We understand that plans may be afoot to extend coverage of the UK TV licence to cover Internet-based catch-up TV services, such as the BBC iPlayer.
Currently, it’s law that those in the UK pay £145.50 a year to be able to watch (or record) broadcast TV shows. In addition to TV sets and recorders, the law currently extends to watching on computers, games consoles, smartphones and portable devices (such as tablet devices and netbooks).
For the avoidance of doubt, the official TV Licensing site states:
“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.
If you only watch catch-up services online, then you don’t need a licence. For example, you don’t need one to use BBC iPlayer, or ITV player, to catch up on programmes after they have been shown on TV.”
Plans to change this are apparently being considered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, to close a loophole where householders could dispense with the licence fee and watch their favourite TV shows via an Internet connection after they have been broadcast.
According to the news story in the Guardian, only 0.2% of UK homes would be affected by this proposed change.
Any thoughts on whether watching catch-up and on-demand TV should be included or excluded from the licence fee? Please add your comment below.
The TV Licencing information is NOT law, but their interpretation of the relevant section of the Communications Act. This means the arbiter will be a Judge, not TVL. If the law is changed to embrace non-synchronous viewing of terrestrial transmissions, this might be a good time to make it a CIVIL wrong, not a criminal one.
If this was introduced it would badly effect students! They – more than anyone – use the likes of BBC iPlayer to watch TV so that they don’t have to pay the huge – for them – licence fee to watch in their rooms.
If this was to be introduced virtually every student in the UK would suddenly be required to get a TV licence. This would mean, for example, that every room in a university hall of residence would require a licence.
I think with all the interactive TVs and smartphones and tablets, many with a localised iPlayer app, I actually think soon, more people will be using iPlayer (and of course other catch-up services) than their DVR
It is quite right to ensure all of us pay for the excellant BBC service whether over the air or the internet. Catch up should be no different although frankly it is hard to believe that anyone using catch up will not also view online live. This makes the case easier to prove.
The UK is the ONLY country in the world to have a Licence fee just for watching television. Worse still is the way the Licencing authority treats you as a criminal if you choose not to watch live television. They threaten you with action and can’t believe you don’t watch live television. To extend their already overzealous authority to cover catch up internet such as iplayer and itvplayer is a step too far. If you have a computer with an internet connection, and most people do these days, just how would you prove you haven’t ever watched a catch up programme on it to then with their apparent policy of guilty unless you can prove your innocence?
Just for the record I don’t have a TV Licence at the moment as only watch perhaps one programme a week on catch up and watch DVD’s the rest of the time. I’m constantly being harrassed by the TV Licencing despite informing them I only use a television for DVD’s. They even accused me of watching a television saying they’d detected it being used when it was still packed in the delivery box!
I cannot see the logic of this – watching something on catch up services is the same as watching a DVD or download from a dvd rental company.
With your Block-The-Foreigners policy, I wonder if you’ll publish this. I’m British who only an occasionally resides in the UK.
@Stephen “The UK is the ONLY country in the world to have a Licence fee just for watching television”. Here in South Africa, TV licensing is at least as staunch, mainly because the TV licensing system is based on the UK’s. The SABC tried to recover 3 years’ licence fees while I was out of the country.
I got a Pyrrhic victory but the lawyers were the real winners :(
However, with a 5 quid a month proxy and a half-decent internet connection, I – and 7 billion others outside the UK – can overdose on catch-ups from the UK, Telly Heaven.
So now they should allow UK licence fee payers to access these services, including sport streaming on the the BBC website, from abroad at no extra charge.
I own a house in the UK and one in Spain. Naturally I pay a TV Licence but since I spend 6 months in Spain each year then essentially I’m paying double as the ‘catchup’ service – iplayer,etc – don’t work. This is down to some copywright issue which the BBC have been promising to sort out for years but nothing ever happens.
I can only echo what some other post have already said which like them I have a house in the UK but work abroad during the week in Belgium and thus iplayer is ‘off limits’ .
Like many other expats out here I just hook up to the Astra freesat service and get all the ‘freeview’ channels including BBC.
Surely a simple authentication service on iplayer which was connected to your own UK licence would get around the issue that the Beeb has been trying to sort out for ages?
I-player is a very useful program allowing one to view things that would otherwise be impossible to see. Flexability is the the thing. I am appalled at the sugeestion that it should be an addition to the licence fee.As an OAP I do not have to purchase a licence but i am up in arms for the rest.
There should be no licence fee what so ever for any body.
What about people living outside the uk who watch via the internet – will they have to have a UK tv licence?
BBC Gauleiters are discovering what it means to live in the Real World of budget cuts. After so many years of producing so much dross and so little quality, the BBC Exec’s and hangers-on, are losing a little of their privileged lifestyles. Paying so much out to so many under-talented, over-rated faces has brought about a situation whereby something has to give.
The BBC management are the equivalent of all those banks that gave out so much credit to people who could not pay it back. Now both the BBC and the bankers are looking for ways to maintain their exorbitant salaries. As usual, the British viewing public suffer.
I have a better solution. Get rid of BBC3 and BBC4. Start putting on shows on the remaining 2 channels that people will watch. Start improving the quality, instead of dumbing-down the content.
It’s about time the BBC was privatised. Then this problem would not exist!
Following on from previous comments why should people subscribing to Sky or Virgin have to pay a license Fee, My tele isnt even hooked upto an aerial although I do watch plenty of dvd’s played from my xbox or computer. Surely the bbc charges virgin and sky for the broadcast of these services in essence charging twice for the same service which by the way its fantastic watch maybe I will get around to watching it sometime. Not too mention their brilliant HD service which only plays hd about 1-3 times per day then broadcasts standard resolution the remainder of the day.
Then again I have Tivo and I do use the catch up service which is provided to watch some programs.
The TV license is far to generalised and needs to be cleaned up because soon enough you will need a tv license if you own an Ipod or have a standalone computer in your house which isnt even connected to the internet.