You need a licence to watch TV?!

An interesting quirk to the British tax system is the need for every household to obtain a TV licence (British Spelling). I remember when I was first told of this by friends of mine who were living in the U.K., I was positively gobsmacked! Luckily you are only required to have one licence per house, but if you have a car with a TV or a second home, you will need to get an additional licence. Nor can you escape the tax by watching your favorite programms on your computer.

The TV licence was started on 1 June 1946 and was for monochrome only BBC television service at a cost of £2 annually. In January 1968 a ‘colour supplement of £5 was added to the monochrome (black and white) fee which had gone up to £5. The current cost of a TV licence is £145.50. For a monochrome TV it is £49.

Photo by Mike Peel

                                        A Leyland Sherpa television detector van

 This is fairly strongly enforced. Great Britain even has "Detector Vans" which take as little as 20 seconds to work and can distinguish between two televisions sitting side by side. They can operate from 60 meters away and are developed in such secrecy that engineers only know about the specific type of device they are working in by being forced to work in isolation. They have even developed a hand held detector. While the first notice will come in the mail, Enquiry Officers do make home visits. In 2006 – 7 there were 3.5 million visits. The fine can be as much as £1000. 

The good news is that there are some people who receive discounts. The blind only have to pay half the fee and if you are over 75, your TV licence is free. The licence was first introduced to help fund BBC TV and radio as they are not self funding. Needless to say, this is not terribly popular in Britain.