUR/month per household in order to fund the public service broadcasting. And in the last century, these "TV detector vans" also have been a thing in Germany.<p>While the detecting technology can work in theory, it will perform poorly in practice. Think of any dense settling, such as apartment blocks. It will be kind of impossible to determine the exact source of radio signals from the street, at least in the frequency domain and signal strength in question.
In the late 90's I went for an interview at a Sony store in London. At the start of the interview the store manager told me that he had been busy preparing the shop's regular report of addresses of everyone who had purchased a new TV for TV licensing. I imagine these were then cross-referenced against who had a TV license for potential follow-up. I struggle to see how the idea of TV detector vans were more than 'enforcement theatre', although possibly a cheap and effective strategy in the past.
In Italy the TV fee is automatically added to the electricity bill, and is IIRC non-optional.<p>See: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Italy" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_Italy</a>
Israel had similar fee for many years. (The public television was deeply inspired by the bbc).<p>But here they solved it by a much easier way.<p>* once you got married, you were automatically assumed to have a TV set.<p>* any tv that was sold were reported to the communication ministry.<p>* a car owner would pay by default. Assumption was all cars would have and use a radio.<p>* to show you don’t have a TV set or it’s not receiving any over-the-air broadcasts you were suppose to wait for random check ups. Once finally someone came, they can decide if you don’t need to pay.<p>But the most interesting story any Israeli know is the “mehikon” (Eraser in Hebrew) and its counterpart (anti-mehikon).<p>Back in the days, the countrie’s manifest at least was socialism. It wasn’t “fair” someone would have a color tv while others can’t. So the communication ministry required the broadcasters to wipe colors. So even color tv was shown as b&w.
in order to “fix” that, The anti-mehikon was made. A device to “restore” the faulty tv signal and get the colors back.
Legend goes that back in the 80's DR (the Danish "version" of BBC) would buy ads on top of taxis, placing a funny looking widget and text on the side saying "This is a TV detector van" to scare people into registering for paying their TV license.<p>According to the story, DR never had the technology (or new it existed) to do an actual TV detection.<p>I heard the story from an old interview from a retired DR manager, who said that they did this. So source wise it is pretty weak, but still a funny story none-the-less.
In 1969 the Dutch Television broadcasters did an April fools joke, they said they could detect people that did not pay for watching TV (zwartkijkers) by driving around with a detector [0]. It could be blocked by wrapping your TV in aluminum foil. The next day aluminum foil was sold out in many places...<p>[0] <a href="https://historiek.net/1-april-grappendag/1070/" rel="nofollow">https://historiek.net/1-april-grappendag/1070/</a>
In Germany, the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale, which roughly translates as "subscription fee collection agency") also had some of these infamous vans with parabolic dishes on them that allegedly could detect TVs in homes or offices. I never believed this but found it funny to which lengths they would go to get people to pay the public subscription fees for their TVs.<p>Until the mid 2000's they also hired free agents that were paid a commission for every "black sheep" they got to register. Of course these people regularly overstepped their mandate and found creative ways to intrude people's homes, some would e.g. pose as TV technicians and ask if they could have a look at the cable as the neighbors reported some problems, only to reveal themselves as the GEZ guy once they were inside and saw the unregistered TV set. Of course all of that was illegal, and in 2007 (I think) the system was finally changed so that a given household would pay a fixed fee instead of a fee that depended on the number of receiving devices they had, which made using the "collection mafia" unnecessary. Still, the GEZ is by far the most hated agency in Germany and the subscription fees (around 18.5 € / month) are among the most hated taxes people pay. Some people go as far as voting for an ultra right-wing party (AfD) only because they promise to do away with this fee should they come into power. Personally I don't mind paying for it, though I'd prefer to be able to pay more selectively for services I use. Then again, less than 20 € / month in additional tax for a single household isn't anything to really get worked up over.
I remember from when I was a kid the government used to broadcast commercials (in the Netherlands) about you having to pay up: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPr61na7icE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPr61na7icE</a><p>You don't have to understand Dutch to understand what the doorbell and the "uhooo" at the end of the commercial means... The whole text of the commercial is a hilarious attempt at intimidation. Basically it's about how it's all fun and games until somebody gets busted.
Ireland also requires a TV license for each home. If you have any device _capable_ of receiving a signal you're required to pay.... even if you only use the TV for games consoles or Netflix.
