The trouble with telly these days

[TimberWolf]

Thank God for B1t T0rr3nt.

On occasion I've used streaming sites, with more success than B1t T0rr3nts.

e.g. Movie2k.to - Watch movies online movie downloads for free (can't vouch for it being computer-safe)

[SimonMac]

I never watch anything live, I have a NAS full of both cult TV shows that I will watch again and again (Bottom, The Detectives, Red Dwarf, Police Squad) and new programs that I only have full series for (West Wing, NCIS, Big Bang Theory), and current programs that I want to watch is done via the iPlayer/4OD etc

[hyperD]

I don't have a TV licence and haven't watched live broadcast for over a year now. Can't say I miss it either and prefer to do other stuff instead. Will stream the odd bluray over the network to the TV or watch something on iPlayer but apart from the Capita computer generated "threatening" letters and the odd Capita salesman put off from the implied right of access denied notice, life is so much better without TV.

Plus an extra 30 bottles of table wine a year for the saving.

[TimberWolf]

I don't have a TV licence and haven't watched live broadcast for over a year now. Can't say I miss it either and prefer to do other stuff instead. Will stream the odd bluray over the network to the TV or watch something on iPlayer but apart from the Capita computer generated "threatening" letters and the odd Capita salesman put off from the implied right of access denied notice, life is so much better without TV.

Plus an extra 30 bottles of table wine a year for the saving.

I'm having trouble parsing that. Does it mean a TV bloke comes around and tries to convince you that you have to let him in?

[SimonMac]

I'm having trouble parsing that. Does it mean a TV bloke comes around and tries to convince you that you have to let him in?

Yep, they have no right of entry

[hyperD]

I'm having trouble parsing that. Does it mean a TV bloke comes around and tries to convince you that you have to let him in?

Yes.

If you don't have a TV licence and write to them saying so and why, or inform them by telephone, they keep sending a Capita employed salesman around who wants to get into your house to have a nose around your TVs and computers and knickers drawer.

The annoying thing is, if you do let them in and they are satisfied that you are not receiving live broadcast on enabled equipment, they will restart the whole process again after a year or so under the lamentable excuse that people move on etc

They are privately employed salesmen (on commission) by Capita (TV Licensing) on behalf of the BBC and have no more right to enter your house than the milkman or a stranger at your door.

Putting up a notice withdrawing the implied right of access is a quick and easy way to keep them off your driveway or back garden, especially with a CCTV warning notice.

Again, I'm not watching live TV so I am not violating any licensing T&Cs, this is simply a way to swat a fly, so to speak.

You only need to have a TV licence if you watch live broadcast or record live broadcast on your PVR or video player and also if you watch live TV on your computer or mobile and herein lies the elephant in the room: the anachronism of the TV licence and its failure to keep pace with changing technology. It might have been effective in the 50's and 60's with those big humming TVs; however it's a business model that will struggle to survive in the modern media age without sufficiently strong enforcement, which is why the means to clamp down on evaders and genuine non-evaders appears to be quite aggressive.

Cross checking a database of licenced and non-licenced addresses and sending out threatening letters is much cheaper than employing whole garrisons of salesman in armoured TV Detector vans, as people are quite compliant on receipt of a pretend threatening letter written in red from someone official and all the talk about impending prosecutions and £1,000 fines. All of it meaningless.

TV Licensing only have around 25 (empty) TV vans after someone stuck in a FOI and while the technology exists to detect the local oscillator leakages (although in the 60s/70’s you could hear a TV from a mile away) the modern building is swamped in all sorts of EM interference making it a lot harder to determine, especially in a block of flats.

It's all a big charade and anyway, the salesman will normally knock on the door during the day and hear the TV for those silly enough to answer.

Capita can apply for a search warrant (not the same power as a police one) IF they submit evidence to the court but this is rare and quite expensive and normally applies to those that have answered the door and have signed on a form that they are watching TV illegally or any other obvious admissions of guilt.

Having a Sky dish maybe a bit of a giveaway but having an aerial or sat dish does not necessarily imply that you are watching live. I couldn’t remove the aerial from my plasma because the TV was too heavy so I cut the coax at the base – no chance of getting one back in. And the tuner is detuned.

All in all it’s a doddle to avoid paying the TV licence with a 5 min internet search and carry on watching live TV. If everyone knew how easy it was, the current licensing model would disappear overnight as it would be too ineffective to collect the lost revenue from the telly tax (cf New Zealand).