Is a TV licence required if I only use my TV to watch DVDs?
Anyone in the UK who watches TV has to pay a license fee every year. The money raised from this is used to fund the BBC. This is a matter of much controversy, made significantly worse by the tactics used by “TV Licensing” in trying to hunt down and executedeal with people who don’t pay. Tales of invasions of privacy, intimidation, and general all round nastiness abound online. This is not the place to rehash those, or even the concept that just because they declare that it’s their “standard practice” to turn up at your home and demand access to prove you’re not doing something illegal that you have to let them or that they have any right to do so whatsoever.
Instead I’m going to focus on one simple question that seems to have lots of people confused. More and more people are giving up on broadcast TV altogether, and buying or renting all their TV shows on DVD to watch. So, do they still need a licence?
TVL et al have been very successful in their misinformation campaigns here, as numerous people seem to think that the answer is “yes”.
The true answer is remarkably difficult to find, but is buried rather deeply on the BBC’s website in the section where they publish their responses to Freedom of Information queries. Of course these are published as PDFs to make it less likely anyone will stumble over the information, and, just to make it even more difficult, the PDFs are image scans, so Google etc can’t even index the underlying text.
So, as a public service, here are the steps to convincing yourself (or others) that you don’t need a license if you only use your TV to watch DVDs:
- Visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/docs/responses_tvlicence.shtml
- Find response SR2006000623 – TV Licence Requirements
- Download the PDF
- Read the answer to question 2: “Is a TV licence required for a television that is used for playing DVDs and videos (i.e. not for receiving or recording broadcasts)?” [you may also need the context of answer 1: "A licence is not needed simply because a television receiver is owned"]
Next week: How to deflect accusations of shady behaviour by doing everything under a name of an entity that doesn’t really exist in any legal form…
You want to fund Hollywood but not the BBC? You’ve got your priorities all wrong!
:)
I think you’ll find that the BBC releases a lot of it’s programmes on DVD. These are not available free to license payers who’s money funded the production, nor is there any form of discount for license payers.
Only watching DVD says nothing the level of your funding of the BBC.
Since I live in the Republic of Ireland, I do not know the details of the UK laws regarding the BBC licensing. But I am of course aware of the basics. And as a regular listener to BBC Radio I also hear way too many silly ads for ever new and easier ways to pay one’s TV license.
Here in Ireland the license is directly connected to the TV set. So it appears that just by owning a set one would have to pay the license, even if one would only use it for watching DVDs.
As I have no interest in TV and am not willing to pay for something that I do not use, I do not own a TV set for more than ten years now. I love good films though. So I watch my DVDs on my computer.
News I get from the radio and via the internet, and it appears that I am a lot better informed than most people who watch TV.
Proinsias, that’s interesting. Does that mean you have to pay twice if you own two TVs?
Not sure if you’ve seen this site:
http://www.bbctvlicence.com/
Its the story of one guy who decided a few years ago to stop watching TV, and to buy any programmes he wanted on DVD/VHS.
There is a (very long) collection of “interesting” (or aggressive, depending on your viewpoint) letters from the BBC/TVL people (it turns out they are one and the same, despite what they’d have you believe), and includes some good information on what the legalities of the subject actually are.
Who cares if you do watch tv on it? Don’t pay your license anyway, they’ll never catch you.
I wonder if severing the aerial cable, or taking down the aerial itself, can help the cause of people who only use TV for DVDs and don’t pay the licence fee.
If the dread ‘visit’ happens, and inspectors are shown a severed cable or cannot identify an aerial, their own observations might be able to be used against them in court, since they would have to confirm there was no reception link to broadcast material.
Perhaps they would argue that a severed cable COULD be reconnected the minute they were gone and therefore still constitutes reception potential.
There has to be a way round this for people who genuinely only use TV for DVDs and are being bullied into funding a service they never use.
Any test cases on this? Any successful tried and tested strategies?
It would appear as if the TV Licensing Agency supports other media channels. But the truth is…it doesn’t, As a statement that was sent to me from itv; They do not recieve any funding from the licensing agency that is why they choose advertising. The Channels with no ads involved recieve no license funding what-so-ever. So is the BBC Lying to the tax payers. I would just like to point out that the Government take no part in the license because it is down to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The object for 2009 is to scrap the TV License alltogether ready for when the public go digital. “YOU ARE PAYING TO VIEW VIA SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE.”
Indeed. It seems that they’ve both reorganised this part of the site (the relevant disclosure log is now at http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/publication_scheme/classes/disclosure_logs/tv_licence.shtml), and also updated it to a more recent selection of requests, none of which deal directly with this.
There is, however, one regarding using a TV solely to listen to digital radio which is itself rather interesting as that cuts out the often mooted claim that if you don’t watch TV (but only DVDs) you should detune it. AFAIK there’s no obviously simple way to set your TV up so that you can only listen to digital radio but not watch digital TV.
I’m taking this as quite a strong statement from the BBC then that the burden is going to clearly be on them to show that you were actively watching or recording broadcast TV, and that the fact that you merely have a setup that provides you with the ability for you to do so is not enough. (Of course, we already know that that’s the position, but it’s the clearest acknowledgement of it I’ve seen from them recently.)
Just to let you know that the link in your article doesn’t work any more, and putting “SR2006000623″ in the search box on the page that does appear finds no results. A google search for the same thing finds this blog first followed by only three or four other sites, all of which now have dead links.
Any idea whether this is because of a change in the law or just to stop people from finding the information? (And how about doing another FOI request through WhatDoTheyKnow.com, so the result will be publicly archived?)
Cheers.
I personally was shocked when I moved to UK from USA. I could not understand that people here are obligate to pay so much money for nothing. BBC is complete crap for me. They do not have anything competitive with private free TV. All they show is like 19 centuries programs . Complete nonsense for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!
government not involved? i should coco, of course its a perfect medium for mass control, and get the suckers to pay for it, , yeh and keep dame judi and all the other leeches in luxury as a spin off, what a laugh. john lennon summed up the masses correctly.
Nice idea, but the link to the BBC site reveals nothing – either the freedom-killers have removed the offending document or there’s a typo in the link. Keep up the good work though, we do not have to allow the TVL people onto our property, let alone into our home – they’re agency staff working on commission and they will never darken my doorstep.
@David
Hello, i’ve only fairly recently discovered this discusion forum, and I apologize for any unwanted intrusion on my part. If you still require that BBC document “SR2006000623″ (The BBC’s Sent Response to an FOI request)I have it in pdf format. I can provide it as an attachment in an email if you want.
You might find this site very interesting indeed and a excellent source of BBC licence-related responses to numerous FOI requests: televisionlicence.info
@Tim Morley
Tim.
I have that document. It’s a BBC response to a few very specific tv licensing questions. If you want a copy I can send it to you via email if you require it.
Marcus
marcus.f@email.com