Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

hackaday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 562 posts

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#121

Post by switch007 »

IshKebab wrote: post #40

> To encourage compliance, TV Licencing regularly sends sternly worded letters to those who have let their licence lapse or have not purchased one. This is an understatement. It would be fairer to say they constantly spam you with scare mail. > In the event this fails, they may arrange a visit from enforcement officers. That's what they want you to think. In practice it never really happens. Too expensive. Hence the…

The letters are quite hilarious, e.g. (paraphrased) beginning:

"175678561

This is a case number that has been assigned to your property and will be used for all investigations.

An investigation officer may be sent to your property to interview you under caution.

... "

They do send people round though. They probably just hope to peek through the window and hope gullible people will let them in and sign paperwork.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#122

Post by mschuster91 »

lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

> I am pretty sure I read somewhere that they never existed and where basically "created" to fear people into paying the fees.

We actually do have detector vans - they belonged to the RegTP, now Bundesnetzagentur, and are used to pinpoint pirate radios, malfunctioning equipment, and check if private point-to-point radios requiring licenses actually have licenses: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Sachgebiete/Telekommunik...

In 2019, the BNetzA was out in 4.700 cases of radio interference - mostly it was WiFi routers using bands that are not allowed in Germany, but there were also 1.200 cases where interference hit sensitive communications like police radio or airplane communications: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/gadgets/bundesnetzagentur-be...

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#123

Post by mothsonasloth »

The article fails to point out that today the enforcement vans are replaced by harassing enforcement officers.

These are contracted through slimey companies like Serco and Capita (Crapita).

I don't normally say it but it really is an example of the nanny state.

Check this video out, it's an eye opener https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcLqvFjMhE&t=608

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#124

Post by thaumasiotes »

ohazi wrote: post #105
lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

> no way for them to prove I was actually owning a television (Emphasis mine) This "playing fast and loose with language" that they do (and that you inadvertently did too, just now) makes me so irrationally angry. Why would the burden of proof be that low? They need ( should need?) to prove that you received broadcast television , not that you simply owned a TV. We hear these stories about TV detector vans as if find…

> We hear these stories about TV detector vans as if finding a TV set was ever sufficient evidence.

The vans would be detecting radio activity; there's nothing to detect if the TV is off.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#125

Post by _ph_ »

Aachen wrote: post #17
comprev wrote: post #2

Ireland also requires a TV license for each home. If you have any device _capable_ of receiving a signal you're required to pay.... even if you only use the TV for games consoles or Netflix.

Same in Germany, or at least it used to be that way and somewhat recently they just got rid of the requirement to have a TV. It's just yet another tax. Moving to Germany feels a bit like they pretend to keep "tax rates" low by splitting out various things and making it "not a tax". In the Netherlands I had income tax and that was it, from that the govt just pays development aid and old age money (AOW) as needed. Here…

The fee not being a tax in Germany is an important distinction for a very basic reason: The government has no direct control over it. The whole reason for the public TV and radio to exist is to create independent media, especially also independent from the state. So while the government is involved as far as it guarantees the system, it has no further control about it. So the government can't threaten to cut funds, just because they don't like critical reporting. And guess what, the right wing extremists are constantly asking for the end of that system.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#126

Post by eecc »

dsnr wrote: post #97
sleavey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…

> A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. If you ever move out, make sure to let them know, otherwise they will keep hunting you for ever.

He he, you’re woke man... you pay for health insurance?

/s

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#127

Post by tannhaeuser »

lqet wrote: post #38

> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. I know at least three countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) which do the same (edit: according the Wikipedia [0], such a fee exists in basically every European country, Japan, Israel, South Korea and Namibia). In Germany, the situation changed a few years…

German public broadcasters in particular used to justify gross per-household fees by arguing free-to-air TV can be received by everyone, and pushed FTA DVB2 over antenna a couple years ago with spotty reception, and only in metropolitan areas, years ago. That argument is as comically out-of-date as it ever was, with CI/CAM devices (for SmartCard readers) being installed on every Smart TV and set-top box since the SD/DVB1 times. Even though they argue they act in accordance with the majority, they know quite well that they'd loose a large percentage of their audience out of inertia alone when they'd be doing the decent thing and require SmartCards for those who actually want to watch their TV programs which, as far as entertainment goes, is mostly bottom-of-the-barrel palliative-care crime series plus expensive programs for corrupt sports (the good stuff is mostly on radio IMO).

But public broadcasters also have expansive web/IP presence, and even use Facebook for public communication (ZDF), when in their news/opinion pieces they rant against social media LOL.

Public broadcasters today seem just to create a self-serving and self-referential media presence for politicians, in these times of Coronavirus more than ever. Tonight, they're going to push for even stronger measures including curfews (!) even though infections are going down; needless to say, without parliamentary participation. The whole thing is getting out of hands with irrationality fast right now.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#128

Post by boffinism »

The BBC is currently dedicating hours of airtime a day to educational content to match our primary and secondary curricula because the schools are shut and lots of kids can't access online provisions. And still people complain about the licence fee in terms of whether or not they enjoy BBC gameshows...

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#129

Post by hef19898 »

dsnr wrote: post #97
sleavey wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Germany, the situation changed a few years ago, every household has to pay now, even if they don't own a television or radio. This was literally the first piece of mail I got when I moved to Germany: a letter demanding I pay for the TV networks I don't watch. I didn't even own a TV by that point, nor would have understood much of what was being said! A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-w…

> A German explained to me once that the forced payment by non-watchers is justified as it benefits society as a whole. Do they really believe these things? This is the Kool-Aid you have to drink as a society, in order not to go crazy when you pay for things you never use and benefit from. If you ever move out, make sure to let them know, otherwise they will keep hunting you for ever.

Do we believe that the "household-fee" serves the greater good? No, I'd say not really. It was, IMHO, public broadcasts solution to the icreasing number of people preferring streaming and the internet over traditional television. And more importantly the decreasing revenue.

Are these fees generally speaking a good thing? I'd say yes, because you get a non-add dependant news source. Is the implementation, especially in germany, perfect? Of course not. It still has a place, so.

EDIT: If you move, you declare you address change to the authorities anyway. Everything depending on your address, government-wise and some other stuff, is then done automatically. Not relevant here, but that includes ballots.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#130

Post by alkonaut »

CodeGlitch wrote: post #30
chrisseaton wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called a 'TV licence' but know that it also pays for all your radio. I don't watch much TV but I do listen to a lot of radio every day, like many British people.

I've not listened to the radio in 10+ years - my audio consumption is all from Podcasts, which IMHO blows any radio out of the water. It's not live but I don't need it to be.

I think the key benefit of a narrow selection of live programming is the idea that a lot of people listen to the same things. The discussions that follow a program, between people who watched or listened to it (which could be a significant chunk of your friends or coworkers) is to me at least as important as the content itself.

With podcasts and streaming I often find the discussion starts and ends with "yes I listened to an interesting podcast about that...". Perhaps that will make someone else listen to it the next day, but the window of opportunity for discussion is gone.

Post reply on HN