licence fee 101 for non-uk residents

The company which operates the TV licence collection francise on behalf of the government (not the BBC) has a list of all registered addresses in the UK. Any address which does not have a licence registered against it is bombarded with letters for three months and then recieves a visit complete with sneaky detector equipment. (which can be portable and they don't need a van anymore). If anyone is using a TV at the house they get fined. They generally do visits in areas in job lots. One of the best places to live is somewhere like a farmhouse with private access. They do not have right of access unless obtaining a warrant and the detection evidence is not too clear from a distance. NOT that anyone would suggest anyone should avoid paying the fee.

It is a legal requirement for all retail and wholesalers to obtain a name and address from anyone purchasing TV recieving equipment - though at the moment you don't have to show proof of address.

They tend to rely on the bully tactics of sending increasingly rude and threatening letters. On a personal note they tried to bully my mother despite being told she had been dead for a year. I ended up threatening them with harrasment charges and it stopped.

Ah I see, well I can't say PBS has made programmes like the BBC has.. (except nature progs)

No - the form you fill in when you buy TV reception equipment (in theory you should fill one in when you buy a TV card for a PC) - is a requirement so that your address can be registered as potentially owning TV reception equipment.

It is still entirely your responsibility to separately purchase a TV licence.

You don't get one free for the first year, and you can't purchase one in most shops that sell TV equipment.

For many years the TV licence was usually bought from the Post Office (a legacy presumably dating back to the days when the Post Office regulated telecomms, and provided the national telephone service as well as a lot of broadcast infrastructure) - but it is now handled separately.

Many of us pay for our licence automatically via direct debit from our bank accounts, rather than having to remember to go and buy a new one every year.

The UK TV Licensing authority have a lot more info on their website :

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/

In fairness WGBH Boston is one of the main PBS stations, and have made a wealth of worthy stuff over the years -- much of it in conjunction with the BBC.

Same with WNET in NY. PBS is seriously like BBC America without commercials. The license fee sucks in the ROI, b/c we also get commercials, and have a very bad broadcaster, because of a lack if available resources. At least we get the BBC from Sky.

its ashamed We can;t get RTE on Sky in the uk:

I think you can get it if you have a NI card in your box.

Talk about License...

I currentley live in a Flat in US, but I still own a flat in UK (yes, I live in two places now) and imagine me, I have to pay tax for the US, and still pay TV License for BBC.

Thank goodness I have a tv box that lets me watch BBC remotely via internet from my telly in UK to my flat in US (yep, it streams just perfectley, I can turn on the TV in UK from US) It's definetley paying the license for quality TV programme without any adverts

Details of the Irish licence fee are at http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/tvlicence.htm for anyone interested.

I wouldn't call RTÉ a very bad broadcaster, it does a lot for the revenue it gets. If there were no licence fee, I shudder to think what it would be like. TV3's Irish programming is pretty much its now-down-to-two news bulittens, TV3 Sports Tonight, Ireland AM (think GMTV Today with a lot smaller budget), the shameful Exposé (Entertainment Tonight clone which replaced one of the news bulittens) and the dreadful The Political Party. Compare that to RTÉ where pretty much the entire prime time RTÉ ONE line up and a good chunk of the RTÉ TWO line up are home produced.

Yes, viewers in Northern Ireland on both Sky and Virgin Media can get RTÉ, Sky viewers can also get TG4, which is also broadcast terrestrially in Belfast. All the BBC channels are available on both Sky and NTL / Chorus digital in the Republic (though it should be pointed out that only BBC ONE and BBC TWO are on the EPG on Sky).

I think the Australian Broadcasting Corporation does a pretty good job - there's no license fee or advertising, it's all government funded. You get a fair bit of bang for your buck too, given that there are currently two TV channels, five national radio networks and ~ 50 local radio stations. The government isn't a huge fan and has made a number of interesting appointments to the ABC board as well as cutting funding quite significantly over last 10 years.

I can't help but think the license fee is justified, given the extraordinary range and quality of services that the BBC provides - the amount of original programming accross the various TV channels is astounding, as is the quality of BBC News.