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Please do not write below the line

(www.bbctvlicence.com)
312 points dcminter | 2 comments | 21 Oct 24 18:42 UTC | HN request time: 0.459s | 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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kamaitachi ◴[21 Oct 24 19:43 UTC] No.41907726[source]▶
It’s not just a U.K. thing. Many European countries have something similar, although it might be called something else.

It’s a form of tax that pays for public service broadcasting, including radio stations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence#

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busterarm ◴[21 Oct 24 19:58 UTC] No.41907906[source]▶
Yes, but the UK is the only country with a license ridiculous enough to offer you a 50% discount _if you're blind_.
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gs17 ◴[21 Oct 24 20:09 UTC] No.41908015[source]▶
It sounds weirder than that to me:

> 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?

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1. Xophmeister ◴[21 Oct 24 23:10 UTC] No.41909516[source]▶
Since the switch to digital, presumably there’s no longer and signal for B&W TVs.
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2. manarth ◴[22 Oct 24 06:49 UTC] No.41911835[source]▶
There has rarely (if ever) been a separate broadcast signal for B&W vs colour. Broadcasts began in B&W, over time upgraded to colour, but there wasn't a need to broadcast Channel <whatever> in B&W and broadcast the same channel in colour on a different frequency.

One single broadcast signal, and different capabilities of receivers.