30,000 people in the UK still watch TV in black and white - Polidicks

Ad breaks are so damn long, BBC is awesome, especially David Attenborough shows.

[QUOTE=smurfy;18365266]Agreed. And you didn't mention they also do radio, free educational stuff like Bitesize, iPlayer, regional TV news and regional radio stations, this shit ain't cheap. [editline]04:48PM[/editline] RATINGS POLL: The TV license - good or bad? Agree if you support the license, disagree if you don't.[/QUOTE] What is the benefit for paying nearly a thousand pounds (?) for a license to own a TV? In free countries (everywhere besides Europe mostly) people buy, sell and use TV's at their own leisure. [editline]11:20AM[/editline] [QUOTE=Keegs;18384832]DVR. & OnDemand.[/QUOTE] this, Much cheaper than paying $2,107 dollars for a fascist TV licence so the gobment can take away the commercials.

[QUOTE=smurfy;18365266]Agreed. And you didn't mention they also do radio, free educational stuff like Bitesize, iPlayer, regional TV news and regional radio stations, this shit ain't cheap. [editline]04:48PM[/editline] RATINGS POLL: The TV license - good or bad? Agree if you support the license, disagree if you don't.[/QUOTE] Wow, you have to have a license to own a TV? ...Why?

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18385843]What is the benefit for paying nearly a thousand pounds (?) for a license to own a TV? In free countries (everywhere besides Europe mostly) people buy, sell and use TV's at their own leisure.[/QUOTE] So do we, as long as we have a licence

[QUOTE=Orsenfelt;18376419] We don't need cable, our terrestrial telly isn't shite. Our Cable/Satellite telly really is bollox. It's nothing but auction channels, 80's sitcom reruns and gameshow channels.[/QUOTE] Interesting. That's entirely opposite from North America. Is all of Europe this way?

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18385843]What is the benefit for paying nearly a thousand pounds (?) for a license to own a TV? In free countries (everywhere besides Europe mostly) people buy, sell and use TV's at their own leisure. [editline]11:20AM[/editline] this, Much cheaper than paying $2,107 dollars for a fascist TV licence so the gobment can take away the commercials.[/QUOTE] Where did you get those prices from? It's like £146 a year for a TV licence, which is cheaper than a basic Sky TV package, and a lot of the channels on that will be either crap or the same thing as you get on freeview. I don't really mind personally, since I probably watch more BBC channels than anything on Sky.

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18385843]What is the benefit for paying nearly a thousand pounds (?) for a license to own a TV? In free countries (everywhere besides Europe mostly) people buy, sell and use TV's at their own leisure. [editline]11:20AM[/editline] this, Much cheaper than paying $2,107 dollars for a fascist TV licence so the gobment can take away the commercials.[/QUOTE] What the hell are you talking about? It's £140-ish ($250 or so?) You can buy and sell TV's all you like, the TV License is per household, not per device or per person. If you have a tuning device in your house then that house needs a TV license. It's simple.

[QUOTE=pentium;18364727]I still laugh at how you have to have a license to have a TV in your house where everywhere else on the planet you can take one right off the street and never end up being fined $1500 because you don't have a license.[/QUOTE] What kind of backwards country forces you to have a license to watch TV?

Yeah, Britain's government does kind of beat ours. Except in the area of secret terrorist funding and grand conspiracy. That's our thing. [editline]07:38PM[/editline] [QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;18388455]What kind of backwards country forces you to have a license to watch TV?[/QUOTE] It would only be backwards if the BBC weren't an amazing news program.

Tv license keeps MASS CORPORATE SPAMBUYBUYBUYBUYSELLBUYSELLGIVEUSYOURUNUSEDGOLD off the BBC channels. Its quite nice having an hour long programme or film without advert breaks.

[QUOTE=PvtCupcakes;18388455]What kind of backwards country forces you to have a license to watch TV?[/QUOTE] The U.K They also make you pay money to use public toilets Yeah socialism is great

[QUOTE=Saxon;18393606]The U.K They also make you pay money to use public toilets Yeah socialism is great[/QUOTE] Some toilets do, most don't. However the ones that don't suffer the consequences of drunks. You can't say the U.K is backwards in comparison to the USA.

