Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.
Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.
It’s a form of tax that pays for public service broadcasting, including radio stations.
It's just not enforced. Also the party platform wasn't to get rid of the license system but to encrypt the broadcast signal so that only willing NHK viewers would pay for the license.
> colour TV: £169.50 per year; monochrome TV: £57.00 per year; blind people: 50% discount
People who can't see their color TV at all pay more than people who can but have an old black-and-white one?
I've given this a lot of thought in the past. The best I could come up with is that "legally blind" could still allow for someone with _very poor_ (colour) vision...
Of course, that still doesn't make sense because to the best of my knowledge you don't need a license of any kind to listen to the radio.
Anyway, perhaps blind people want to listen to the TV. There are a lot of programs that could make sense even if you can hear but not see them.
I believe you did once upon a time, but I guess they were phased out as TVs became more popular.
>The first supplementary licence fee for colour television was introduced in January 1968. Radio-only licences were abolished in February 1971 (along with the requirement for a separate licence for car radios).
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmcu...
Oh to be a a fly on the wall when the inspector has to explain the difference to a blind person.
I think it made a lot more sense in the past. The license is set up so it’s a consumption based tax rather than taxing everyone. So only people with TVs paid TV tax. If colour increased the costs, only people consuming colour paid those increases. I imagine it made much more sense before consumption was ubiquitous
I'm no fan of national broadcasters as a concept, but I have to say, the UK is excellent when it comes to audio description, much more so than any (English speaking) country I'm aware of. It's not just the BBC either, Sky and other private broadcasters also have relatively high standards.
For years, the only English AD you could get for extremely popular HBO shows, like Game of Thrones for example, were pirated British rips from Sky, as HBO famously refused to provide the service.
If you're blind, you almost certainly qualify for a free license.
https://www.gov.uk/free-discount-tv-licence
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/for-your...
Of course, to be considered legally blind, your vision has to be that bad with the best correction available. (Below 20/200)
One single broadcast signal, and different capabilities of receivers.