Don’t you just love their arrogant tone? “Act now to avoid breaking the law.” I am not breaking the law and I don’t need to act. So, they can fuck themselves in the arse and the eye. That the premises is unlicensed is neither here, nor there. I don’t have a Netflix subscription either and they aren’t threatening to send the boys round. I don’t need a licence. I don’t need to tell them and I don’t plan to. If they do send the boys round, they will be sent packing.
When they spell it out like that it really highlights how completely bizarre the TV licence is in this day and age. When the BBC was the sole provider of TV broadcasts it maybe made some kind of sense but now it is completely ridiculous that you can’t watch Sky, Netflix, or any other provider without the BBC getting a cut.
Actually, you can watch on those channels providing it isn’t a live broadcast. I don’t have a television, so it’s moot anyway.
I had one of them today, said I hadn’t replied to their communication, I had an odd email so blocked it, perhaps it wasn’t a scam. As I don’t have a TV, my circumstances haven’t changed, why tell them. I’ll tell them when my circumstances change. Shouldn’t waste their money sending out letters.
You should be getting this arsewipe about once a month. I have since I cancelled, coming up to two years ago now.
Fuck them and the pre-pubescent horse they ride all day!
Don’t respond in any way to any communication, and if an “officer” turns up just shut the door and don’t let them in or talk to to them in any way. If that is your response, there is FUCK ALL they can do.
I might just send them back – return to sender. If I feel mischievous enough.
If the mischief strikes you hard enough, send them back wrapped around a housebrick
ive done that for the last 12/13 years in the hope they have to pay for the postage.
I shred them and compost them. Free food for plants and fruits and veg. Thanks BBC.
Whatever you do, do not send the letters back. It tells them that the address is occupied, and they will redouble their efforts, possibly even sending someone from Crapita around, disturbing you more.
They already know as I used to have a licence and cancelled it. Unlike most of their letters, this was addressed to me by name. Not that it matters, I am not easily intimidated.
I just came across an NAR story from Belgium. It seems that, everywhere you go, no-one can believe that there are people who have no use for television.
https://notalwaysright.com/yes-yes-ex-parrot-and-all-that/352155/
Yes, they don’t understand that some of us just don’t need it or want it, so we must be watching illegally.
40 years ago we were all surprised when a work colleague said they watched no television.
After 40 years of TV ‘improvement’ many people don’t watch television or only watch a limited selection.
Progress, of a sort, I guess.
Odd thing, on the radio this morning the DJ said his boss informed him that from last year 10,000 more people have been listening. Now two things, one, how do they know who is listening and second thing is will they start charging to listen to the radio if peopke are switching from TV to radio???
To the Internet more likely, so they will be looking to tax that.
“one, how do they know who is listening”
They don’t. Those numbers are… shall we say, ‘estimates’. At *best* they have the (RAJAR?) sample set of people who do opt-in monitoring of viewing/listening (no idea who they are, I’ve never met anyone who does it) – and then that’s extrapolated across the population.
That’s the same sort of exciting stats trickery as ‘deaths from alcohol’; not measured or recorded, just extrapolated across the population from a ‘model’ made up in people’s heads to fit their narrative.
I miss this. We went for years without a TV licence, binning the letters and telling the odd ‘inspector’ to do one. The Mrs eventually made me get a licence though, so she can watch crap on telly (her words) when she’s at home and I’m at work. Oh well
My other half was a bit puzzled when she moved in, but wasn’t watching broadcast TV anyway. She uses the Internet to stream anything she wants to watch.
Yes, I watch a very limited selection, I’m watching the cricket just now. I watch You Tube videos sometimes, the Sky box allows me to watch them on the big telly. I hardly listen to radio since I got Spotify, much better, no adverts, no prattling DJs, only music that I actually like.
“Act now to avoid breaking the law” is, in historical terms, almost a textbook definition of tyrrany. If you do nothing, if you carry on just minding your own business, harming no-one, you are committing an offence against His Majesty.
I haven’t watched the broadcast shite for years. So of course now they extend it to “streaming services”. Which I barely watch either, because the vast majority of it is exactly the same shite on a different screen. What’s the betting they’ll start claiming that YouTube counts next?
This boondoggle started with the licencing of early spark-gap radio sets because they were the RF equivalent of standing on the roof with a loud-hailer. And now we’re supposed to pay a “public corporation” for the privilege of having our computers access an array of numbers on another computer if, and only if (at least, so far), those numbers can be arranged in such a way as to represent live video? Fuck off. Fuck right off. And continue fucking off with your grotty little protection racket until you can fuck off no more. Then start fucking off again.
“Tyranny”, dammit. Comments sections with editing functions have made me lazy.
Italy is a country where the bureaucracy runs on the concept of everyone’s “codice fiscale” (CF) or NI number plus the concept of registered legal residence.
There’s all sorts of pros and cons, but in terms of TV a resident is presumed to use a TV and his electricity bill is the vehicle by which the licence fee is charged, the electricity companies knowing who is resident from using the customer’s CF and a national database.
Non-residents still have to pay, but it’s not such a watertight system.
However, residents can submit an on-line form to the equivalent of HMRC saying that they do not have a TV and lo and behold, they do not get charged the fee. I have been expecting a visit from an inspector for the past two years but I haven’t seen anyone, nor has he left a stroppy letter!
No TV since before COVID. Every year I get an e-mail demanding that I go to their website and fill in the form. On which I have to declare how I get my entertainment (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime, DVDs etc). There is no “other” option. So far I have put up with it for the sake of an easy life. Next time I won’t.
Before that I had a B&W portable TV (rescued from a council tip). It was fun watching the licence inspectors’ faces drop when they realised it was a genuine B&W set.
Ah, I’ve not filled in the form. I get my entertainment elsewhere, I don’t need a television and got rid of it ages ago.
LR
This site might amuse you – 18 years of letters just like that one – albeit anonymously. The amusing thing is the reaction to the site from the TV licensing crew. Used taxpayers money to buy up other domains to prevent anyone else doing the same. Reform should certainly look to defund the BBC in totalis. Completely archaic in this day and age and well to the Left of a North Korea in all aspects of its output. http://www.bbctvlicence.com/