Talk:Television licensing in the United Kingdom

Availability of new black-and-white sets?

Given that there would appear to be a definite market for them due to the lower license fee, are new black-and-white TV sets still available in the UK? Thanks! - knoodelhed (talk) 01:23, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Maplin used to sell them back in 2013. Haven't seen any new ones on sale since then. 2A00:23C6:7F84:8E00:A814:6E1D:FD05:10E8 (talk) 19:25, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

They haven't been sold since the analogue TV signals were switched off in 2012. Actually for some time before then, and in preparation for it, dealers were only selling the flatscreen TVs with "Freeview" built in, and none of those were ever made as "black and white" versions.

RFC: Changes to over-75s licence fee

The consensus is to include the material. Suggestions that it might not happen should be included in the article if and only if the suggestions can be reliably sourced.

Cunard (talk) 00:18, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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It has been announced that the TV licence concession for over-75s is to be abolished from 2020. This decision is widely reported by reliable sources. Given that its implementation is in the future, should it be included in this article, or omitted until 2020? Cnbrb (talk) 17:39, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

It should not be included until it actually happens or becomes a certainty (per WP:CRYSTAL). Although the change has been announced by the BBC, they no longer control collection of the licence fee as it has now become a tax collected by the government of which a portion is given to the BBC. In spite of what you may have read in the press, as with any tax, it is the government that have the final say over its implementation. The change is sufficiently controversial that there is much opposition. The current priministerial contenders are playing down the issue in order to avoid alienating potential supporters. To be included in the article, WP:CRYSTAL requires that the change must be 'almost certain'. The level of controversy and opposition is such that it is far from 'almost certain'. 109.152.226.245 (talk) 10:44, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

It should be included. The BBC takes complete control of the concession from April 2020 (see 2016 agreement between Government and BBC quoted in article). It has announced it will change the concession in June 2020. It has issued a decision document (https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/reports/consultation/age-related-tv-licence-policy) giving its reasons. It is uncontroversial to state the BBC's own plan about its own concession given that it has been openly announced by the BBC and has been commented on by numerous reliable sources. It should also be noted that WP:CRYSTAL refers to articles about future events. Here we are dealing with an article about TV licensing in the UK. Given that the BBC has, since 1991, been responsible for the TV licensing system in the UK, it is perfectly in order to include a mention of its plans for its own licence. In answer to another point by 109.152.226.245, the BBC has been responsible for collecting the licence fee since 1991. The reclassification of the fee as a tax in 2006, has not changed this.193.105.48.21 (talk) 09:08, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, include it, assuming there are reliable sources. But the fact that should be written about is that it has been announced, not that it will happen. I.e. in the style of it has been announced, that... and according to this policy <X> would happen. Like anonymous IP user already pointed out, we can't predict the future, but that does not mean we cannot report on planned future actions. Hecato (talk) 10:08, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

You have just made a case for its exclusion. You have stated that although it has been announced "not that it will happen" (your quote). WP:CRYSTAL prohibits its inclusion unless it is "almost certain to take place" (part of criterion No. 1). Your post suggests that you are not certain that it will take place, and indeed it is not certain as there is considerable opposition. 109.152.222.10 (talk) 17:50, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Simply mentioning that this change has been announced does not require any prediction about the future. The announcement has happened in the past. Cheers Hecato (talk) 20:36, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• Include - This is directly and manifestly relevant to the article, and the information is obviously well sourced and notable. The suggestions of WP:CRYSTAL make little sense given the solidity and integrity of the sourcing - this is not idle commentary or prediction. The new policy has been announced and discussed and widely covered, making it inherently notable. Suggestions (from a single editor) that it might not happen, and therefore this material should not be included unless and until it does occur, is surely relying on the entirely UN-sourced personal predictions of an anonymous individual, in the absence of any reliable sources saying the same thing. (And even if such sources DID exist, that too would be notable and would similarly merit inclusion here.) It simply does not make sense to delete sensible, well-sourced and relevant information. Bonusballs (talk) 19:45, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your input. It's good to get some wider perspectives from other editors and, as always, far preferable to the confrontational approach. I didn't think it was particularly problematic, given the coverage.Cnbrb (talk) 11:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

• Include , mentioning the possibility it might not happen. The proposal has created a political stir, which should be covered here. Of course. Johnbod (talk) 03:16, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I don't have a source saying that it might not happen, but if the possibility of the announcement being reversed, it can always be added later. Cnbrb (talk) 12:18, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Radio licences

Can we clear up some issues about radio licences - either here, or elesewhere.

