Licenced To Watch TV For Another Year

007 may be licensed (US spelling) to kill, but I’m licenced (UK spelling) to
watch TV in the UK for another year. My new license came in the post today:

That’s £126.50 for the right to receive signals on my television for a year,
about $225.

Bear in mind, this doesn’t guarantee me the right to actually have signals
transmitted to me. As you’ll find in this PDF

document from the TV Licensing folks:

Your TV licence does not guarantee the quality picture you receive.

For example, the UK’s fifth channel — five
– doesn’t reach our area. That’s just too bad for me. My TV licence doesn’t
entitle me to get those transmissions. Similarly, none of the digital
terrestrial signals reach us (despite us being only nine miles from the fairly
major city of Salisbury).

Most of the licence fee goes to support the BBC. The big plus to this is that
the BBC does have a variety of programs of high quality, since they don’t have
to worry about commercials. Indeed, the BBC’s renowned for its quality. Compared
to PBS in the US, you get an overwhelming amount of great material without
feeling the organization has to beg for its life each year. And for parents,
CBeebies is fabulous — think
Nickelodeon without any commercials at all.

In the past, the BBC also helped ensure all the other channels kept their
standards high. But over the past few years, I haven’t bought into this as much.
You only need to look at the programming on the "alternative" Channel 4 to see
this isn’t the situation so much now. They’ve churned out an increasing amount
of Big Brother, shock programming and other junk that’s not particularly
educational. Plus, they have a lot of American imports — but hey, that’s good
for me!

Overall, I’m glad the BBC’s there and supported by the licence fee. I don’t
want to see it abolished, but it would be nice if they somehow could reduce it
or link it to the channels you actually watch. We watch the BBC channels far
less these days when there is greater choice out there. Our licence fee payment
doesn’t reflect this.

Also, every time the BBC does some home improvement / clothing improvement
program where they hand someone money to go shopping, I keep thinking, "Hold on,
that’s my money!" Not getting any of the digital TV or radio channel over the
air is also annoying. OK, we have Sky satellite and get them that way — and the
same equipment would get them even if I didn’t pay for on of the Sky packages.
But still, getting the signals over the air would be nice.

For those not aware, the TV licence is seriously enforced here. The UK has
these creepy vans that drive around and try to detect television signals from
residences known to be without licenses. Occasionally, they try to scare you
with equally creepy commercials warning you that you’ll get caught. Then you’ve
got people who don’t have TVs at all. They have horror stories of being chased
up for a licence anyway, because the authorities can’t believe they don’t have
one.

Want to know more? Got a few links for you:

• Lime@Marmalade.net: Get your
  horror stories here about those chased up for a TV licence despite not
  watching TV.
   
• The "Do I need a TV Licence if I only
  watch pre-recorded videos?" mini-FAQ: And the answer is, no.
   
• Abolish The TV Licence: Lots of
  stuff here, from pictures of unlicensed warning letters to updates on various
  court cases,
  including on from Jonathan Miller who so far has lost an
  
  argument that requiring a TV licence is a violation of his human rights.
   
• 
  Guardian Licence Fee Guide: Pretty short, but answers some common
  questions and lots of interesting comments.
   
• TV Licensing: Word from The Man
  itself and actually pretty sparse. Good PDF document
  here,
  though.