In England, TV broadcasting is paid for by users paying a fee each year to receive broadcasts.
BBC to Brits: Need a license to watch us online, too
The United Kingdom’s television-licensing authority has responded to criticism from Silicon.com readers over its warning that people watching online BBC broadcasts on a PC face stiff fines if they don’t have a TV license.
TV Licensing, or TVL, issued the warning last week on the eve of the World Cup finals in Germany, which the BBC is broadcasting live online as well as on TV.
That provoked a furious response from many Silicon.com readers. “If the BBC chooses to broadcast on an international medium, why should the national license payer subsidize this?” said one IT consultant, who wished to remain anonymous.
Other readers claimed that a pure Internet feed not involving a tuner and received by a computer is not covered by TV-licensing legislation and therefore does not require a TV license to watch it.
But TVL told Silicon.com that the definition of a “television receiver” is contained in Regulation 9 of the Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004 and covers any apparatus used for the purpose of receiving–by wireless telegraphy or otherwise–any TV program service.
TVL said this means that the TV-licensing regulations cover Internet broadcasts on PCs, PDAs and mobile phones but said this would not be an issue for most people, as it is covered by the standard household TV licence.
“A valid license entitles the license holder and anyone who lives with them to watch live television on any device at that address, for example on a television set or on a PC, and on any device powered solely by its internal batteries, such as mobile phones or PDAs, away from home,” a TVL representative said.
The same single-license rule also applies to businesses, except hotels, which have different licensing requirements.
The TVL spokeswoman was unable to give a breakdown of prosecutions by device but said it has caught and fined license fee evaders using PCs to watch TV in the past.
Phew. I was worried there a minute. I guess Cranky Geeks is allowed in the backdoor, after all.
Same will come in Germany in 2007. Then each PC is considered to be a TV set and the usual fees are due.
Wait, until you have to pay a car tax when they find out that you can run a car simulation on a PC, too.
I would pay something to get the new Doctor Who from the Beeb directly. As it is you can either wait a year for Sci Fi to broadcast it (and not promote it very well as it is a very good show with piss poor ratings in the US; it has awesome ratings everywhere else in the world incuding Canada).
As it is I download the new episode from EDonkey the evening after it is broadcast. It is shown on Saturday in the UK, I watch it Monday here in Florida. I also have a Philips DVD player that plays DiVX files, so the ripped from the BBC digital braodcast looks amazing- better than the analog channels on my cable system and comparable with the digital channels (probably because they run the digital channels at a lower bit rate than DVD).
BTW: I will buy the box sets on DVD; I just can’t wait to see new episodes. Doctor Who Season 2005 on sale Jul 4, 2006!
Interstingly enough the stance they are taking is not what is laid out in their own FAQ. Where they state,
Do I need a licence?
Swell. Another business challenged by technology deciding that procecuting users is a much better idea than revamping its business model. Did these guys pay royalties to the RIAA for co-opting their strategy?
I’d be interested if US citizens have to have/buy a license? For us here in the UK it’s the price we have to pay for service without ads and, having been to the States many times, think it is worth every penny.
How about just canning the whole government run television in the first place?
There are reports in the media that say that the TV license will go up to £180 a year to finance the required upgrades for the BBC to be able to Broadcast in HIght Def and be able to offer its vast programme library over the Internet.
The internet library will only be available in the UK, think of it as trying to watch the ABC website for the newest episode of Lost. If you are outside the US you can’t watch them, your IP is filtered.
There are ways around it, but its a pain to do it.
Technology will always overcome, goverment!
Neal Saferstein
That raises an interesting question: Is there broadcast TV in the UK? IN other words, can you just raise an antenna and watch?
This is broadcast television. They have to pay to watch it. Kind of a foreign concept to those of us in the US.
People go around in vans looking for whoever is watching TV without a license.
#7: We don’t have license fees, etc for tv. There are two types of tv. Broadcast which is local stations and you can recieve them over an antenna. Then there is cable which has local stations plus national ones. Most of those have commercials, a few don’t. You pay a fee to the cable company to get cable. Usually, there are tiers. Lowest has local channels plus ‘basic cable’ channels like ESPN, Discovery, and others. Then there are usually collections or packages of ‘extended cable’ channels you can get. At the top are pay channels like HBO and Showtime which are funded entirely by subscription fees.
Then there are satelite providers like Dish Network. You buy a satelite dish and converter box. Many more HD stations than on cable.
The equivalent to your vans looking for people watching tv for free is cable companies looking for people who have tied into their neighbor’s system to get cable for free.
Forgot to mention PBS stations, usually one per fairly large city. It is funded by a combination of government funding and donations. No commercials, lots of BBC programs.
OK this is how it works.
You buy a Licence for the right to view the BBC channels. you can watch the other channels without one but its hard to prove u wernt watching the channels if the licencing agency comes round.
You can just stick an arial up but you do need a licence really
there are 5 Terestrial chanels you can watch with an arial
Then about 18more with a Digital box that hooks up to the arial. these are called free view channels as there is no subscription, but you do need a licence.
Then we also have Cable and Sky on top
As well as that you can also stick up a seperate satalight dish and get all the free view european chanels. i cant remeber what these are called but basicaly no one uses them as it involves installing it yourself and finding a satalight called *hot bird*
The BBC channels on terestrial TV have no adverts. its great for watching a movie.
We basicaly get all the best of your TV about 6 months later than you do and all of the BBCs programming, i know the office as been a ht over there. thats a good example of the quality of programing they do for the licensing fee.
Well worth it in my opinion
John