Ok so I've paid my tv license for the last 30 years or so. I have had sky tv for a while now but more recently just free view channels. I literally don't watch tv any more, i have a £1500 surround sound system in my lounge that I don't even watch film with anymore. I watch most thins on my pc or phone. Should I bother to pay my tv license, i feel bad and possibly illegal if i don't but I haven't watched anything BBC since last year. Is there any point in paying for it anymore, I'm about to ditch sky completely as they are completely ripping me off.
I think if you get rid of any TV box and you only watch things on Netflix, prime etc and non of the terrestrial stuff, then you have grounds not to pay it. I have friends who only have an Xbox with the paid streaming apps on and let the inspectors in and they confirmed that they shouldn't pay
I've done exactly this. We never watch live TV and don't use iPlayer (whether that's live or not) and so I don't pay for a TV license. Edit: For clarity, I did inform them that I didn't require a TV license (via their website I think).
Prepare yourself for ever increasing levels of harassment, including inspectors that will ask to come into your house to make sure you're not in breach of the rules
You're perfectly within your rights to tell them to eff right off. They have no right to enter your home. Listen carefully to how they word their request to enter. They rely entirely on your ignorance. Funnily enough, Jingles just mentioned this in last week's Monday video and then elaborated in this week's release - it's time stamped at about 13:14. Obs, do your own research too, but it is interesting.
I believe the best advice is to just ignore, bin the letters and if they turn up at the door, silently shut it in their face.
I just want to further add to that one, it seems to be very hit and miss and how you handle it, its a weird line and i think its random for selection. Me for example, our new house does not have an areal or satellite, and we rarely watch tv, we have Disney plus, Netflix, amazon, YouTube, mainly for the wean. So when the letter came through rather than ignoring it i filled out the i dont need one form on the website, which many people will advise not to do, because now they know someone is at the property and usually send someone round to check. They did in my case, there's also advice on not letting them into you home or property either. I didn't, but i do have a massive window which you can see my tv, when the guy came he could see the tv through the window, and could see the BBC iPlayer app, when i answered the door and told me who he was i informed him that i didn't need one and didn't understand why he was here, he then very smugly pointed to my tv and referred to the BBC iPlayer app, i walked into the living room grabbed the tv remote, clicked on it to which he could see it was not logged in, that it was a built in app on my tv that i could not remove but i wont be being penalised for that, he tried to give me some faf. So he was told the following - I dont watch live tv. Ever (even the news) - I dont record anything because of that and internet stuff is instant accessible so no need He left and i haven't paid a license since and that's been a few years. I do have friends however who have had different experiences, one had someone come to his house several times, eventually leading to continued letters and a fine, he didn't have money to fight it in court sadly and was fined about 500 ish pounds which he ended up on a payment plan, others have binned the letter, or done the same as me with the online form, and never heard a peep from them, its really inconsistent. The way the uk is set up for it is absolute garbage, you cannot buy a tv from a store now without them checking if you have a tv licence which is a joke. Don't get me wrong im sure the bbc will do some show that at some point down the line maybe ill watch, but i don't watch sports, or the news, not that id trust any news outlet at this point right enough, but people usually have the scared into paying for it tactic and the harassment that comes along with that is just plain disgusting. My 2 cents
Just to add a note of clarification based on the following: If you watch any broadcast TV, whether received via aerial, satellite dish, co-axial cable, streamed over the Internet, mind-waves, whatever, you need to pay for a TV Licence. Any broadcast TV, not just the BBC. If you watch Channel 4? You need a licence. If you watch ITV? You need a licence. If you watch Sky One? You need a licence. If you watch Babestation? Believe it or not, you need a licence. If you only watch streamed stuff that isn't simulcast - i.e. isn't viewable on your device at the same or substantially the same time as it is broadcast to TVs - you don't need a TV licence, unless you're using BBC iPlayer (or a third-party application which pretends to be BBC iPlayer.) Unplug the aerial from your TV and ditch the coax, get shot of any Sky, cable, or Freeview boxes, and uninstall iPlayer, and you're golden: no licence required. Me, I pay even though I don't have an aerial on my roof any more - 'cos every now and again, I'll watch something on iPlayer. Not often, but often enough.