AIUI:

• The radio licence was introduced with the early days of the BBC. It was a levy on new sets, from UK manufacturers. It could be evaded legally by imported sets (not sure if this was legal, or if it should be paid on importation), or by home-built sets. The levy was a one-off per set, not a an annual and there was no effort at enforcement on listeners.
• Was there any sort of licence stamp on such a licensed radio?
• When VHF services began, this licence either changed or was seen as a more serious target for enforcement?
• The whole radio licence system was witdrawn in 1971.

Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 12:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Your understanding is incorrect on every level.

The 'broadcast receiving licence', to give it its correct name, was not a levy on anything. It was a physical licence that you had to obtain from the Post Office to operate any receiver capable of receiving any type of wireless telegraphy wave (television was yet to appear at first). One licence covered the entire household to operate any number of receivers. Except: that the basic licence did not cover any receiver permanently installed in a road vehicle. For that, an extra licence was required. In the 1960's, removeable car radios were quite popular as they were exempt from the extra licence (plus thieves couldn't nick that which was not there).

When television was introduced in 1936, an extra licence was required for the reception of the 'BBC Television Service'. Ultimately, some time after the war, the differing licences were rolled into one, the difference being in the stamp applied to the licence form.

In 1967, when colour broadcasts were started, a new and more expensive colour licence was introduced. In the early 1970's the requirement for a licence for audio only receivers was dropped, and a licence was only required for television receivers (either colour or black and white).

As an aside, the television licensing authorities insisted for around two decades, that a television licence was required for a cable television (i.e. one that did not receive wireless radio waves). This was challenged in 1974, when a resident's association for an estate where TV aerials were prohibited (forcing the residents to rent an overpriced TV to operate with the proprietary redifusion cable system) insisted that the existing TV licence did not cover cable TVs. They pointed out that the wording on the licence as to what it did cover specifically licenced only receivers that received wireless signals and displayed a TV picture. Although the licensing authority never took the case to court, said resident's association was hacked off when the law (and the wording on the licence) was changed within the year. -RFenergy (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks. Do you have a date (and ideally a source we can use) for the first date of a radio licence? Why do some sources (see the newspaper sources linked from the detector van article) claim that there was an issue about foreign sets?

Around 1963, a new generation of TV detector van was developed. Some effort and complexity went into making these also capable of detecting VHF radios. Any idea why? Some vague sources have implied that this was because there was some licence revenue being evaded by them.

I remember the Rediffusion case - or at least, it coming up in a lecture ten years later. AIUI, it hinged on the sets being rented from Rediffusion. As such, they were built down to a price and simply didn't have an RF tuner in them. I was a BT apprentice in Hull at the time (a lonely role) and Rediffusion was still quite prevalent in Hull.

TV licensing is still quite confused on WP, there's a lot about "fake detector vans" and it could use any help you might offer. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Finding sources to support historical material from so long ago is always a problem. Googling anything to do with licensing brings up no shortage of hits, but all to do with licensing of current equipment such as wireless microphones etc.

A bit of fumbling around turns up the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1923 which first introduced the licence at a cost of ten shillings (£0.50) per year (roughly a quarter of a week's wages for your average labourer). I cannot find an on line version of the act. I have not found what the cost of the licence for a radio installed in a vehicle was, but I did find a reference in a parliamentary document that such a separate licence did exist (which means I haven't lost my memory, because I had one for a short while!).

The licence for a combined television and radio licence was introduced in June 1946 at a cost of £2. This was apparently by ministerial order so there is no act or regulation for the introduction. The radio only licence remained at ten shillings. In October 1963 the excise duty on the licence was abolished and the BBC received the whole fee instead of around 70% as had previously been the case. Up until this point the Post Office kept 12.5% of the licence fee; the treasury then took 10% of the first million licences; 20% of the second million and then 30% thereafter as excise duty.

The supplementary fee for colour televisions was introduced in January 1968 (coinciding with the introduction of colour broadcasting). In February 1971, the requirement for a licence for audio only receivers was abolished along with the separate licence for car radios.

Following the enactment of the Broadcasting Act 1990, the BBC were made solely responsible for licensing (including setting the fee). The BBC sub-contracted the administration and collection out.

