I don't think they still do but they used to do a cheaper license if you only had a black and white TV BUT the kicker was that if you had a VCR you were still liable for a full colour TV licence because your VCR could recieve a colour signal!
And yes, technically you're still liable for a TV licence if you have no TV and have an old VCR stashed away in a cupboard somewhere
AND you are now liable for a licence to legaly stream live British TV channels from the internet, even if you have no TV, even if you're a student living in halls!

In Denmark, it's paid every three months. And it's one license per household.

I wish! We get these fees too and you basically pay for country-sponsored channels. Ha, if we'd have BBC I'd gladly pay fees for Doctor Who, but we only get some shitty channel and are forced to pay fees just for owning a TV, even if it's thrown in cellar. Basically: Do you use a TV as a computer screen? Pay. Do you use your internet connection to watch TV via moitor? You don't really have to pay.

In Germany it's not only way worse, it's _becoming_ even more worse if a legislation change (that's already been agreed on in the federation parliament) gets ratified by all states.

Currently it's like this: If you own a TV, then you have to pay about 15 € per month to support the two main broadcasting associations. It doesn't matter if the TV works. It doesn't matter if the TV sits in your garden shed 100 miles away with no electricity around. It doesn't matter if you destroyed the TV socket in your house. As soon as you have a TV, you have to pay because you _could_ repair it / relocate it / do something else to watch TV with it.

When you say that you don't have a TV, you run a risk that the bureau that collects the payments will clandestinely send someone to your house and try to check it out. They are not allowed to enter without your permission, but they often lie about the actual reasons for entering ("May I use your toilet please?"), so they often get in anyway - and they can always peek through windows (and are known to do so).

When you once had a TV and gave it away, it's not enough to tell the bureau that you don't own a TV anymore. You have to specifiy the exact reasons why that is the case and what happened to the old TV. Even then, the bureau will send you letters for months, asking whether you really don't have a TV anymore.

It's ridiculous, disturbing and sad. It shows what happens when companies get too powerful and not properly controlled. In Germany, no politician wants to do anything against these two main broadcasters because they not only wield considerable power, they also pay the politicians that are supposed to control them by giving them positions in the company. It's a shame really.

The new legislation, which will be put in place soon, will turn the payment into some kind of tax that you have to pay _even if you don't own a TV and never watch TV_, So all the hassle that I went through to convince the bureau that I really, really dumped my TV, will have been in vain, because soon I'll have to pay for a TV program that I can't watch and don't even want to watch. It's incredible. And on top of all that, the TV programs that we are forced to pay for have become so disgustingly bad that I really wonder what the broadcasters actually _do_ with all that money.

Korea has this as well, I think it was $2.50-ish per month, and it pays for KBS (which also runs shitloads of commercials).

It's not actually that unusual as I'm sure you can see from the large number of people from other countries chiming in. Don't be fooled by the word licence, it's a tax. I'm still fine with the idea though, I like the fact that we have a broadcaster that is a non-commercial public service.

When I was a student the licensing man came knocking on my door - luckily it was an old old TV with manual dial for channels, i just scrambled them, the set-top aerial was quickly hidden and I managed to convince him I only used the TV to play on my ZX Spectrum! (yes I'm going back a few years!)

Not sure I'd get away with that today...;o)

Last year, £3 million of TV licensing money in Britain was used to fund rural broadband schemes. That's not what the license fund is for, but do those who pay get a say? Hell no. I strongly disagree with TV licensing.

This happens to us Swedes as well. The thing is, the Swedish TV network is completely digital, and the fee applies to you even if you don't have a digital reciever and as such are unable to watch the "free" channels that the fee is supposed to pay for.

You can own a TV and not have to pay the license, but the reciever must be destroyed, and the fee does no longer (since several decades ago) apply to radios.

They did debate a few years ago wether the fee should apply to computers as well (because they can be used to watch what these so-called "free" channels put up on heir web sites), as some sort of "media license" rather than "TV license" as it is today, fortunately that fell through and hasn't been implemented yet.

Over here, like others have already mentioned, you need to register your TV or radio (they were even talking about computers since you can listen to online radio with them) and pay a monthly fee. These fees are meant to finance the public service broadcasting, so that it's more or less independent from private investments, commercial ads and TV ratings and is therefor free to provide highbrow cultural and educational programmes for the benefit of the populace, while the private television and radio stations finance themselves with lots of commercials, several times an hour, and entertain the masses with soaps, talkshows, blockbusters, reality TV etc.

At least, that's the theory. In truth the public broadcasting is often as bad as the private television or even worse. Even though they are independent of TV ratings, they aim to compete with the private channels and claim they have to entertain the masses, too. They often broadcast arthouse, classic or especially remarkable movies, documentaries or informative news programmes only late at night in favor of crime series and mindless shows at prime times.

Lots of people (students, poor folk etc.) don't register their TV and radio and don't pay their fees though. (Some don't even register their place of residence, so noone officially knows where they're living ;) ). The GEZ (who you are meant to pay the fees to) occasionally send inspectors to knock on people's doors and ask them if they have a TV and if so why they didn't register it yet, but you are not obliged to open the door for them, if you smell a rat. I've never heard of neighbours snitching on others who don't pay their fees, most people don't like the GEZ, even those who pay, but of course it's not impossible, because people can be dicks.

I would be fine with the idea if it, indeed, was commercial-free. I cannot consider the "sponsor messages" before each and every programme as anything other than advertising though.

"A rose by any other name" and all that...

So... in Soviet Britain, the TV watches you]?

Well, another thing about Germany: Something I read in the newspaper, not sure if it is real, but...

Anyway, some guy is in his garden, shouting for his cat (Lisa or so). Some years later, he gets a mail addressed to Lisa His_last_name, reminding her that if she is 18 years old and has a TV of her own, she has to pay.

Fixed

Of course, it's not as bad as it seems in Germany. They do send letters every once in a while, and if you don't pay they call you, then you just tell them you don't have a TV, they sound surprised, and you clarify that why would you buy a TV and get forced to pay a recurring fee when there's never anything worth watching anyway? Then you're free of them (at least until you move, I'll find out soon enough if they'll continue to not bother me).

Australia used to have TV and radio licence fees - they were abolished in 1974, according to Wiki