I haven't seen one here for years but I always assumed they were a fake-out! There are definitely criminal penalties to not paying, but mostly it's done by sending threatening letters for addresses that don't have licenses, and visiting as a last resort.<p>I heard in Japan there isn't any penalty for not paying, and I was captivated by a Murakami story of the "NHK man" who raps loudly on apartment doors and can only yell at these closed doors trying to shame non-payers.
"Television license fees" are a peculiar concept if you've not lived in a country that requires them, but as another commenter pointed out, several countries, mainly in Europe but outside as well, have this "system" in place.<p>Quite frankly it's ridiculous - imagine needing to pay a "fee" to CNN/Fox News/NYTimes/Yahoo/whatever-well-connected dotcom just because you have an internet connection and web browser.
The article fails to point out that today the enforcement vans are replaced by harassing enforcement officers.<p>These are contracted through slimey companies like Serco and Capita (Crapita).<p>I don't normally say it but it really is an example of the nanny state.<p>Check this video out, it's an eye opener <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE&t=608" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE&t=608</a>
I remember when I was doing my engineering degree asking my Electrical Engineering lecturer if he thought they could tell the difference between black and white and colour TVs. He thought not, which saved me a few quid.<p>Also worth noting that there is a campaign in the UK to get non-payment of license fees decriminalised and made into a civil offence.<p>"In 2017 (latest data available), 72 per cent of all prosecutions for TV licence-fee evasion were against women.<p>This figure is so high that licence-fee evasion accounted for 30 per cent of all prosecutions against women, the single most common charge."<p><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/tv-license-scrap-decriminalise-bbc-women-feminist-a9250041.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/tv-license-sc...</a>
Not read the article, but as a political aside, the licence fee is a big subject of debate here at the moment.<p>It was designed so that the BBC essentially had independence from the government, and as such, they could more easily be politically neutral (if they were funded directly by the government, there would be more pressure for them to cover the government favourably in news programs etc.).<p>Problem is that these days the licence fee is outdated with lots of people just watching Netflix/Amazon etc.<p>A lot of the "right wing" here also think the BBC has a left wing bias, which I think is a bit ridiculous really, as a lot of the "left wing" also think it has a right wing bias. But the consequence of this is that a lot in the current government want to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. This would basically mean that there is no consequence to not paying the licence fee, and assuming the government didn't come up with an alternative way of funding it, it would amount to death by a thousand cuts for the BBC (which a lot of right wingers are actually quite open about wanting).<p>It's quite a tough problem in my opinion. Direct funding from the government would solve a lot of problems, but also make political impartiality a lot more difficult to achieve. A direct subscription like for Netflix would likely result in a significant drop in revenue.<p>Hard to see a good solution here.
Imagine that the police force had robots that took pictures through your windows and then employed sophisticated object recognition and semantic inference engines to determine what is happening inside, matching it agains a database of known crimes. Then explain to me how that's different from the police officer who looks through your window to establish probable cause for a "search warrant".<p>If your society is principled enough to require warrants to execute "searches", then it should be principled enough to recognize that this principle, by default, excludes any activity which has no measurable impact on society from criminalization.<p>The first piece of evidence in <i>any</i> investigation should come without a search.
I can't believe that no one has made a connection between these and Monty Python's cat detector vans (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maz36_q6Fk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maz36_q6Fk</a>)
Heh, as late as a decade ago in South Africa the national broadcaster used to air scary ads implying these vans roamed the neighborhood and would catch you out.<p>Nobody bought it and they went back to politely pleading with people to pay their TV licenses.
In 1969 the national TV news broadcast in the Netherlands reported that inspectors would be driving through the streets to catch people who hadn't paid their license fee. "Surely people won't be wrapping their tvs in aluminium foil. So we'll catch them!" Aluminium foil was sold out the next day. The date was april 1st.<p><a href="https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_aprilgrap#Jaren_60" rel="nofollow">https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_aprilgrap#Jaren_60</a>
I haven't seen a marked TV detector van for for over 25 years. I'd kind of assumed that digitisation of the TV licence records some time before that, as as well as migration away from CRTs, meant that sending reminders/demands was simply more effective.<p>And I'm really not sure I believe that they correlate room light fluctuations with broadcast programming, or even that this is technically/economically feasible. Sounds more like disinformation to me.
>The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege.<p>If we ignore the distinction between a license and a tax, France still levies a TV tax. I believe other European countries do this as well. The van is the unusual part, not the license fee.
With Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, YouTube, etc. the BBC have a hard time justifying the license these days. The only exception would be live sporting events, which is something I don't watch. Given I only watch about 1 hour of "TV" a day I was very glad to stop my license last year. It will not be missed.
a) I think BBC produces good content, but not good enough to warrant the current cost of a TV license.<p>b) Even if it did, I still would not pay for a license, as a reaction to its overreaching approach, obligatory character and dishonest reasoning. They are claiming that you need a license to watch any type of content made available in public in real time, with Youtube LIVE mentioned explicitly as an example -no particular reason this wouldn't include even things like gaming video streams a school kid would share for fun.<p>I don't think BBC should profit from the consumption of content it has contributed nothing towards. I'm not sure if that's more absurd when that content itself is provided for free by its authors, or when it's content you have already paid for.
> To encourage compliance, TV Licencing regularly sends sternly worded letters to those who have let their licence lapse or have not purchased one.<p>This is an understatement. It would be fairer to say they constantly spam you with scare mail.<p>> In the event this fails, they may arrange a visit from enforcement officers.<p>That's what they want you to think. In practice it never really happens. Too expensive. Hence the spam.<p>> These officers aren’t empowered to forcibly enter homes, so in the event a homeowner declines to cooperate with an investigation, TV Licencing will apply for a search warrant.<p>I would be quite surprised if this has actually ever happened.<p>It's pretty obvious they don't do any fancy detection these days (if they ever really did). It's just way too expensive.
Proof that old-fashioned television sets transmit:<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180</a>
The vans were real. I remember one sitting outside my apt in England with the twirling antennae looking for felons who had a TV without paying a license fee.
Imagine if other corps behaved like this.<p>If printer companies managed to get legislation written that allowed them to send people to knock on you door and check your printers are only using authorised ink.<p>Or Microsoft agents checking your OS licenses are in order.
YVYAN: [looking at watch] Hey! Turn on the telly!<p>MIKE: Good thinking, Vyv! We need information! [they run to the sofa]<p>VYVYAN: No! I'm just in time for Afternoon Plus!
[leaps on couch between Mike and Neil. Rick turns on a the TV. We see a test picture and soft music.]
Well turn it over then! [Rick changes the channel. Test picture and soft music]<p>VYVYAN: Well, you might as well try the other one!<p>RICK: Alright! Alright! [Rick changes the channel. Test pictue and soft music. The boys groan, Rick turns off the TV]<p>RICK: Absolutely pathetic! There's nothing on at all! Humph! Don't know why we bother to pay our license!<p>MIKE: We don't.<p>RICK: But, haven't we got a license?<p>MIKE: No.<p>RICK: But that makes me a criminal! [thinks about it] Right on! Yeah, this will shake them up at the Anarchists Society! Occupying the refectories!
So what? This is the real stuff! I'm a fugitive! A desperado! I'm going to form a new union society, right?
With me as president! 'People Who Don't Pay Their TV Licenses Against the Nazis!' [takes out pad and pen and starts writing] This is only the beginning!
<i>“Ministry of Ousinge?!”<p>“Ministry of what?”<p>“Ousinge. It were spelt like that on t’ van”<p>“Van? What van?”<p>“The Cat Detector Van.”<p>“... You _are_ a loony.”</i>
Unpopular opinion: I agree to and support the BBC TV license.<p>I think most of their TV and radio programmes are as good as they come. The Brits are lucky to have it.<p>"But Netflix, Prime!.." - sorry, that's 99% dopamine inducing mindless entertainment, Idiocracy-style. I want more than that, for me and my family.<p>They can never replace quality programmes done without so much pressure for investment returns, engagement etc.
A bit off-topic maybe, sorry.<p>I am not from the UK, but quite a large chunk of things I watch on YouTube are british panel shows. I'm just in love with them. Which seems funny to me, because as a non-uk twenty year old, I don't think that I'm the target demographic for these shows.<p>"8 out of 9 cats does countdown", "Would I lie to you?" and of course my favourite, "Taskmaster". Thanks for all of these great shows. "Blackadder", "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" and "Monty Python" are great as well...
I have said this before and I will say it again...Dear BBC, please allow the rest of the world to pay for a subscription to the iPlayer. Just take my money, really, please?
The state not punishing you for publishing is free speech.<p>The state forcing you to pay for their publishing is forced speech.<p>Working for a company like the BBC can not be ethical, if ethics are universal.
If you have to have snooping vans prowling the streets to catch people listening to what's openly being broadcast over the airwaves to make them pay, maybe you've set up your system wrong...