The UK TV License

Day 305 / 365

Netflix is considering putting an end on password sharing, and many people who used to watch their friends Netflix for free would have to pay to watch it now. It’s funny to think that with all these subscriptions and high-speed internet costs that we have now, the most popular sources of home entertainment back in the day used to be free. The radio was free (and still is), and so was black and white tv. All you needed was antennas to catch all the free entertainment that was around you in the form of radio waves.

In the United Kingdom, however, even that is not free. Any person in the UK that watches or records live television is required to pay a license fee. The fee right now can go as high as 200 dollars for a color license and 65 for a black and white one.

This law was introduced in the 1940s, back when all the TVs used antennas and showed free over-the-air channels. The radio waves around you are free, unlike the electricity or a phone connection, the government can’t stop you from using a TV if you don’t pay the fee. Then how did the enforce this rule?

The government actually contacts people who they suspect have a television in their house “illegally” and keep sending them letters or calling the on the phone asking them to pay the fee. They can even prosecute you if you don’t comply. They have surprise visits where they go through someone's house to find if they have a TV and even arrange for search warrants if they have too.

At one point they even had vans with some sort of a “TV detector” that drove around in stealth mode trying to find fee evaders!

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — The Last Mile