British Television?

[HarryA]

Greetings from Penn's woods.

In Britain I gather one pays a yearly fee on televisions. This goes towards producing programs? My wife just got done watching Father Brown which last only 45 minutes. So there still must be commercials within the programs?

What are the fees like on televisions?

 

[Minder]

You pay for the privilege of TV and Radio reception, There is commercial TV in UK,
It is akin to paying a yearly license fee to drive an automobile.
Max.

 

[Alec_t]

BBC channels don't have commercials but other channels do. BBC channels do however sometimes have trailers for BBC programmes, hence certain programmes may be shorter than the nominal 1 hour (or whatever).

 

[Minder]

IIRC, in UK you also had to have a license for a car radio, and I believe it was the case in Canada once, not sure about the US.
I think it was pretty much dropped because of being hard to enforce, not like the TV license.
M.

 

[bertus]

Hello,

In the old days we had to pay "omroepbijdrage" in holland.
Now it is payed indirect by the taxes.

Bertus

 

[Minder]

In the UK it used to be the Post Office I believe that collected it, and at that time they had a detector van, identified by the VHF detector antennae on the van roof when it would cruise the streets detecting non-payers.
I recall one amusing incident that happened to one of my neighbors that tried to dodge the license tax.
He heard a knock at the door and sure enough the van was outside his house.
He told his wife to answer the door as he quickly disconnected the TV and fled out the back door with it.
He met a guy coming up the rear garden path and said "quick mate, the TV vans here, give me a hand"
Unbeknownst to him, the 'Guy' was the van drivers partner!!
M.

 

[duke37]

I knew a Post Office chap who was responsible for finding TVs with no licences. He went to collect a detector van and stopped on the top of the Pennines for a cob. He had a play with the detector and the only thing on the hill was a shepherd's hut. A walk to this remote hut found a shepherd with a battery B&W who was astonished that he could be found.
Another case was a neigbour of mine who complained that he could not get a good picture so Fred went to see him but he was out and his aerial was pointing to the ground. Fred left a note to say the aerial needed attention but another complaint came in and when Fred visited the aerial was just the same, A note was left to say that furthur investigation would take place when a license was purchased. No more complaints came in.
The vans detected the oscillator so could say which channel was being used.

The colour TV licence costs £154-50 and the B&W licence costs £52 but you have to prove that a colour TV has been modified to suppress the colour. Radio, car radio and amateur radio are free but you get no help with interference

 

[Martaine2005]

Well, well, well....
My nans twin brother used to drive the detector van. It was empty. No equipment. And they could not detect anything.
The post office new who didn’t have a license using a very large book with post codes. Most people back then paid weekly for TV stamps and the little stamp card was registered to each address. Hence the detector vans would only visit certain areas at a time. Even the drivers didn’t know what area they would be in until that day. You should look up the original BBC TV license adverts on Youtube. The really are funny and so ridiculously fake.
I am waiting for the BBC to become subscription. If I have only satelite and only receive German channels, I still have to pay the BBC. The top knobs at the BBC don’t want to be a subscription service because they know they will take a huge pay cut..

Martin

 

[Nanren888]

New Zealand: TV licenses and detector vans disappeared about 1999 here with privatisation of the networks. Was capped at $100 per year. (1999 dollar value).

 

[Ylli]

Pay to receive a signal that is impinging on my property?????? If it is crossing my property then it is mine to receive. If you don't want me to receive it, then GET IT OFF MY PROPERTY!

If I live next door to an outdoor concert venue, and the music is audible on my property, do I have to buy a ticket to listen? Why do people put up with this garbage.

 

[Minder]

Pay to receive a signal that is impinging on my property?????? If it is crossing my property then it is mine to receive. .

That was my reasoning back when satellite receivers were highly popular, and there were those that came up with the code to de-scramble.
If you want to radiate a signal on my person or property, its mine to do as I wish.
Max.

 

[Nanren888]

Wow ethics
The right to interpret signals or data? Big topic.

 

[Martaine2005]

This is sooooo Ironic.... I never watch or listen to the (bbc).
Yesterday my TV failed. It turns on then changes channel by itself to the bloody (bbc) 5 live news....
TV does not respond to remote or onboard buttons. Just have to unplug it..
Just thought I would share this with you..
BTW, now I have no choice in listening the the (bbc), do I need a license?

Martin

 

[Minder]

BTW, now I have no choice in listening the the (bbc), do I need a license?

Martin

From what I remember, it was a license to operate a TV receiver, regardless of what it is tuned to.
M.

 

[HarryA]

Most Brits want to change how the BBC is funded
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/media/bbc-media-trust-ge19/index.html

 

[shrtrnd]

Here in the US, no one taxes TV reception.
Our solution apparently has been to restrict programming to nothing that anyone wants to watch.
Most of what I see are DVDs of BBC programming.

 

[Martaine2005]

Most of what I see are DVDs of BBC programming.

I’d be happy to buy a DVD or Subscribe to a channel I wanted to watch/view.
We don’t have a choice. The BBC are acting like the SS of 1945.
If your house recieves it, pay for it!.
If you buy a new TV, post code first. You cannot buy a TV without it!!.
Or so they think...........

 

[shrtrnd]

I was kind of wondering why our unusual President (of the US) gets lambasted by British news agencies so often.
If the programming is only what the government allows, and it's all one-sided, that sounds like the reason why.
The news media in the US is anti-President Trump 24/7, but not too many American trust them.
As near as I can tell, Trump is not a very nice guy, but the hatred of him in the media is so over-the-top,
all of the time, a lot of people here don't believe what they say. 'Even a stopped watch is correct twice a day'.
President Trump never does anything right, ever, according to the media here.
The BBC control over England's television and probably news dissemination is news to me, so I learned something
new today, thanks.
Taxing televisions, that's a completely new one on me.

 

[Tha fios agaibh]

We (in USA) do have public commercial free stations (PBS) that are funded in part by taxes but it's mostly from donations of the public.

Although free, we pay the price for broadcast television by having to endure more commercials than in the UK. ....Lord help anyone without a dvr to skip all the ads.

The sad reality is honest journalism is on the decline in favor of the agenda of the 5 conglomerates that now own virtually the entire media.

Money rules. They know what stories get the most attention based on the target audience.
People like to watch things they agree with regardless of wither or not they are true.

Corporate media deliberately runs handpicked stories and omits important facts to sensationalize (sell commercials)
and set their political agenda. In other words get people to vote to set policy to financially behove the owning conglomerate.

People are turning now to the internet for unbiased sources of news and is rather refreshing that even the little guy can now get his opinion out.

 

[HarryA]

Some of the best excuses for not pay the license fee from Uncle John's bathroom reader. The best that I can recall:

My husband spend 3000 pounds on a huge television so we have no money left to buy a license.

A baby magpie (bird) flew into my house and I am to busy feeding it.

The baby vomited on me and so I did not want to go to the office stinking to buy a license as I fancy the guy that works there.