Boxed in: Battle rages over TV fee:
A 44-year-old Web site designer, Oldham is not now and never plans to be a member of the television-owning public, having given it up in exasperation when “Inspector Morse” went into reruns. But for more than a decade he has been enmeshed in a bizarre pas de deux with the agency that polices television ownership in Britain, and that seems intent on proving him a liar.No matter how much Oldham protests, he said, stern letters come inexorably in the mail, informing him (in case he has forgotten) that he has not paid the £121, or $233, BBC license fee required annually of every owner of a “telly.” If indeed he is found to be harboring a television illegally, they remind him, he could be fined £1,000 or wind up in jail.
No TV and no beer make Homer something something.
More on radio spectrum policy: 1 2
Via The Agitator.
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Japan has the same policy, to support NHK, except it’s monthly and collected in person. I cannot imagine how they make a net profit on that kind of operation.
They make a joke out of it, because the collectors announce themselves. So….just don’t answer the door.
And I thought PBS was bad! This is just another reminder of how statist Europe is. If the prospects for liberty in the U.S. are slim, it appears that they are none in Europe.
I understand New Zealand had a similar thing until the mid ’90s, when a lot of people started refusing to pay the fee, and the government eventually gave up and cancelled it. Go tax-protesters!
Although far from perfect, Wikipedia has some notes regarding the anecdote mentioned by Peter:
Reorganisation
In 1976, the NZBC was dissolved and replaced by the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand (BCNZ), with the two television channels, Television One and Network Two, initially run separately from BCNZ. The NZBC Symphony Orchestra was to be known simply as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
In 1988, the BCNZ was dissolved and replaced by two separate ‘State-Owned Enterprises’ (SOEs) Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and Television New Zealand (TVNZ). A new government agency, called the Broadcasting Commission or New Zealand on Air (NZOA), took over responsibility for the television licence fee, now called the broadcasting fee.
Commercialisation
Although RNZ’s services continued to be funded by the broadcasting fee, TVNZ now increasingly depended on advertising, and ratings battles with the new television station TV3. Rather than being used to fund TVNZ, the broadcasting fee was used for public service broadcasting for other TV services.
Since the 1970s, the licence fee had been capped at NZ$100 a year, and was not allowed to increase with inflation. In real terms, this meant that public funding of broadcasting in New Zealand was greatly reduced by the time the broadcasting fee was finally abolished in 1999.
The New Zealand First party, briefly in coalition government between 1996 and 1999, has proposed the re-establishment of a single public service broadcaster, to be called New Zealand Broadcasting (NZB).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_broadcasting_in_New_Zealand
Being from Germany I wish I could read mises.org’s articles on advancing socialism all over the world without having to say ‘Hey, we got that here too!’.
So: Hey, we have got a fee for public TV and radio! It is ‘only’ like US$25 a month and you basically cannot avoid paying it at all. The German Federal Constitutional Court has even held that you have to pay for TVs that are technically manipulated so that you cannot watch public TV, because you theoretically could change that if you only wanted to.
I did not know people in the UK and other European countries pay a fee to own and watch TV. That is preposterous! What if you use the TV to watch only DVDs or video recordings? Do you have to pay the government to own YOUR property also?
In Mexico we don’t pay such a fee to watch TV but we have something similar: we have to pay a yearly fee to own a CAR – yes, it is called that, a right-to-own-it fee, never mind that I bought MY car with MY money, not lease it from the government. In fact I have not paid for 2004, as many others have not either, and now the government (ever so sly) is going to issue new licence plates that will replace ALL previous (and expensive) licence plates in order to make people pay what they “owe” the goverment! Now that is what I call “public investment”.
Francisco
I had no idea that Brits had to pay an annual tax for their televisions!
On the other hand, maybe it’s more fair than in the United States where everyone has to pay for PBS even if they don’t own a TV.
Francisco-
yes, because you could possibly use it for TV you have to pay for any TV you own, no matter how you actually use it. From the beginning of this year on the fee got expanded on computers that can receive TV signals. From next year on they want to further expand it to any computer able to go on the internet.
Yes, the BBC is harsh but at least you get quality tv. I just have to look at the website to see all the choices. NHK is pure weak-kneed, xenophobic, time-wasting shite. Quote me on that and add that it crawls up the arseholes of slimey Japanese politicians and alters any controversial content of its program.
I don`t pay NHK because of its discrimination against non Japanese, its propaganda, its expense and it`s pure shite. It`s a fucking disgrace. I would be happy to pay for a station like the BBC.
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