The annual farcical bill from TV Licensing is here again – pay £142.50 or we’ll... (From Bucks Free Press)

The annual farcical bill from TV Licensing is here again – pay £142.50 or we’ll...

10:29am Friday 10th July 2009 in

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I HAD several things I wanted to write about this week, but all bets were off when a letter containing an outrageous cash demand dropped on my mat on Monday.

It was from a mob ordering me to pay £142.50 by the end of the month or face the possibility of criminal prosecution.

Yes, you’ve guessed it... it’s the annual farcical bill from TV Licensing which gets increasingly absurd every year.

The letter took pains to remind me “it’s illegal to watch or record TV programmes at this address as they’re being shown on TV”.

I write about this every year ,but it somehow always comes as a surprise to me when the renewal notice drops.

For I find the principle to be disgraceful in that I am being ordered on pain of prosecution to pay through the nose for something that gives me almost no benefit whatsoever.

The BBC is dear to many people, of course, and I use its website and radio stations. But as far as telly is concerned, it’s of marginal benefit.

I watched Torchwood and EastEnders this week, but I could very easily do without these shows because there is a multitude of channels these days. I have just bought a new set and paid for satellite that gives me access to tonnes of stations.

So why am I still paying for the Beeb as well? Why have I no choice in the matter?

I went on to TV Licensing’s website and had to laugh. This is what it said: “You must be covered by a valid TV licence if you watch or record television programmes as they’re being shown on TV.

“It makes no difference what equipment you use – whether it’s a laptop, PC, mobile phone, digital box, DVD recorder or a TV set – you still need a licence.”

It adds, however: “You do not need a TV licence to view video clips on the internet, as long as what you are viewing is not being shown on TV at the same time as you are viewing it.”

Who on earth worked out this criteria? Was it Monty Python? It reads like a spoof, but it’s not funny that so much money, time and effort have been invested in devising a set of rules for licensing electronic equipment.

There’s more absurdities on the website. It boasts: “At the heart of our operation is the TV Licensing database. This contains more than 29.5million home, business and student addresses, telling us which of these have a TV licence. All of our enforcement officers have access to this database and can check whether or not you have a licence.”

So Big Brother is indeed alive and well, but concentrating all his efforts on seeing if you watch telly.

And there’s more. TV Licensing boasts of having a fleet of detector vans capable of detecting the use of TV receiving equipment within 20 seconds. It adds that many of its enforcement officers carry hand-held detection devices too.

I have always found detector vans risible beyond belief. I went several years without a telly and generally felt hounded by their notes and their door knocks. The detection simply involved detecting that I lived in a house without a licence.

The website helpfully tells you what to do if you don’t need a licence: You must notify TV Licensing in writing if this is the case and one of its enforcement officers may visit you to confirm that you do not need a licence.

Er, why? If you don’t have a telly why should you waste your time writing to this organisation?

There is so much wrong in the world, so much crime and disorder. Yet, we have these vast resources being poured into the relentless pursuit of television licensing. Once upon a time, there might have been a place for this, but it’s gone now.

TV and the world have moved on. We’re supposed to live in a free democracy, not a world where you have specific legal rules governing just how you use your electronic equipment. One day when this has all been swept away, our children will look back and imagine TV licences were created by a dictator such as Joseph Stalin.

The BBC is meant to stand for everything that is good about Britain. Freedom, democracy, decency and human rights. But it survives on the principle of petty persecution.

Transfer this fee to the income tax or VAT, or make them get commercials. I don’t care. Anything is better than forcing normal law-abiding people on pain of prosecution to shell out £142.50 for no reason and no benefit for the privilege of simply owning a piece of electronic equipment.