Great British Television!

[Foetus In Fetu]

ITV is the new Channel 5. I never watch either. I rarely watch TV, but when I do it's frequently the BBC or C4.

dreaming_mouse

Even if you don't watch the BBC you have to pay for it!

That's not completely true. You only have to pay the TV licensing fees, which are hardly astronomical, if you actually use your television to watch television. If you never watch any television, and you can prove this, you do not have to pay.  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

Foetus In Fetu

ITV is the new Channel 5. I never watch either. I rarely watch TV, but when I do it's frequently the BBC or C4.

dreaming_mouse

Even if you don't watch the BBC you have to pay for it!

That's not completely true. You only have to pay the TV licensing fees, which are hardly astronomical, if you actually use your television to watch television. If you never watch any television, and you can prove this, you do not have to pay.

We got sent two different bills last year. Apparently we had two addresses in some national database of addresses (I'm surprised its only two) one of which was wrong so they billed us for both.
So if you have an address you get the bill.
It is possible to dodge if you live in a remote enough place (i.e small island, penicula) and can see the inspectors coming. If they even bothered about coming.

I find Channel 5 crap. It might help if I could see the picture. The aerial needs moved.  

[Boolean Julian]

Foetus In Fetu

ITV is the new Channel 5. I never watch either. I rarely watch TV, but when I do it's frequently the BBC or C4.

dreaming_mouse

Even if you don't watch the BBC you have to pay for it!

That's not completely true. You only have to pay the TV licensing fees, which are hardly astronomical, if you actually use your television to watch television. If you never watch any television, and you can prove this, you do not have to pay.

Two questions
How would you go about proving you never watch any television?
Why would you posses a television if you never used it to watch television?  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

whapcapn

Foetus In Fetu

ITV is the new Channel 5. I never watch either. I rarely watch TV, but when I do it's frequently the BBC or C4.

dreaming_mouse

Even if you don't watch the BBC you have to pay for it!

That's not completely true. You only have to pay the TV licensing fees, which are hardly astronomical, if you actually use your television to watch television. If you never watch any television, and you can prove this, you do not have to pay.

Two questions
How would you go about proving you never watch any television?
Why would you posses a television if you never used it to watch television?

I'm pretty sure they just automatically asume that you have a television if you have an address. You might not even have the set and they'll try and get you to pay.
Blind people get it free though.  

[Invictus_88]

whapcapn

Why would you posses a television if you never used it to watch television?

You could try claiming that you only use it for DVD/Video. Though for that you'd have to be pretty quick at uninstalling the aerial..  

[ficklefiend]

Ok, so being a student I can answer this question..

You need to apply for a TV license. It doesn't come automatically but usually people set it on a direct debit so that it does.

TV licening inspectors don't have a legal right to enter your home. You can tell them to go away and they can't do anything about it.

You can claim to use a set for something other than watching TV but you might be skating on thin ice and will probably get a bill anyway.

TV inspectors will usually get bored after 2 visits...especially if you answer the buzzer then run off and hide like my flatmate did.

In spite of all this we do actually have a license in my flat but I think we are one of the only ones in our whole building.  

[Theta_Sigma]

Doctor Who! Best British TV show ever! Oh, will go and praise my fave TV show in the Doctor Who thread instead!!!  

[Shadow of an Illusion]

I've been instructed to watch Body Shock - The Man WHo Ate Himself To Death (or something along those lines) on Monday night, 9pm. I'm not looking foreward to it. Stupid biology class being good I'll probably watch it.  

[Invictus_88]

Not -directly- television but certainly close enough.

I got a DVD of "Do not adjust your set" today for Amazon's DVD rental thingy.

Oh, yes.

xd



Though, some of it -does- scare me.  

[Invictus_88]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/hustle/

Was anyone else watching Hustle?  

[ficklefiend]

Invictus_88

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/hustle/

Was anyone else watching Hustle?

I do love that programme. I really do, very clever, replaces the jonathan creek shaped hole in my viewing timetable...

..but it clashes with green wing.

NoooooooO!!  

[Foetus In Fetu]

LoS

How would you go about proving you never watch any television?

Nix the aerial.

LoS

Why would you posses a television if you never used it to watch television?

For playing videogames, or watching videos and DVDs.

ice_illusion

I'm pretty sure they just automatically asume that you have a television if you have an address. You might not even have the set and they'll try and get you to pay.

Nah, I'm sure they just make mistakes sometimes. Why would they have different rates for black and white versus colour televisions if they were just going to assume everyone owned a colour set?  

[ficklefiend]

Well they routinely send letters round our student flats with things like;
"Dear Tennant,
We are aware that you are using a televsion set and your flat is being monitored*


*If you have a TV license please disregard this."


(Meaning that they clearly know jack s**t about what we have and don't really care either way.)  

[Warnersister]

Invictus_88

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/hustle/

Was anyone else watching Hustle?

I watched the first series, but stopped after that. Robert Vaughn was criminally under-used...

DW  

[Invictus_88]

Warnersister

Invictus_88

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/hustle/

Was anyone else watching Hustle?

I watched the first series, but stopped after that. Robert Vaughn was criminally under-used...

DW

Which one was that?

confused