It’s because TV Licensing are a contracted out bunch of clowns who don’t have a clue about anything except continually hassling and threatening people with no license who neither want nor require one!

A change by parliament would be required to actually make the tv licensing law sensible in the modern world, but our government is busy using it’s time on “more important” things.

I think the answer to your “why” Barry is historical. The rules were drawn up pre-internet, pre iPlayer, pre catch-up services.

I’m sure Auntie would *love* to have the rules updated so that the licence also covers reception (via whatever means) of archived output. But I can’t see either Broon’s lot or the next bunch changing things because they all hate the BBC!

It’s a mess, but I think it’s likely to stay a mess.

The rule with TV licencing is; every household really should have one, to avoid the kind of treatment Garry alludes to. The real giveaway in my mind was presented by Jeremy Clarkson, who quietens down the live audience at a Top Gear studio session by telling them that it’s not just the 50-million-odd UK audience who are watching them, but several *billion* worldwide viewers through cable content syndication deals. If he’s right, then it seems to me that the BBC should operate rather as the Macau casinos do, and pay each UK citizen roughly #2k p.a. for being allowed to continue to exist…

I think the global Top Gear audience is 350kish. Still seizable, but not billions… And many PBS cable channels pay peanuts.

So, if you’ve fully paid your license fee, but choose to watch live TV (sky news/sports etc) during say, your lunch break at work, this is not allowed?

If this is because the license covers your
home not yourself, then does this mean watching TV with your netbook on the train is not permitted either? Good luck enforcing that.

we pay a licence for the transmitters which the bbc own. So even if you don’t watch/listen to BBC channels your cable stream or sky stream is still receiving (streaming) BBC owned and transmitted channels.

The whole licensing thing is a joke. I frequently travel to the US and they look at me “gone out” when I tell them in the UK we have to have a “license” to watch TV.. otherwise were breaking the law!! Its so primitive/communistic to them. Why on earth cant a few pence just be put on taxes to pay for the flippin BBC and be done with it?? Its clearly unfair in a modern age, plus the terrorizing threats of the license adverts.. which also cost millions.

With no Licence in the US, you have to PAY the cable Co. as there is absolutely NO free transmissions, and thats a minimum $50 ( 40 pounds ) – PER MONTH = 480 pounds per year. UK = 140 -Bargin – stop windging and pay.

The guy on the radio was also asked whether Noel Edmonds has finally bought a tv licence. We were told that yes, he has. I wonder what the Data Protection Act says about TV licencing staff divulging information about its customers in public like that.

Because the alternatives are worse? Currently, premises need a licence for occupants to receive live TV programming through any medium, where live means at the same time or shortly after the programming has been broadcast in or into the UK. An alternative would be that premises need a licence to allow occupants to reproduce TV programming that is either live or has been broadcast in or into the UK at some more distant time in the past. You’d then potentially have to make an artificial distinction between physical media, like DVDs, and online distribution, and between original TV content and non-original TV content, like cinema films.
 
You may say that my alternative is excessive and you’re only suggesting the licence should be needed to use the iPlayer video-on-demand service, and not those of other providers. But that would be tying the fee to specific content and it would no longer be a licence, it would be a subscription. Or, as has also been mentioned, you could have a charge for using iPlayer VoD that is independent of the licence. Either way, you soon end up arguing the TV licence out of existence. As MartinC said, it would go the same way as the radio licence. Unfortunately, that was replaced by a licence for the new technology. We’d end up with an Internet licence.
 
Thinking about maintaining the status quo in the Internet age makes my head hurt. What I’d personally like to see is the BBC broken up. News, education, children’s programming and the World Service would remain in a publicly funded BBC, funded through general taxation. The rest would be merged with BBC Worldwide, called BBC Commercial, sold and allowed to do what they like: adverts, subscription, whatever.
 
The BBC Breakfast item was one of those weird ones where the BBC interviews the BBC. Capita may be the agents, but the BBC is TV Licensing.

Personally I think it is a liberty that the BBC to require you to have a license to watch their channels as well as the other channels that we pay for (our sky subscription, or add sponsored channels like ITV). I’d much rather not watch BBC channels and opt out of the licence, I’m in effect paying twice to watch SKY, ITV, Channel 4, etc.

Add to that the fact that if you don’t feel you should pay the licence then they are allowed to come into your house and check up on you, surely we still live in a country where you opt into things not out of, and are only subjected to this kind of treatment if they actually have a reason to believe you are breaking a law, it’s a disgrace.

T.V. Licensing do NOT have the right to enter your home.You can tell them to go away and get a Court Order,and good luck to them with that one.A bit of Googling will find the facts,licensing staff imply that you have to let them in,technically if you stand aside or let them in you’ve invited them,DON’T.
The detector vans are a con as well,I know someone,yes really,not hearsay,who used to servicve them,they don’t have the high tech gear we’re led to believe and never have had,they have lists of houses that havn’t got a license,big difference.
Unless the Inspectors actually see through a window or something that you’re actually watching a t.v. programme when they call they can’t prove anything.I’m not advocating not buying a license if you have a t.v. just stating the facts,I currently have one,it runs out next April and I won’t be getting another one,I’ll be getting rid of my t.v. as well.There is life without one and if you look around plenty of news content on-line,including video.BBC these days is very poor quality and costs too much for what interests me.
Easy enough to set up Iplayer as a subscription or pay per view so what’s the problem with the BBC doing just that?

The Licence fee is a tax that creates a ring-fenced fund to run the BBC. It was created before the web was a twinkle in Tim Berners-Lee’s eye. It’s a mess that somoneone will fix, one day, and then we can all moan about what they come up with.

In reply to Roy (above) and the incredulous Americans – I’d rather pay for a licence that put up with the ridiculous amount of advertising they endure. Been there and been appalled.

I, like someone else mentioned, pay for Sky and for the TV licence. Why am i forced to pay twice when frankly I don’t watch anything on the BBC apart from one or two programs a year.

You should be able to pay for your chosen medium but then thats it, you pay once not multiple times….and as we will all be paying an internet tax soon how long before the BBC try to force through something on that too?

It is not a TV licence it is a TV tax. It exists because we are stupid enough to allow it.
The solution is simple. when the TV licence people come knocking, don’t let them in. It has worked for me for the last 20 years.