...have to PAY every year for a LICENSE to watch TV!?!? in my 22 years on earth i have never been aware of this until this morning. that is just....wow. i think i need to sit down.

Its been like that for years.

Technically it only pays for the BBC but people get fined anyway even if they have the BBC channels blocked. its like 130£ a year now.

Basiccally if you have a TV in the UK you have to pay a license fee, even if its only used for an xbox or PS3 cause they will still come after you.

Its not only like that in UK more countries have stuff like that ( I think that most of EU). With this model you pay but the programing should be better and so on ( for example in Poland there are no commercials during the program so you can watch movies the way they were ment to be).

yeah they gonna hide in the bushes with a camera and if they see you having the tv turned on better watch out.

hate politics where they get the average joe instead of the hard criminals and imposing taxes upon everything.

Well shit. So if you don't have a license, your TV is a dud?

Yes, but it's not like a driving licence or anything, and the plus side of it is that it pays for two TV channels that don't have any advertising and aren't bound to the same mentality as for-profit TV stations. Not that the BBC is perfect or anything, it's not, but it certainly has it's place.

What will shock you more, is that I think (and I may be wrong about this so check with someone who's actually been to England in the last decade) you have to declare how many TVs you have in your house, and pay extra for each one :0

EDIT: according to wikipedia, i'm wrong. However, if a building is divided into separate units for rental, each unit needs a separate licence.

Not exactly but they are able to detect when there is a TV on and if the address has a license, used to be a van went round IIRC

If you dont have a license the TV will still work but you will be fined if your found to be using it.

And yes the BBC also takes out commercials but they still find ways of getting people to plug their crap, Take "the one show" for example, when was the last time they had a guest that wasnt trying to advertise their crap. It isnt like they snuck it in either, the damn presenters are the ones bringing it up. This is true any residence needs a license, an HMO with 10 rented rooms I believe needs 10 licenses if there is a TV in each room even. but if they have 1 communal then they dont.

A house split into 4 flats needs 4 licenses 1 per flat

In Norway you have to pay TWICE every year for the license to have a TV.

There's a pretty funny scene in an otherwise serious old cold-war era British spy program called Callan where they are trying to locate a Russian safe house who is signaling Russian spy ships. As a disguise for their tracking equipment, they use a type of BBC van that would go around and could figure out if a house/apt was receiving a BBC signal and if they had paid their license to do so. After days of little success in the locating the safe house and catching the spy, one character frustratingly exclaims, "Two weeks! And the only bloody thing we've accomplished is that the whole neighborhood has queued up outside the licensing office!" Sadly my description doesn't do it justice.

No, you are just watching "illegally". And you will get fined when your neighbors rat you out. Having spent time over there in the early ninties for school they used to have roving vans to track signal. Dont know if they do anymore, our UK contingent can say I am sure.

You think that's weird? People in the US need to pay to be born.

Nah. But at least here they can arrive on your door and demand to check if you do not have a license.

They're not allowed to enter if you don't let them though.

I live behind two solidly locked doors in one of the old brick buildings in the city centre - three if I lock the door to my apartment - so there's no way they can really get in. Hence, I have never in my life paid that license. :D

It's usually waaay better than that (at least in Germany): if you own a TV, you have to pay the fee. It doesn't matter if you never use it. It doesn't even matter if it's working: as long as it could be repaired "with reasonable effort", you still have to pay (because otherwise, surely you would secretly repair your TV, not pay any fee and undermine the system, thereby threatening the life-saving quality of our TV programme!). If you owned a TV before, you have to provide them with evidence that you gave it away or brought it to the recycling centre if you don't want to pay anymore.

And I didn't even mention the shady tactics employed by the people working for the GEZ (Gebühreneinzugszentrale) - afaik, they receive more payment the more people they get to, um... "subscribe"

Well, yes, it's the same over here. As soon as you own a computer/radio/TV/smartphone you have to pay the "TV fees" every years.

Here you have to pay every month.