I came upon this list which I thought might be of interest to some our members. It's a comparison of the cost of a broadcast receiving license in various European countries. It was on a British website, so the amounts have been converted to their equivalents in pounds Sterling.


It's interesting to note that many countries still have a radio license. These were abolished in the U.K. in 1971.

Let me point out for our American/Canadian friends, that this isn't a joke. The authorities (at least in the U.K.) really take this seriously!

A few months back I did hear a news report about something related to this. I am not sure if the person was a senior or had more tvs than they were supposed to have.

I don't watch the state channels much and never listen to their radio channels. Therefore I have never felt any moral obligation to pay the fee, especially as I as a student have been near broke for years.

Officially in South Africa one had to show one's TV licence before you could buy a TV and the store had to record the licence number!

Interesting that Iceland is at the top of the list. I undertook project work there in 1980 and when rarely visiting civilisation watched an episode of "Tommi og Jerri" - luckly for me in this case language did not feature in my enjoyment.

In 1980 Icelandic TV was very civilised. They did not broadcast on Thursday - (sagas at home night?) and there was no TV during August - that's when everyone went on holiday, especially the TV guys.

Remember well a broadcast of Hutch on Icelandic radio that featured his dulcette tones describing an eruption of Mount Hekla that was quickly over-dubbed by an Icelandic translator - did I realy say that!

Made Radio 4 apparently - in English!

Paul,
We ditched the TV licencing scheme over here in about 1995, IIRC.
There were a lot of people that were up-in-arms about this fee, which is in fact, a tax, as most of the collected monies, were used to pay HUGE salaries to our State Broadcaster, TVNZ and it's large horde of employees.
Recently, it was revealed that 30% of staff at TVNZ "earned" more than NZ$130,000 per year and 10% got more than $250,000.
The Licence fee here was $145 per year.
We gave up charging for Radio licences in the 1980's.
But, did you know that the P&T department of the Post Office (Postal and Telecommunications) used to charge us people on a per set basis and in 1979 I got a small transistor radio for Xmas (back when Xmas gifts were simple! ) and with it came a Certificate from the P&T.
This actually cost a lot more than the radio itself!.
Still got the radio too, so I suppose I've had my money's worth out of that licence!

Doug,
The story you heard may have been when they finally decided to give a free license to those 75 and over. There is no limit on how many TVs you can have under one license, but there are all sorts of arcane rules ready to trap people when it comes to second homes and the like. Here's an extract from the official website:

Clear now? It's quite ridiculous. I know several people who have a place in this area as their second home, and they certainly don't see any reason why they should buy another license for a place they use a few weeks of then year.

Have a look at the generally patronizing tone of the official TV Licensing website.

As C-H said, many people feel no moral obligation to contribute to the BBC, which is itself just another commercial organization these days. It's also seen as unfair that the money extorted by the government for the "TV Licence Fee" goes entirely to the BBC. No other broadcaster receives a penny of it, yet we are obliged to pay it even if we never watch the BBC.

The big chain stores here report to the licensing office when anyone buys a TV, VCR, or satellite receiver. Then if the licensing people have no record of a license in effect at the address, they'll send the usual intimidating letters.

To see how some people have responded, look at www.tvlicensing.biz (This site has plenty of examples of the threatening and accusatory letters sent out.)

The correspondence from "GoodKingNige" to them is wonderful. He ended up playing them at their own game, and phoned them to tell them he didn't have a record of a shotgun license at their address and to inform that they were breaking the law if they had a shotgun without a license!

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 02-20-2004).]

The Irish TV licence fee is a lot more than that... € 152 per year. UK£ 102.31 at today's rates.

I suspect that table is a bit out of date / inaccurate.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 02-20-2004).]

Something on the Internet which is less than accurate or up-to-date? It can't be so, surely?

The U.K. fee is due to go up to £121 in April, along with rises in many other taxes, thanks to the new financial year, which due to some peculiar historical quirk runs from April 6.

If I remember my dad cursing correctly it's €40 for 2 months, and you're allowed to run one big and one portable TV as well as one big and one portable radio on that license. Don't have to show it when buying a TV though. Never heard of any checks, but we do get the occasional TV spots or tramway commercials against "blackviewing". I think the last time they had a cute lazy dalmatian dog, some intranslateable pun, or at least I can'T figure out how.


