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.
In Germany, you cannot even legally listen to the radio without such a license (GEZ). It's also slightly more expensive than the UK TV License, coming in just under Netflix' premium plan (while offering mostly shite in return).
To clarify: currently, it doesn’t matter what you actually do (listen to radio, own a radio, own a TV…), everyone has to pay, unless they are exempt (due to low income, other social security, or being deaf and blind at the same time). So it doesn’t matter if you listen to radio or not. You (or the household you live in to be exact) has to pay.