[QUOTE=Orsenfelt;18388196]What the hell are you talking about? It's £140-ish ($250 or so?) You can buy and sell TV's all you like, the TV License is per household, not per device or per person. If you have a tuning device in your house then that house needs a TV license. It's simple.[/QUOTE] It also costs anywhere from $40-100 dollars for a basic cable package with a DVR in the United States. The DVR is how people in free countries watch shows without commercials by the way.

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18396650]It also costs anywhere from $40-100 dollars for a basic cable package with a DVR in the United States. The DVR is how people in free countries watch shows without commercials by the way.[/QUOTE] You are still missing 15 minutes of show, doesn't matter if you can skip the ads or not. Hell, it's usually more than 15 minutes because of all the Pre-Cap/Re-Cap shite they have to do before and after every ad break. Have you seen Mythbusters lately, almost the entire show is "Here's what's coming up..." and "Here's what just happened.." You get like 40 minutes of actual content. We get 60 minutes. I'd pay £140 anywhere for that consistently over the course of a year.

Good luck with that totalitarian state thing you guys got going on. I wont even bother trying to bring these poor brainwashed souls into the light.

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18396827]Good luck with that totalitarian state thing you guys got going on. I wont even bother trying to bring these poor brainwashed souls into the light.[/QUOTE] A TV license is kind of silly but you're overreacting.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;18396883]A TV license is kind of silly but you're overreacting.[/QUOTE] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke[/url]

Wow, I'm surprised how many people didn't realise that you needed a TV license over here.

[QUOTE=Idi Amin;18396827]Good luck with that totalitarian state thing you guys got going on. I wont even bother trying to bring these poor brainwashed souls into the light.[/QUOTE] Good luck with your perceived freedom. Those designated free speech zones are the American dream right?

[QUOTE=pentium;18364727]I still laugh at how you have to have a license to have a TV in your house where everywhere else on the planet you can take one right off the street and never end up being fined $1500 because you don't have a license.[/QUOTE] Why the fuck would you need a license to own a television set. That's like saying... well... you need a license to own a television set. It's [b]that[/b] stupid.

You don't need a license to own a TV set. You need a license to operate a tuning device, just happens to be that most TV's have tuners. It's not like a driving license, more like a rental agreement. The license says that you are, for that year, legally allowed to operate a tuner to decode their signals.

And here we Americans are sitting with our fancy high definition television machines.

You have to get a license to have a TV in the UK? What the fuck?

[QUOTE=SomeRandomGuy18;18398873]You have to get a license to have a TV in the UK? What the fuck?[/QUOTE] Yes, because no one explained what the TV licence is about or anything :downs:

You have to pay around £140 a year if you have a TV on your property. This is because the BBC had originally the only TV channels in Britain for a while. Each TV has a tuner that decodes the signals from the BBC (or ITV etc.) and people pay for the service. So it's not a license like a driving licence. It's more of an annual payment for a service, or the many services BBC offer. Since pretty much everyone who owns a TV watches the BBC most people accept it. For the people that do they should complain to the TV manufactures to create TV's without the tuners able to decode the BBC's signals. This isn't communism or fascism as some of you are claiming, it's just a payment. [b]You pay for what you get.[/b]

[QUOTE=mike;18363533]It did make me giggle when I noticed there was a black and white option when I was paying for my TV license.[/QUOTE] You are paying for having TV ?

RE: TV licensing; Yeah, it's pretty stupid. Thankfully, iPlayer doesn't require one.

[QUOTE=Orsenfelt;18376419]Freeview is a one off payment of like £20 (For the decoder box).[/QUOTE] Only if you have one old-ass TV. [editline]06:15PM[/editline] Hi guys I'm from America, okay we need to fix this place up. First of all get some legalised guns in over there, that'll lower the crime levels yeah. Oh and get rid of this stupid gay marriage thing what the fuck is that about, and get them out of the army too. Next up ruin healthcare and don't forget to use a dated and inferior measurement system. After that you can just go right ahead and become paranoid about your government and accuse them of being totalitarian for even the slightest interference in the free market.

The British = The Original Old School

From Wikipedia "Blind people get a 50% discount on their licence" That is cold blooded. So how does that work? some government worker(SGW): "If you want to watch tv, you have to buy a license." blind guy: "I'm blind." SGW: "Oh sorry, how rude of me. You can buy one for half price, then you can watch tv."