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£1,000 fines for TV licence dodgers who watch online
Mark Prigg, Technology Correspondent28.10.08
THE TV Licensing Authority today launched a crackdown on people watching programmes on mobile phones and computers at the same time as they are broadcast.
It said many people wrongly believe they did not need a TV licence if they did not own a television. The TVLA pledged to track down offenders and warned they face a £1,000 fine.
Viewers are increasingly abandoning TVs in favour of watching channels online. The latest computers, games consoles and even mobile phones are now capable of receiving live TV broadcasts.
"There is a clear rise in the number of people watching TV channels via other means, and we need to make them aware of the rules," said a TVLA spokesman. "Many TV channels are now broadcast live over the internet. If you're watching programmes on a computer or laptop as they are broadcast, then you need a TV licence."
The so called "catch up" services, such as the BBC iPlayer, do not need a licence, said the TVLA. "You will need a licence to watch any channel live online, but you wouldn't need one to use BBC iPlayer to catch up on an episode of Strictly Come Dancing you missed, for instance."
ITV already offers live streams of its channels, and the BBC has plans to offer its channels live soon via its website. Several mobile phone companies also offer this service.
"A lot of people used it to watch the Olympics from their desk, so we ran a campaign to make them aware of the issue then," said the spokesman.
Students have been identified as one of the main problem areas. The TVLA is calling for online warnings.
Reader views (17)
Another unenforceable, except where some numpty confesses, nonsense foisted upon us. Encrypt it, and let the rest of us live in peace.
- Stuart, Dumfries
"If there's a surefire way to guarantee appalling TV in the future, it's to privatise the BBC" writes Rob in Liverpool.
With one exception, some wildlife programmes, the BBC is just as appalling as the commercial channels NOW not in the future.
Make it a subscription based organisation.
- Frank Mcgill, Oxford
The fact that liberals agree with the public being threatened into paying for the BBC shows how bad things are today. 21st century Britain seems to be a minority forcing the majority to subsidise them because they know best.
Rob the quote is correct and if you Google "Esther Rantzen No one is going to tempt people into paying
for the BBC) the only method is the fear of what will happen if you don't." you will find it
- Jon, broughton
Rob, How on this earth can you try and put your BBC TV Licence in the same league as the Rail Network, NHS, Education system. The BBC is not a vital public service and therefore could be privatised tomorrow. The only people who would miss the BBC TV Licence are the liberal/left who go as far as to try and compare it to our everyday public services! (crazy people)
- Don, Swinton
Are they making up the rules as they go?
What's next - you'll have to buy a license if you watch tv at a friend's house?
- Diana, Edinburgh
If there's a surefire way to guarantee appalling TV in the future, it's to privatise the BBC ... like all Britain great institutions (Rail Network, NHS, Education system) - admired from afar by our international neighbours - the free-market idiots (driven by self-interest or a general reluctance to pay for anything!) are attempting to dismantle it in favour of a dumbed down, "lowest-common denominator" service - filled no doubt with talent shows, soaps and adverts for debt relief/compensation claims/double glazing etc.
It's a rare day when I agree with Esther Rantzen (if the quote is correct) ... but sometimes people need to be educated the hard way.
- Rob, Liverpool, UK
TVLA no longer exists however their is a TVL (capita) who get paid around £500 million by the BBC to intimidate and threaten people (check the letters and phone calls!). The fact they still refer to it as TVLA shows these people don't have a clue what they're doing.
- Malc, Eccles
As usual the BBC have made it very misleading to scare people into paying them. The truth is you can watch shows online without a BBC TV licence if the show isn't "live". You see the mighty BBC survives on scare tactics & misleading people and this article is a prime example of it.
Esther Rantzen, the broadcaster, said:
"No one is going to tempt people into payingfor the BBC) the only method is the fear of what will happen if you don't.
- John, Salford
It's ridiculous that such British bodies still want to prune the right of the citizens to be free and choose the means they want to use to watch their tv programmes. If the licence worked fine in the past, it's time for these pinstriped people to realize a new age is coming where there will be no boundaries for people to get the information they want, whenever they want, and for free. To try to charge such a licence on people on the 21st internet century shows how stupid rulers can be by not allowing people to gather more information that concerns them and which can make them "richer" people in knowledge, culture, and information per se. A shame that limits our rights to be informed whenever we want, wherever we want, using the technology we want, because this is the reason why so much has been done to develop such gadgets: to help people be better people.
- John, Madrid, Spain
The BBC continue to waste licensepayers money, yet have the gall to alienate yet more viewers.
Time to get rid of these freeloading fat cats and make them compete in an open market.
- Harry Barracuda, Manama, Bahrain
Definitely time to either ditch the licence fee or make all parts of the BBC available by subscription, so one could choose whether to spend money on sport, films, arts (BBC 4), entertainment, etc. Further split - I'd pay for Snooker and Rugby but not Darts, Tennis, Football, etc...
Split the charges based on the current split of funding (high time for BBC Trust to make that split clearer - and no excuses about commercially sensitive - after all the fees collected are 3,400 Million or so!)
If there's a fine then just like other government / police bodies being fined, it means we as taxpayers have to pay it (or lose some portion of services that can no longer be afforded), and where do those big fines go... into Government / quango coffers?
- Peter In Wales, Cardiff
In America we have always been amused at the UK with a charge to watch TV. If you have cable here, you pay the cable company but if you have an ant. it is free. Now you charge for TV when you have no TV. Amazing. I love the UK but they charge for EVERYTHING ! It is simply noit the same place I visited years ago.
- Ruckus, Myrtle Beach USA
Scrap the wrethed licence fee, it's only for yet anothe rlayer of public sector staff, disguised as private.
Make them earn their money in the real world...PRIVATISE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- P I Staker, London
"people wrongly believe they did not need a TV licence if they did not own a television".
What a wonderful quote. Out of interest then - if you only tape/copy programmes and watch them at a time other than when they are broadcast but do so on a TV, do you need a licence? The answer of course is yes but I think regulations around the TV licence are going to get very complicated.
- Suzzy, UK
Time to ditch the licence fee.
- Alan In Bow, London
Thats it go nail the students the ones who cannot afford it.
They should be able to watch for free given the extortionate fees they have to pay for their education. The only economical product they are offered in all their time at university is alcohol!! What a society
- Barney Rubble, Guildford
In the light of the Ross-Brand scandal where BBC executives failed in their duty to scan and then ban the outrageous radio broadcast, it is high time the Licensing Fee was scrapped once and for all. Agter all, the money we pay goes indirectly into Jonathan's pocket to waste on more of his juvenile pranks and his Hampstead 'millionaires row' life-style.
- Keith Price, Luton, England
