TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England • Hacker News Board

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#481

Post by flower-giraffe » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

cheph wrote: post #367

flower-giraffe wrote: post #211

I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK. Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere. The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s. Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as…

> perhaps the license fee could also fund the infrastructure for something like signal Why like signal? Signal has no protections to avoid the same abuse as WhatsApp. While I would agree with the sentiment, I think that if EU funds anything it will just as likely be much worse than WhatsApp than better than it given their track record (e.g. stupid popups on every damn website that makes life just that extra bit worse…

> Why like signal? Signal has no protections to avoid the same abuse as WhatsApp.

I think something like signal could reasonably have sufficient protections from both a technical and legislative perspective. And for that matter matrix too.

I was not intending to highlight signal as the only possibility, by like signal I guess I meant a small a capable organisation with a clear non profit agenda.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#482

Post by philwelch » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

audunw wrote: post #286

philwelch wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point, why don’t they just have the government fund the television networks from tax revenue rather than effectively levying a poll tax earmarked for broadcasters?

It's not good for the government to have too much direct control over state media. They executive branch should not be able to change the budget from year to year on their own, since they can "punish" state media if they don't say things the government likes. Using tax revenue would generally give the executive branch power to set or at least propose the budget. When Norway recently moved to tax funding state media,…

I really don’t see how one has anything to do with the other. In the US, PBS and NPR are funded through the general fund and they still have editorial independence. But maybe that’s because the US system has a stronger separation of the legislative and executive branches.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#483

Post by Chris2048 » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

Imagine if other corps behaved like this.

If printer companies managed to get legislation written that allowed them to send people to knock on you door and check your printers are only using authorised ink.

Or Microsoft agents checking your OS licenses are in order.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#484

Post by _ph_ » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #431

_ph_ wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of having a fee vs. a tax is, that the government has no direct control of it. So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc. But it is an independant entitiy deciding about this.

> So they can't just adjust it at will. The fee is set for several years in advance and increased from time to time to adjust for inflation etc. What stops legislators from adjusting the fee at will? There’s legislation enacting the fee, defining the fee, enforcing the fee. Surely, there can be legislation to modify the fee and remove the fee. Same as any other tax.

No, the fee is not decided by the legislators. Of course they can remove the whole system or pass new laws for its mechanics, but the fee itself is not under direct government control. The effect is, that they can just sneakily shave off the budget by 10% for the next year like with budgets under government control. They would have to fundamentally change the system first, which would create a lot of opposition, as a result, so far no government hasn't done that.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#485

Post by vaduz » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:32 PM UTC

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…

>> These officers aren’t empowered to forcibly enter homes, so in the event a homeowner declines to cooperate with an investigation, TV Licencing will apply for a search warrant.

> I would be quite surprised if this has actually ever happened.

Per the BBC/Capita own data available via FOI [0] (though not without them dragging their feet and making a simple process a protracted one... not to mention they tried to withdraw the documents provided [1]), in FY 2014/2015 there were 351 enforcement requests made for all of UK, the Capita/TVL Legal made 256 applications to court for a warrant, 167 of those were granted and 115 were actually executed after being granted.

If they think they have grounds they will absolutely try to get the warrant - and note that there is a disparity between what the "commercial" arm of the enforcement thinks they can push on (351) and what the court system thinks is actually suffcient (167).

That count does not include the times where Capita/TVL managed to get enough without going that fair (the 170k cases they managed to get without warranted visits, for instance).

[0] http://tv-licensing.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/bbc-releases-tv-l... [1] https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/monthly_performance_p...

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#486

Post by SllX » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #469

audunw wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't understand why I should be forced to give money to corrupt organizations like FIFA and the IOC to hold sports events that I don't watch and otherwise don't have a stake in, State media has to broadcast some content that's actually popular, that most people want to watch, otherwise they'd soon lose political support. I hate it too, but fact is that these events are extremely popular, especially among…

State media must focus on content that is useful to the society, not what is popular. Otherwise, why do you even need the state interference?

You don’t, and it is a choice.

State media does have some interesting trade offs for Europe specifically though. If a country doesn’t have that large of an addressable media market you might not get a lot of local language options without the state media.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#487

Post by vaduz » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #429

saberdancer wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. My problem with this type of license fee collection is that it bring forward a number of costs associated with it that could be removed if it went directly from taxes and that today everyone has TV so it doesn't really "t…

I don't have a TV, nor do I need one. Would I get a rebate?

You can apply for exemption [0] - needs to be reconfirmed every 2 years and sometimes more often if TVL/Capita thinks there 'might' have been changes you did not report (e.g. you subscribed to a service that participates in their reporting scheme - NowTV is one of the providers that reports their customers). You pay nothing if you qualify for one of the four exemption bases.

Note: if the exemption lapses without a new one in place (or a license purchase), they will actually send goons to 'investigate' after a short period.

[0] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#488

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

carschno wrote: post #448

saberdancer wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. My problem with this type of license fee collection is that it bring forward a number of costs associated with it that could be removed if it went directly from taxes and that today everyone has TV so it doesn't really "t…

No, the idea never was to "tax the rich". The license fees as present in many European countries are not taxes because the broadcasters are independent from the governments, including full control over what they do with _their_ budget. The idea is that the governments cannot (threaten to) cut their budgets to enforce pro-government reporting on public broadcasters.

[deleted]

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#489

Post by YinglingLight » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #369

flower-giraffe wrote: post #211

I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK. Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere. The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s. Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as…

Strongly agreed. Having lived in the US for a good number of years now I can see how the idea of vans roaming looking for TV viewers is baffling, but the public TV offering by the BBC, while definitely not perfect, is miles ahead of both the public and network offerings on US TV (though credit to the likes of PBS and NPR for doing miraculous work with a fraction of the budget!). I even got my start in computing from…

Oy open up! Do you have a licence for that telly?

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#490

Post by joostdevries » Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

In 1969 the national TV news broadcast in the Netherlands reported that inspectors would be driving through the streets to catch people who hadn't paid their license fee. "Surely people won't be wrapping their tvs in aluminium foil. So we'll catch them!" Aluminium foil was sold out the next day. The date was april 1st.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_aprilgrap#Jaren_60