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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
313 points dcminter | 2 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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cooper_ganglia ◴[21 Oct 24 19:34 UTC] No.41907633[source]▶
A "TV License" is one of those things I alway assumed people were making up to satirize the claims of over-regulation & bureaucracy in the UK.

Finding out it was real was a mixture of hilarious and sobering.

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TillE ◴[21 Oct 24 19:36 UTC] No.41907663[source]▶
It's basically a whole parallel tax collection system, which is truly nuts. Like the administrative overhead alone surely outweighs any abstract concerns about independence from government, which doesn't really exist in the UK anyway.
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1. cooper_ganglia ◴[21 Oct 24 19:43 UTC] No.41907733[source]▶
The lines that really got me in this post were:

> A Licensing officer may call at your property not to collect the letters but to check that you are not watching a TV.

and

>...Cas Scott has said that the letters are not sought by TVL/BBC agents who make street visits.

Like, they show up at your home and ask to physically view your TV to make sure you aren't watching TV! It's so incredibly bonkers to me, I'm laughing out loud at work at the mental image!

Never change, UK, never change.

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2. madeofpalk ◴[21 Oct 24 19:48 UTC] No.41907804[source]▶
It’s weird. They don’t have any actual authority, so if they turn up you can just say “No”.

In my seven years of living in the UK, I’ve paid the TV licence for two years, and had one visit (who I shut the door on).