I can't believe that no one has made a connection between these and Monty Python's cat detector vans ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2maz36_q6Fk )
Never seen so many bleeding aerials!
TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
511–520 of 562 posts
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#512Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing with the BBC is that people on both sides of the political spectrum claim it's biased towards the other guys. That at least suggests that its overall balance is relatively neutral, even if specific individual programmes it broadcasts may not be. I do feel that in recent times, the BBC's big name current affairs programmes have often given politicians of all parties an easy time in interviews, which I think…
I think BBC is biased towards the establishment, not left or right.
Correct answer.
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#513> The United Kingdom is somewhat unique in the world for requiring those households which view broadcast television to purchase a licence for the privilege. This is actually pretty common and almost everywhere in Europe. I will never stop being surprised by how little my fellow British people know about other countries.
[deleted]
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ne…
The official word from TV Licensing is quite misleading (which admittedly is in their interest). You do not require any exemption nor to correspond with them at all.
Their "officers" are private individuals employed by a private company who have no special rights to enter your property. Absent a search warrant, it is almost certainly a mistake to allow them to enter your property.
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#515Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you also complaining about other parts of societal funding that does not benefit everyone? You could argue about so many things that might not affect you directly (schools, police, roads, …) but at the end of the day you may also profit indirectly from those as well (more educated people, fewer crimes, proper goods distribution, …).
How could you possible live in Germany and not benefit in someway from the roads? And everyone pretty much relies on the existence of the police/hospitals, even if they rarely need their services. A million miles from what is mostly a luxury good with lots of competition.
Exactly my point, but I was downvoted.
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
BBC also sat on their 10 million hour archive of media while the internet, social networks, Wikipedia and blogs went ahead commenting, sharing, indexing, discussing and remixing other sources of content. They cared so much for their copyrights that their media became unconnected and unused.
The BBC and developed the web based on-demand video platform that inspired Netflix back in 2005 and operates the world's most visited news website. They did this despite having fixed funding, charter obligations not to advertise around their content and royalty obligations to producers.
While locking out most of that content for people outside the UK..
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of those shows aren't BBC though. Take that list in question: - Taskmaster: Channel 4 (originally Dave. In fact before that it was a Edinburgh Fringe Festival show written by "little" Alex Horne) - Would I Lie To You: BBC - 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown: Channel 4 (interestingly it's a spin off of "8 out of 10 Cats" which was C4's sort of version of "Have I Got News For You" but C4 did an anniversary series o…
>- Taskmaster: Channel 4 (originally Dave. In fact before that it was a Edinburgh Fringe Festival show written by "little" Alex Horne) Dave is owned by BBC Studios, which is the commercial arm that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC.
Dave / UKTV might be owned by the BBC but they're not funded by the licence fee and operate independently. Much like the BBC America example I cited elsewhere. As you said yourself, it's a commercial station. So they wouldn't be subject to the same "squeezed" licence fee funding that we are discussing.
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Then pay for it with taxes on sales of television sets themselves.
Pay for a recurring service via a one-off payment? What could go wrong?!
Aside from that, a TV license is £157 a year. Let's say a TV lasts three years (which feels conservative, pretty sure I had my last TV for eight), you'd need to get the buyer to pay an extra £471 when they purchase their TV. How is front-loading such a payment in the interests of the viewer? Not to mention you don't have to pay the fee if you're only watching streaming services like Netflix.
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#519Earlier quoted context omitted.
Live is something as broadcast by a U.K. licensed broadcaster. YouTube lives wouldn’t count for example, nor do zooms.
Unfortunately that is incorrect. You need a TV license even if you only watch foreign broadcasts: https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ16
Commmunications act 2003 sec 368 specifies it applies to television programmes
A Tim Dodd livestream of a spacex launch, or Potato McWhisky live-streaming a civ6 session is not a television programme.
(If they were they would be subject to various ofcom rules)
Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England
#520Earlier quoted context omitted.
They were a real thing. When an old style TV amplifies the TV signal and feeds it to the CRT tube, it leaks a lot of the boosted signal. I think the rumour that the vans were a fake was probably because they only ever had a few and it was mostly a propaganda show, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. Intelligence agencies used receivers to snoop in on CRT computer monitor signals and could re-generate the display…
They were fake. It would be extremely difficult on most streets and impossible in virtually all tower blocks to triangulate an exact location to a single house/flat. And the design was ridiculous. A working detector doesn't need to look anything like an aerial stuck on top of a minivan. And the only record of them being used in a prosecution is for optical detection of combined RGB. Plus some handwaving. Not RF. So t…
So the linked articles in actual post office electrical engineering journals from the time, over several decades, including detailed calculations and implementation details were also fake?
Plus they managed to somehow infiltrate a fake freedom of information request detailing a BBC application for a warrant based on TV detection, and internal documents detailing the operation of the relevant department and its legal basis of operation, into the whatdotheyknow FOI requests archive?
It seems unlikely, especially for varied forms of evidence over such a long period.