Okay twitter isn’t long enough to have a debate about the TV Licence in the UK, so I’m going to do it here
As quite a few of you are aware of the furore caused over the BBC going into a deal with SKY to cover the Formula 1 Grand prix season between 2012-2018.
Many people say they’re going to cancel their TV Licence fee because of this.
Big mistake, the TV Licence isn’t there because of the BBC, it is there because of the “Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949″. Where any equipment that is capable of receiving a broadcast has to be licenced, irrespective of what channel you maybe watching.
Yes there are situations where you don’t need a licence.
For example:
The on demand services that stream programs AFTER the broadcast has taken place.
For example if I wanted to watch Top Gear on the BBC iplayer at the SAME time it is broadcast on BBC2 then you need a TV licence. That’s why you get a warning pop up before hitting the play button.
If it is true that the deal is now evolving into a delayed transmission of the race. Even though we are not watching a live as it happens race, we would still have to wait for the BBC to finish broadcasting the race, before we could watch it on the iplayer, if you didn’t have a TV licence.
Yes there are certain circumstances where you don’t need one, but not many people will meet all of the criteria for not having a TV licence.
So would you listen to the man on the street and risk a £1,000 fine or err on the side of caution and pay a fraction of that amount?
As I said in the beginning, the TV licence covers ALL channels not just the BBC. Just that the BBC takes the lion’s share of the fee as they are not allowed to carry advertisements as they are state owned.


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