TV License law UK

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As you will already know if you live in the UK, we still have the old draconian TV license law but I've never completely understood the full legalities of it and probably most people don't.

I get that its to pay for the BBC and all there programming so they don't have to actually earn it from advertising like all the other channels but I don't get how it covers all the other networks. As far as I can tell, all the other networks make their own money from advertisements and don't gain anything from the £147 a year fee that the BBC charge.

The whole thing is a bit of a grey area like the way they employ goons to go round intimidating people into signing a form confessing to all, but without this confession they have no case. They have even been convicted of forging these in the past among other dodgy practices.

I suppose my main question, if anybody knows, is how does the license cover all the other networks even though it only seems to be the BBC that gains from this. It seems as long as you only watch catch up and not live TV on other networks then you don't need the license but as I said, its a very grey area and has even been debated in parliament in the past with a very close almost even vote for scrapping it.

So if anyone could shed any light on this, I would be really interested to know coz its its always bugged me how it covers all the other TV networks but I just can't find any info as to why.

It is a tax. Taxes don't have to make sense.

Especially things like exemptions, which are compromises decided by committees.

Arn't taxes usually paid to the government, I believe the government actually pays the BBC for the concessionary licenses they hand out to the over 75s. It just beggars belief, I just can't get my head round how they enforce it to encompass all the other networks but the BBC seem to be the only ones that profit when all the others have to make their own money from advertising revenue.

It is easy to enforce because TV sets generate weak radio signals.
The source of these signals can be easily located using WW2 vintage technology.

I've always thought of the BBC as a state run media outlet, whose purpose is to make the UK look good on the world stage.

The BBC is a statutory corporation -- one created by an act of Parliament (e.g., the British Government). Thus, the British government "owns" the BBC, and enforces an excise to fund its operation.

Thus, British citizens have three options: (1) Pay the fee and watch the telly; (2) Don't pay the fee and watch for enforcers; (3) Don't pay the fee and keep the telly switched off.

I think the BBC is only partially funded by the licence fee these days. They seem to generate an awful lot of money from their own commercial activities - I'm pretty sure for instance that the sale of rights to BBC programmes around the world is quite a significant aspect of UK exports. Dr Who is apparently sold to 189 countries, and a channel called 'BBC America' had 77 million paying subscribers in 2012.

The licence fee seems to have been introduced as a sort of payment for access to the airwaves, which were dominated by the BBC until the mid-1950s, and only secondarily to fund the Corporation, which could have been done from general taxation if necessary.

You actually pay a large amount in 'tax' for access to mobile phone networks as well, it's just that these are absorbed into the fees the companies charge. The govt raised £1.3 billion from the phone companies at its latest 4G spectrum auction, which are held at regular intervals, and customers simply pay that through their bills.

I remember seeing I, Claudius on PBS, which as produced by the BBC, way back in the 1970s.

I don't pay a tv license.

Instead I just watch Netflix.

I asked the TV guys when I phoned up to cancel my license (years ago) if I actually need the license if I'm only watching Netflix. They said I don't and I haven't paid for one since. My tv has never been tuned into terrestrial TV and I don't even have the time to watch it! I prefer to watch what I want and when I want and preferably in bulk

TV licenses are so outdated :-/

As far as I'm aware, Amazon Prime doesn't need a TV license either. Watching catch up on things like BBC Iplayer, ITV Iplayer, 4OD ect is fine, but to watch anything on those that are currently showing on live TV, or to record using these services, a license is required.

I wouldn't feel so robbed if we could actually get all the channels but our transmitter only gives us 14 channels in our one horse town. We didn't even have channel 5 till we went digital . People in the bigger towns get over 70 channels.