Things That Annoy Me: The TV Licence
Another post about the TV Tax – More on TV Licence.
As it puts it on the TV licensing website: You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it’s being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder. So if you watch a live TV channel from Germany at 1am in the morning on your iPhone over the internet, legally you need a TV Licence (at your residence) even if you aren’t at home. If you do you are committing a criminal offence which could make you liable to imprisonment and leave you with a criminal record. Few commercial companies have such vast powers.
(Seriously you want me to have a licence to watch TV over the internet that isn’t even from the UK on a tiny mobile screen phone when I am at home, madness?!?! Seriously?!?)
As someone put on the excellent online forum TV Licence Resistance Why should I pay Sainsbury’s to go shopping at Tesco?
Of course if like me you only use BT Vision+ (or a similar system) to watch programmes that are on BBC replay or iPlayer (ITV Player, 4 on Demand, Five on Demand etc) then this is not live television and so doesn’t require a TV Licence. BBC do however state in their T&Cs for iPlayer on their website that you have to be a UK TV licence holder to use iPlayer and then further down in the small print it says you only need a TV Licence if you use the Watch Live simulcast option or you watch any part of a programme while part of it is still being broadcast live on television. Confused? If you are that’s their intention. They imply that watching any TV programme while part of it is being broadcast is considered ‘live’.)
The BBC uses a lot of pseudo legalise jargon to try and add to the “deterrent” effect and imply that their “enforcement officers” have far more powers than they actually do. TV Licensing is a trading name for a company called Capita Business Services Ltd (registered company number: NF004206; no nature of business given and registered address in Northern Ireland) acting as an agent for the BBC. The domain name www.tvlicensing.co.uk is regisitered to BBC Internet Services Operations, Maiden House, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 4UB.
If a TV Licence “investigator” turns up on your doorstep they will use bullying tactics and intimidation to convince someone they HAVE to let them into your property and to sign a “statement” or “paperwork”. Legally you don’t have to do either. They have no legal right to enter your home without a warrant. They are extremely unlikely to get a warrant, unless you give them evidence (for example by admitting to watching live TV). Only around a quarter of people visited by TV License Investigators/Enforcement Officers et al are found to require a licence. This means that by the BBC’s own figures on average they unlawful harass more than half a million people a year!
In 2005, a TV Licensing officer was found guilty of false accounting and perverting the course of justice after he deliberately forged the confessions of four people to obtain commission payments (I’ll bet there’s been a lot more of those). Yes you read the correctly – TV licensing officers get paid a commission ~ some officers are self-employed and are paid £20 if the resident signs up to a direct debit, or £18 if they pay in full there and then. Others are paid a mix of salary and commission, including that paid if a prosecution occurs. This goes a long way to explaining why some residents are bullied into paying. They can’t force you to sign any piece of paper either, even the police can force you to sign a piece of paper!
The BBC is ridiculously secretive about the technology used in detector vans, to date there has never been a prosecution in the UK of someone based on evidence from a detector van or handheld device, if anyone knows different please let me know. Now given that the detector vans are meant to be a deterrent wouldn’t it make sense if the BBC actually proved that the detector vans work and clearly share this information so people would become aware that they could be found out? Such technology is restricted in its use by the meaning of “surveillance and covert human intelligence sources” in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. An empty threat about “something” in a van with darkened windows isn’t really that scary. About as scary as the monsters under the bed, great if you under the age of about seven.
What about The Data Protection Act?
If you have a shared letterbox they’ll send nice threatening and bullying letters through the door stating that they visited you as you didn’t have a TV License and will prosecute you. Just what you want your neighbours thinking – your a criminal. Somewhat seems to run counter to the idea that your innocent until proven guilty doesn’t it?
There is a lot of really useful stuff about the TV Licence and enforcement officers at http://www.tvlicensing.biz/ (this site has an alert service for detector vans and enforcement officers) and http://www.bbctvlicence.com/. This article in The Daily Telegraph makes for interesting reading as well Time to stand up to the TV licence bullies. Everyone should read these sites. You may not understand all of it, it will make however make you very annoyed (at least it should).
