Apparently, in Brittain, you have to have a license to watch TV. Color licenses cost 121 pounds, or $220 (US). Among the regs:
For students, if you live in a dorm and have your own TV, you have to pay for your own license.
Also for students, your parent's licenses don't count for you.
"Get caught without a TV license, and you could face a fine of up to £1000" ($1823)
Quote: "You may be asking yourself 'how will they know if I'm using a TV without a licence?' The answer is through a number of different methods.
"At the heart of our operation is the TV Licensing database. It has details of over 26 million UK addresses.
"Our officers have access to this computer system and a fleet of detector vans and hand-held detectors to track down and prosecute people who use a television without a licence."
And people think that BJU's rules are bad...
Posted by Blog Jones at March 4, 2004 04:23 PM
| Category: Politics
Sadly the TV tax isn't news to me. Anytime a Brit tries to fly up my nose about something technical I slam 'em with their archaic telecommunications and broadcasting system.
What is news to me is that the license isn't for an entire household. That's idiotic.
The rhetorical question of the hour is: How could any system that requires such freakishly invasive easures to ensure compliance be worth having?
The alternative is commercial television, which isn't so terrible; you get bathroom breaks and everything. Commercial TV would also eliminate mandatory funding of the BBC, forcing the alleged news division out of its complacency and into something resembling the real world. We call this a win-lose-win-win. (The "lose" part is that European commercials, as a rule, suck worse than American ones. But practice makes perfect.)
Posted by: Lummox JR at March 9, 2004 12:56 PM