I have known of the existence and requirement but never really thought about it. Now I have just seen several videos on Youtube of police and "inspectors" entering people's homes to check for TVs.
I just can't wrap my head around this. I can't understand it but that is because in all of the countries I have lived in none had this.
I mean, if you want people to pay why not just encrypt the signal like some channels do in other countries? And if it is going to be like just a tax on pretty much everybody why not just make it part of the general budget? That way you save all this collection effort and expense.
And, really, police go into people's homes to search for TVs? The chance that a resident is not paying their TV tax is considered a crime of such level that it requires police visits to investigate? Really? Judges issue warrants on suspicion that someone has a TV?
And just having a screen is enough that you have to pay for the licence even if you never watch TV? What if you can prove the tuner has been disabled to receive the BBC? What if you only play DVDs or streaming movies?
Do radio receivers pay too?
How are the fines handled? Can they be appealed? I just cannot imagine having to pay such tax.
I guess it is a cultural thing but I just have a hard time understanding it or maybe I am just not well informed on how it works.
Can anyone explain it? Does this exist in other countries?
The TV/Radio licence dates back to the beginnings of Broadcasting, when "encryption" was not practical.
Also, up to 1955, if you wanted to listen to British Radio, or watch British TV, you watched the BBC.
It seemed quite fair to the authorities, to apply the "user pays" principle, hence Radio & TV licences.
By and large, as it was only a small cost, the "Great British Public" didn't consider it something worth "going to the barricades about", so it became part of the British culture.
As people were mostly law-abiding, there wasn't a lot of need for a lot of enforcement, although there were dark mutterings back in the1960s/70s about DF vans driving around listening for TV set local oscillator leakage.
Latterly, licensing has become the responsibility of the BBC, who under the trading name "TV Licensing" have outsourced it to a number of private contractors.
To forestall the "barrack room lawyers" who maintained that if they didn't watch the BBC, or indeed, any FTA TV, in 2006, the licence was reclassified as a "tax", which you pay no matter what kind of TV you watch.
Most of the comments I've heard about over-zealous enforcement has been levelled at the private contractors.
I don't live there, this is basically information I've picked up over the years as an interested observer.
Australia had a similar Radio/TV licence, but the ABC never had a broadcasting monopoly like "the Beeb".
It was dumped in the 1970s on the basis that collection & enforcement cost more than the income.