The vast majority of the revenue from TV Licensing goes to fund the BBC (about 10% goes towards support collection of licences!). I fully accept that once in the distant past the BBC needed funds to produce programmes, this was in June 1946 when there was only one black and white channel, it cost £5 a year, in today’s money that’s about £60!! However now in 2009 the BBC is a fully commercial operation, it has several digital channels, sells programmes all over the world especially in America. They also produce DVDs and all other manner of merchandising.
BBC Hits is available on lots of cable subscribers and Sky. The TV licence paid for a TV programme to be made by the BBC. BT (or other supplier) paid the BBC for the privilege of including BBC Content in BT Vision. BT then charge for the privilege of viewing it. That’s paid for the TV programme twice. If the BBC have also produced a DVD for this programme, you can buy it if I wish, if you do this you have paid for this TV programme three times. If you’re a council tax payer, part of your council tax will be used by your local library to buy the DVD as well. So a BT Vision/Virgin TV/Sky Customer who buys a DVD of their favourite show from BBC will probably have paid for it four times!
The same programme which the licence paid for, probably also gets sold to the US and around the world (BBC Worldwide Ltd is a wholly owned subsidary of the BBC). The BBC then gets paid for doing this. Making money multiple times over. The BBC showed the new series of Doctor Who two weeks after it was shown in the UK and set new records in the US for viewer watching figures (US viewers don’t have a TV Licence). Let’s not forget they also tried to show episodes of Doctor Who last year BEFORE they were seen in the UK (which was of course almost certainly paid for using TV Licence money).
Now for a real kick in the teeth, BBC Worldwide (one part of the BBC which sells programmes outside of the UK [ie: non licence payers]) made sales in 2007/2008 of £916.3 MILLION POUNDS and 49% of this was from outside the UK (so these viewers are almost certain not to have paid a UK TV Licence). Operating profits went up by 17% to £117.7m (this is excluding prior year exceptional items, so the real profit was even higher!).
Channel 4 by comparison who don’t benefit from the TV Licence tax in the same way as the BBC made 1.8 million pounds of profit (yes – just under two million pounds!).
The BBC in supposedly advertisement free which is one of their arguments for needing the licence fee. However how frequently do you see an advert for their magazines, their commercial channels, books from TV series and DVDs… all making profit for the BBC. Don’t forget they don’t have to pay for these adverts unlike other magazine suppliers, commercial channels and such like, they can’t promote their products on the BBC either.
We’re in a credit crunch and are all having to budget carefully, since it made all these profits how about keeping the TV Licence fee as it is or even a slight decrease (inflation is low after all)? Nope it went up in April 2009 from £139.50 to £142.50 AND again in 2010 to £145.50.
The licence fee bought in almost 2008/2009 £3.5 billion pounds. Think this money you pay for your TV Licence goes on making quality TV?
382 BBC managers earn more than £100,000 a year…. (that’s at least £38,200,000 or 262,542 TV Licences!!)
Mark Thompson, the BBC’s Director General…. £834,000 + expenses (he once claimed expenses for a 70p parking ticket)
Caroline Thomson, the BBC’s Chief Operating Officer…. £333,000 + expenses
Robert Johnston, the BBC’s “reward director”…. £196,550 + expenses (someone please tell me what a Reward Director does?!)
Alan Yentob, BBC’s creative director who gets £183,000 plus expenses and a six-figure pension (on a side note: earlier this year he claimed a £3,381 return trip to New York in business class and explained away his excess with the explanation he “wouldn’t have been capable of doing the job”).
Just the wages of the four above comes to £1,546,550 or 10,629 TV Licences.
Doesn’t seem so scary when you substitute the corporate bullyboy messages with the truth…
“The BBC will turn up at your door, act like a playground bully and ask to see your written proof of having paid The Immoral TV Tax. We can’t legally enter your house without your permission, can’t arrest you and can’t really make you do anything but we’ll pretend we can. In fact really we have no evidence to use in court unless we trick you into telling us some. “
Anyone annoyed with me now?
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