Feed The Goat
Well-Known Forumite
I have just seen that I need to buy a new TV licence and was wondering whether to bother? Are their any forum members who are renegades who don't go along with this outdated tradition. Just wondering?
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In this day and age you need one to legally own a laptop let alone a TV set - due to the fact that a laptop is capable of watching BBC channels on demand.
How would I prove this, or do they have to prove I do use them?
Hang on a sec. I don't watch anything live, really not a thing. Why would you? Everything I want can be got on demand, yet I'm still paying for a TV sub from talktalk as I like having all the catchup channels on a single device. So I am certainly capable of receiving the channels but I don't use them. How would I prove this, or do they have to prove I do use them?
In all honesty though I'll probably carry on paying it, as most of the TV I do watch is old BBC stuff that ends up on Dave. I do therefore watch it eventually, and would rather it got made. Oh and Sherlock, am happy to pay for Sherlock!
In this day and age you need one to legally own a laptop let alone a TV set - due to the fact that a laptop is capable of watching BBC channels on demand.
if you genuinely do not watch anything live, you can declare this on the TV licence form and send it back to them, which in theory means you don't have to pay..
since i've never known anyone to do this, i'm intrigued by the process and how simple/effective it is/isn't - so if you quality, tek, please do this and let us know how you get on!
As mentioned, TV Licencing will hound you with many letters with extra large and BOLD red writing along the lines of "WARNING" or even "FINAL WARNING".... but in reality that may be as far as it ever goes. If you are unlucky then they may call at your house to check but if you really aren't watching live TV then you have nothing to worry about.
Gram is spot on and the quote above is a very wrong statement. You can watch as much on-demand as you like with no tv licence needed.
As mentioned, TV Licencing will hound you with many letters with extra large and BOLD red writing along the lines of "WARNING" or even "FINAL WARNING".... but in reality that may be as far as it ever goes. If you are unlucky then they may call at your house to check but if you really aren't watching live TV then you have nothing to worry about.
Tek, my usual advice in this situation is to detune the channels on the TV and unplug the aerial and don't even have the cable there for it (so there is no suspicion that you have quickly just unplugged it from the socket when they called) and that way you can (if you wished to) show the TVL people that your TV is not connected to an aerial or tuned in..... there is certainly no requirement to do that though - tell them to sod off if you really want to - the onus would certainly be on them to prove in court that you were watching live TV.
Not sure how this would fly with talktalk though - if the live channels are through the aerial and the on demand through t'internet could you disconnect the aerial and detune the box and still use ondemand?
'interviewed under caution'
'interviewed under caution'Can they do that? I thought only plod had the right to do that.
TV Licencing said:The law states that you need to be covered by a TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes, on any device, as they're being shown on TV. This includes TVs, computers, mobile phones, games consoles, digital boxes and Blu-ray/DVD/VHS recorders.
You don't need a licence if you don't use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV - for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch ‘catch up’ services like BBC iPlayer or 4oD.