Betamax

[Mick F]

We have a Betamax C7 in the loft, in it's original box with the leads and the instruction manual we bought in 1983 for £600 odd second hand. The £45 VHS cheapy we bought brand new from Asda has been placed up there next to it.

Tomorrow I'm taking down the TV aerial and removing the co-ax cables - they'll go to the dump. The tellies went some time back.

Our TV licence has expired, and we're not renewing it.

"There's nothing on the telly!"

[thirdcrank]

I think it would be interesting to hear how you get on with the enforcers. Of course, they got their fingers badly burnt earlier this year with complaints about their rather unpleasant threatening "Big Brother" ads (as in 1984, not the programme in terminal decline from Borehamwood.) I rather fancy that the actual enforcement may not have changed much, if at all.

[cycleruk]

You can always catch up on line.
Mind you I watched the world track championship this weekend.
Was nearly worth the license fee just to see that.

[Mick F]

You can always catch up on line.

That's what we do.

We watched Antiques Road Show earlier. Done this summer in the Tamar Valley at Morwellham just down river from here. There were a few people on that we knew. (Note that it's pronounced More-Well-Ham, not More-wellam, and it was nice to here the presenters struggling to pronounce it properly!!!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morwellham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamar_Valley,_England

We didn't watch much telly, so iPlayer fulfils our needs. DVDs provide enough too.

I think it would be interesting to hear how you get on with the enforcers.

I'll keep you all informed .............

[hubgearfreak]

We didn't watch much telly, so iPlayer fulfils our needs. DVDs provide enough too.

it's like a VED, it doesn't matter how much, just that you've got the use of ....

from their website http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/

You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder

[cjchambers]

But just to clarify . . .

"Many TV channels are now available to watch over the Internet. If you’re watching programmes on a computer or laptop as they are broadcast, then you need a TV Licence. However, you don’t need to be covered by a licence if you’re only using ‘on-demand’ services to watch programmes after they have gone out on TV. So, you need a licence to watch any channel live online, but you wouldn’t need one to use BBC iPlayer to catch up on an episode of a programme you missed, for example"

So a TV licence is NOT required to use iPlayer . . . . yet. Neither is one required for a computer just because it gives you the means to view live broadcasts over the internet - that seems to be implicit in the above statment.

[Mick F]

...... as it's being broadcast is the point.

The Chairman of the BBC, or was it his deputy, or was it someone from the BBC Trust? ...... was on Radio4 a couple of weeks ago talking about the Licence Fee. He stated that iPlayer, radio, bbc.co.uk et al were all free.
He added that live TV was free to foreign countries even though the British citizens had to pay for it!

We here in UK are subsidising the rest of the world accessing BBC.

Not me any more.

[glueman]

Our old VHS player has gained a new lease of life long after it had been put out to grass because our youngest likes kid's cartoons and films and they are 50p in the charity shop.
He watches his favourites endless times so they are good value. They'll be returned to the charity shop when he's bored with them though at the current rate he'll wear the VCR out before the tapes.

[thirdcrank]

... We here in UK are subsidising the rest of the world accessing BBC. ...

Only those areas within range of UK TV transmitters. The rest pay to buy the rights, much as we stump up for Neighbours etc

My wife seems to get some sort of value for money from our tele licence, otherwise, it would be costing me something like three quid a week to watch Have I got news for you?

[cjchambers]

And it gets even more complicated when 'BBC Worldwide", the commercial wing of the BBC, begin selling TV programmes back to commercial UK stations like the UKTV channels, which is part owned by the BBC along with Virgin. That's why you get endless BBC programmes on the UKTV channels like Dave and G.O.L.D. It pickles my brain to picture the endless carousel of money and broadcast rights!

Hopefully, though, it means more money to make programmes for the public BBC, by squeezing the last bits of money out of old programmes which would otherwise just be sitting on shelves in a warehouse somewhere.

[Mick F]

... We here in UK are subsidising the rest of the world accessing BBC. ...

Only those areas within range of UK TV transmitters.

That's the point (again).
BBC is funded by the licence fee.
British TV users pay for all the BBC.
If you don't watch live TV, you don't pay for anything.

The BBC has to be funded, but only those people in Britain with TVs pay for it, anyone else pays nothing. If you live in a foreign country and listen to BBC radio or access the BBC by other methods it costs you nothing. If you lived in France and had an aerial pointed at Kent, you could receive BBC TV loud and clear and pay nowt also.

[thirdcrank]

Yes. My younger son lives in Holland and does just that. I like to think he is getting a bit of value from my licence fee. (But a bit of Western Europe is hardly the rest of the world.)

Incidentally, pre-Hutton, I did listen to the Radio 4 News quite a lot. IMO they all now seem too frightened not to upset the govt., for fear of losing the ......licence fee. Nowadays I turn it on at the start of the bulletin, check if anything significant has happened and if not switch off again before they start pumping out the spin as in 'The BBC has learned that xxxx will announce xxxx'

[Mick F]

....... (But a bit of Western Europe is hardly the rest of the world.).......

But the World is accessing BBC for nothing. No taxes, no Licence Fee, nothing.

We Brits pay a fee for the privilege of watching TV, but the fee pays for the whole of the BBC.
Radio listeners and iPlayer watchers are getting a free ride on the backs of the TV viewers.

I want a free ride.

[Cunobelin]

We didn't watch much telly, so iPlayer fulfils our needs. DVDs provide enough too.

it's like a VED, it doesn't matter how much, just that you've got the use of ....

from their website http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/

You need to be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record TV as it's being broadcast. This includes the use of devices such as a computer, laptop, mobile phone or DVD/video recorder

Open to argument at the moment.

IIRC if you receive a signal such as through a TV card then to watch LIVE broadcasts then yes you do need a license, even if you are for nstance a foreign businessman watching your country's TV!

As yet a license is not to watch pre-recorded content when streamed or on permanent media.

There are steps to extend the license to cover this as well though to include streamed content such as iPlayer on computers and phones.

[Colin63]

I ditched the TV a few months ago. I got a nice refund from the TV licencing people and a letter to say that they'd be visiting me to check that I wasn't cheating the system. They haven't been yet. I never watched TV as I found it to be so uninspiring that I didn't even waste my time finding out was was on. I don't miss it at all and the living room is a far nicer place now that it doesn't have a big black screen in the corner. I now just use iPlayer to watch the occasional documentary, but usually content myself with the radio and podcasts to find out what goes on in the world.

An excellent move Mick, and one you'll never regret.