Hmm it seems like a right royal minefield. Thanks for the clarification, just need to decide what to do now. Editted my first post as well as I've been paying my TV licence for 30 years not just 2.
I’ll add to this when I’m not stuck at lights but I don’t pay for my license - haven’t for three years and not been contacted once apart from to update my exemption details. I concur with most of the replies above. The only grey area is the Now TV app as that plays both live and stream-able shows and I would think it difficult to prove what I’m watching without going through my Sky account details. 4app and itv hub work just fine for binging. Regularly streaming from the AppleTV box on an Android TV (preinstalled with iplayer), I don’t even load up the Google software s the Apple TV has preference on startup: All4 Amazon Prime Apple TV+ Disney+ ITV Hub (rarely) Netflix Now TV (Entertainment) YouTube And some links: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/cancellations-and-refunds-top7 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2...ee-to-be-abolished-in-2027-and-funding-frozen
This. Except you don't necessarily have to eliminate the possibility of doing these things. Like you can still have a dish up and aerial installed, even connected to your TV. If you have an iPlayer app on your TV that can't be removed, also fine, just don't use it. I stopped my TV license around 4-5 years ago (righteously, might I add). I had one inspector (in a cowboy hat no less, how apt) visit shortly thereafter with veiled threats and blatant misrepresentation about the criteria for which a license is needed. Since then nothing - renewed the exemption statement online and no visits, and recorded one for the new house and have had no visits here either.
Got rid of mine two years ago. I was sick of paying £16 or so a month for MasterChef. Because that was literally all I watched on BBC and in fact TV itself in the broadcast sense. When they binned off Michel Roux JR I watched it one more time before deciding to get rid. I put the Humax Freesat box in the cupboard and made sure I disconnected any antennas from the other TVs and that was it. Now I pay for Netflix, mum pays for Prime and my brother provides Sky Go in case I ever want to watch a football match on my phone and that's it. I do pay ITV the £3.99 a month to watch pre recorded stuff (I used to love I'm a celeb but gone off that too) but it's nice to watch with no ads regardless. Still plenty to watch on there. I mostly watch YouTube now any way. I have watched live news on there with two fingers up but I've not heard anything from the BBC. They can get bent any way. Anything else I just download. To me the days of paying £60+ a month for the TV are over. That was ok in the 90s and early noughties but I simply don't consume that much TV any more. Besides I can perfectly legally watch pre aired stuff on C4 and C5 too, so I usually always find something to watch if that's what I want to do. I almost feel a bit hard done by be Netflix tbh. I'm not a big film buff so I'm paying a tenner a month for maybe one serial killer or other interesting documentary. Which during the warmer months I don't even bother with.
I'll probably be frowned upon here, but one day I randomly thought to myself, why the hell am I being forced to pay a tax to watch TV? so I decided I'm not going to be forced to pay money for some thing I didn't ask for, and from that moment I just stopped paying. When they came round (3 times to be exact) I simply told them to get lost and stop bothering me. 7 years on I still haven't heard from them, no visits, no letters, nothing at all. This is not advice on how to deal with them by the way, this is just my story. Don't do what I did, you may end up in a bad situation. Now though it's just Prime, Netflix and Youtube that's on our TV, so it's not like it's a big deal. If you feel like you don't need a license anymore you can just do it all on their website now https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/cs/no-licence-needed/about.app
We do pay for the licence but, we do watch BBC tv (1,2 and 4) as it's broadcast and on iPlayer, we do listen to BBC radio, we do use the BBC websites, not just the news. With all that, I think the licence is a reasonable charge, especially with no advertising to interfere.
We're still paying the £13.37 a month as Laura does actually watch all that stuff, it sort of feels like an avoidable expense though. Oddly I can stomach it but £12 a month for YouTube premium is laughable, despite me watching more of than she does broadcast TV
We pay it because my wife watches the beeb. I hardly ever watch broadcast TV. In fact, if my wife left me, she could take the TV and I wouldn't miss it.