Same thing here. You've got to pay even if you don'T have an antenna, just satellite. Oh, and of course TV tax isn't included in the (rather hefty) cable fees... satellite is way cheaper if you have a place to mount the dish (some people would block up their living room window to have a dish in a small apartment...)

We have to pay to watch BBC too. BBC Northern Ireland is carried on Sky Digital (on channels 214,215 etc) in the Republic of Ireland.

BBC NI or London is also carried on all of the cable (and MMDS) systems in Ireland meaning that most homes have access.

Part of our Sky basic subscription fee and part of our cable fees go to the BBC as payment for carriage.

ITV (usually UTV although sometimes HTV) and Channel 4 are carried on cable but not on Satellite yet. UTV seem to actively encourage viewers and carry ads directly aimed at the Republic.

MMDS is basically DVB-T carried at 2.5Ghz fully encrypted.
It evolved out of the older analogue MMDS systems which carried up to 20 channels in encrypted PAL using either Eurocrypt or Jerrold Cable Scrambling systems.

It was designed to bring multichannel viewing (particularly UK terrestrial tv) to areas that didn't have access to cable.

The problem now is that because we already bascially have a very developed established and commercially viable digital terrestrial broadcasting system. The roll-out of a normal DVB-T system, like Freeview in the UK, is proving difficult!

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 02-22-2004).]

We get those intimidating spots on TV here as well every so often. They usually make a big fuss about the £1000 maximum fine, and go out to explain the advantage of setting up a monthly direct debit from your bank.

By the way, a lot of people here have a huge misunderstanding about the TV license inspectors. Your legal obligation is to buy a license if you receive U.K. broadcasts. That's it.

You are under no legal obligation to reply to the threatening letters sent out from TV Licensing ("If you do not watch TV, please tell us..."), neither are you under any obligation to allow a TV inspector to enter your home to check, unless he has obtained a search warrant. And to get that, he needs to show "good cause" to the judge.

I've never not had a TV so I don't know how the Irish system operates if you don't pay.

However, the collecting of licence fees is sub-contracted by RTE to the post office. They use a database of every address in the country to enforce it and seem to work on the basis of gentle reminders followed by threatening letters too.

RTEs ads are less like the BBC's bully-boy approach though. I've always been shocked at some of the UK tv licencing ads.. they're not too far removed from "TV Licencing - We break legs!"..

RTE tends to try and sell the we're doing so much for you please support us or you're doing a disservice to the community approach or pull the nationalistic strings.. by playing on the "we're irish" thing.

Overall it's very similar to the UK approach.

LOL! Yes, their approach isn't exactly subtle!

My family had experience of the threats while living in Cornwall some years ago (this would have been early 1980s). We had two shops, 33 which was rented out and 34 which my parents ran. We lived in the accommodation above, which extended over both shops, although originally there had been two separate flats: 33A and 34A

The address on the license was down as 33A, although the TV was in the living room which was actually located in what used to be 34A. We regularly received threatening letters and eventually a visit from one of the TV tax gestapo (presumably because they still had 34A down as a separate flat in their database and they just assume that everybody must have a TV).

Despite several attempts to explain, they didn't seem able (or willing) to accept that 33A and 34A were now the same premises, so my father just gave up: "Let 'em take me to court if they like." After all, we'd got a license!

The letters threatening prosecution and fines continued. They were ignored, and nothing more ever happened.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 02-25-2004).]

I'd say when DVB-T really does take off in a big way they'll just reserve the right to cut you off for non-payment just like cable and satellite operators.

Pay DVB-T that is. The DVB-T in England proper is mostly FTA (unencrypted), and at that the receiver boxes sell for the £60-70 range (I believe anyway).

Slightly off, in Caanda, there is no direct TV tax (Canada's national public broadcaster is funded by general taxes and ad revenue. The regional public broadcasters are funded by their respective regional govdenments and occasional beg-fests), however, Pay TV providers are obligated to pay into one or several prodction funds, and those monies come from the subscriber fees.