Greg's time on breakfast

[phoenix]

I dont mean to come on here and sound like an idiot. But I had never heard of this before I listened to Radio 1 and we dont have them here.

What in the **** is a TV LICENSE? Is it the same thing as a cable bill? Like you pay every month to have cable TV in your home? There are some channels that you can get free, but to get the rest you have to fork it over.

But it doesnt sound like that. It sounds like it has many strings attached. Like a lot of people have to sign it or something?

I'm confused. The UK fascinates me. :biggrin:

[Jono]

We pay about £120 for a television license to watch BBC TV (no adverts so that's how they get their income).

You have to have one to watch television, it's cheaper for black and white than colour.

And more expensive now you have digital TV like Sky and Freeview.

Call it a strict TV tax... and they check with vans that go around and check you've paid. Hence why many students don't have a TV at university.

There's better explinations around than mine!

[Lucinda]

You have to have a TV licence to watch any TV, but you have one per household. Students are supposed to buy one each though, so everyone in the building with a TV has to have one.

They come around and knock on people's doors and hunt people down who haven't bought them.

[phoenix]

Haha, are you serious? Thats insane!

Actually yeah here I think you can get arrested for having illegal cable hookups. Its considered a major crime and you can go to jail if you do it.

Its different than a cable bill then.

So you cant watch TV AT ALL without one? Nuts! So you dont have the free channels? If you plug in your TV you can get like 5 or 6.

[Jono]

Well we have no adverts on BBC TV and radio. The license fee pays for all that. No adverts on Radio 1 etc.

It's fiercely criticised when we pay for DJs' wages like Moyles and his £630,000 a year.

[phoenix]

There are some TV networks here that are entirely independent and dont advertise. The only one I know of is Disney Channel though. I watch that a lot, no ads at all.

[Jono]

In the United Kingdom, the current cost for a colour television licence is £131.50 (about €194) and £44 (about €65) for monochrome TV (black and white). The licence fee is charged on a per household basis. Therefore addresses with more than one television receiver only require a single licence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#United_Kingdom

[phoenix]

Okay so thats different than here.

What you do is buy a TV. And then you call a cable company (Comcast) to come hook up your cable. There's like 80 channels on standard cable. The big networks are on standard cable, ABC, Fox, CNN and such. I dont know how much it costs but the bill is paid by the month. It requires special hookups that have be wired in your house. We have cable in 4 rooms in my house. Then if you want digital cable, which has like 200 more channels, you have to call the cable company again and pay a boatload of money. We dont have digital cable.

[demonhorse]

You have to have a TV licence to watch any TV, but you have one per household.

Except for Students as you said, and shared houses like the one I'm in... I think that's just greed but I believe the Government has to approve the charge via the BBC Charter...

Okay so thats different than here.

What you do is buy a TV. And then you call a cable company to come hook up your cable. There's like 80 channels on standard cable. I dont know how much it costs but the bill is paid by the month. It requires special hookups that have be wired in your house. We have cable in 4 rooms in my house. Then if you want digital cable, which has like 200 channels, you have to call the cable company again and pay a boatload of money.

We only get 5 terrestrial channels for our TV Licence, though we do have 30-40 Digital channels on the Freeview Digital Terrestrial System in which you buy a box for about £20, plug it into the aeriel and the TV and the rest is covered by a normal TV Licence.

[Jono]

We still have to pay up to £30 a month for Sky Digital (through a dish) or cable which gives you at least 200 extra TV channels. Freeview (which comes in through an aerial) comes under the license fee and gives you about 30 channels.

[DC]

I'm confused. The UK fascinates me.

if you come over here you will realise how crap it can be sometimes though. then it could be worse, it could be some dictator run place i guess.

you can be well screwed if you dont pay your tv liscence, but it does get the bbc some stick when most people dont like somthing they do. the phrase "it's coming out of the liscence fee" gets used a lot, especially by the sun newspaper.

[phoenix]

We only get 5 terrestrial channels for our TV Licence, though we do have 30-40 Digital channels on the Freeview Digital Terrestrial System in which you buy a box for about £20, plug it into the aeriel and the TV and the rest is covered by a normal TV Licence.

A TV license pays for all channels on the TV I take it.

Are there different licenses for however many channels you want? Like if you want this many, you pay this much and so on? With our standard cable, you have to buy it all I think.

If you dont pay it, do you not have any service to your TV at all?

You can get illegal cable hookups, I think my brother had one in his dorm hehe. But this is completely illegal and severely frowned upon. Stealing cable is a felony, just as bad as robbing a store.

[Lucinda]

You can watch TV illegally, channels 1-5, (1+2 are BBC), but they claim they know who's doing it and will fine you £1000. A basic TV licence gets you terrestrial TV, which is 1-5, or a Freeview box (costs about £30 one-off cost) will get you about 30 more channels. Otherwise, it's the monthly payment, but that's to companies, not to the BBC.

The TV licence is kinda like a tax.

[phoenix]

I think I'm starting to get it now....sort of...

[demonhorse]

but heres the confusing bit... if you pay for satellite or cable, you still pay TV Licence on top...

[Jono]

And you have to have a TV don't you, even if you use it for a games console?

[Lucinda]

You don't have to have a TV licence for a TV if you use it only for watching videos/DVDs or games consoles, but it's a bit of a grey area, because if the TV licence people come round, you might have trouble persuading them that you've never tuned it in to any channel.

[demonhorse]

yup

It'll confuse hell outta them if I cancel me DD, and use me TV Card to hook up me freeview box through me PC, and do away with the TV *evil grin*

[Lucinda]

yup

It'll confuse hell outta them if I cancel me DD, and use me TV Card to hook up me freeview box through me PC, and do away with the TV *evil grin*

Don't you still technically need a TV licence to do that? :-p

(By 'DD' he means Direct Debit payment for TV licence by the way phoenix)

Then you can record TV for me onto DVD!

[demonhorse]

Don't you still technically need a TV licence to do that? :-p

I'm wondering about that... I bet it's another grey area.. BUT if I hide the aeriel, theyll just think that cable goin into back of me PC is for net, or another little device... theyre thick like that

[phoenix]

I might have to call Comcast and ask if they know anything about UK TV licenses. They'd probably just say, "What are you talking about?" or think it was a crank call and hang up.

Once I have this figured out I'm posting a thread about this called "TV around the world" on a huge international forum (trance.nu, I love that site) and ask everyone about thier TV. That will confuse me to death. I can feel a headache coming on already.

This interests me honestly.

[jembie]

I'm wondering about that... I bet it's another grey area.. BUT if I hide the aeriel, theyll just think that cable goin into back of me PC is for net, or another little device... theyre thick like that

When you buy a tv card for your computer you have to give your address as you need a tv licence for that too and when you buy a DVD recorder or a Video recorder

[demonhorse]

I bought mine second hand, but I have a TV Licence anyways...

[sebdevlin]

When you buy a tv card for your computer you have to give your address as you need a tv licence for that too and when you buy a DVD recorder or a Video recorder

This is the official BBC stance on it basically if you can receive live tv they wants your money:shock: .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5081350.stm

[phoenix]

When I say cable do you guys have a clue what I'm talking about? Do you have cable like we do?

The fines there are ridiculous. Our cable is the same price no matter how much you watch.

Okay from what I can tell it costs about $73 a month. I looked that up.

The BBC dominates the entire UK media I guess.

Are TV licenses paid yearly?