There has been lots of speculation as to whether TV (and historically - radio) detector vans were real or fake. They were indeed very real and were able to detect what you were watching or listening to and in which room of the house the set was located. Prior to the early 1960's, the detector vans could only detect radio sets tuned to the medium and long wave bands. But from around 1962 VHF (FM) only sets had started to appear on the market so the vans had to be upgraded to detect these sets. From 1971, the vans were no longer required to detect radio sets.

There appears to be confusion about the licensing of foreign sets. The issue was not over the receiving licence but the licensing of patent rights. The British Valve Association charged any vendor of radio receivers 2/6d (£0.125) per valve holder to cover one, some or all of their member's patent rights. The charge was relatively easy to collect from British manufacturers, but foreign makers were somewhat reluctant to pay the charge. Some companies even attempted to evade the charge (at least in part) by combining multiple valve structures in one envelope (a practice originally prohibited by the BVA).

To say that the Redifusion sets were built to a price is somewhat understating the issue. They were total junk (but to be fair so were all other TV sets built solely for the rental market). That market was largely one big con. You rented (and paid for) a brand new TV set. If you were lucky it might survive three months before it failed. Not to worry, the rental company would swap your failed set for another the very same day (originally including evenings, Sundays and even Christmas Day). However, the layer of dirt betrayed that you now had someone else's god knows how many year's old repaired TV set.

Redifusion sets did have an RF tuner, just not compatible with any known broadcast standard, only their proprietary cable system (installed at a fraction of the real installation costs to estate developers). The big problem was that each television channel arrived modulated onto a carrier (of unknown frequency) at the distribution box on its own set unshielded twisted pair cables (all channels on the same frequency). A faint image from all the other channels was always visible over what you were watching because of the absence of shielding. I have no idea what the signal standard was but it did require an eight pin plug on the rear of the TV (connecting seven signal lines plus an earth). -RFenergy (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I have added the history in as requested. The article is somewhat of a mish mash having no real history section. I might have tried to create one but time does no permit at the moment. -RFenergy (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

And... I found a reference for it! -RFenergy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Just a thought on Rediffusion. As I recall them, they didn't have an RF tuner, by any useful term. The distribution system was circuit-switched, so there was one signal, at the same carrier frequency, on each pair. This gave the infamous crosstalk problem. So the "tuner" had to do some frequency conversion and demodulation, but it didn't have any tuning ability, it didn't even have any selectivity (to the level of a recognisable tuner) and as the signal strength was enormous over cable, it didn't have the sensitivity of an air-borne receiver either.

As a kid through the '70s, we always had ex-rental sets. Most of them the Philips G8 chassis. Our local repair guy had a supply of them, in fairly decent condition. This was a much more middle-class option than renting, and so thrifty too. Of course what it meant in practice was that your TV was always a model behind those who were renting. Still, these days I have one that's smaller than the wall it's on - how retro is that? Andy Dingley (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I apologise if I did not explain as clearly as I had hoped. The distributed signal was not baseband video. If it was, then the need to rent a dedicated Redifusion TV would be circumvented by the ability to use a non rented television monitor. You are correct that the TV had no tuning ability as such. Any selectivity was irrelevant as there was only one frequency of signal. The input to the TV was a carrier signal, but the TV only received a single frequency (and I would strongly suspect that the design was a TRF as a superhet would offer no advantage). The signal was clearly complex in some way as it did require eight conductors to make it work. As you note: the channel was selected at the wall mounted interface box and not by the TV set. The signal strength of the cable signal would not affect the level of cross talk. That was entirely down to the coupling between the various twisted pairs. I have no information as to whether Redifusion twisted the differing pairs with different pitches which would be an obvious move, but the level of cross talk does not suggest it. It would be unlikely with sixteen twisted pairs (four for each of the four channels plus spares for future expansion). I recall the wall box had twelve switch positions, but my memory may be out by a position or three.

I am reliably informed that Redifusion did offer a 'cable video recorder' in the 1980's, but it was just a normal rental recorder with a UHF input fed from the cable via a UHF modulator. Although you could record one channel while watching another, the recorder could not make successive recordings from different channels unattended. The work around was to connect the recorder to a television aerial. -RFenergy (talk) 17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

As to it being retro to have a TV smaller than the wall it's mounted on. It would be a novel installation where the TV is larger than the wall it's on. I haven't got around to inventing a Tardis type dimensional control unit. - yet. -RFenergy (talk) 17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Radio 4? last week. The latest fashion is for people to order TVs larger than their actual walls. So dealers of these (high-end, several grand) devices are not only having to deliver them in a van, as they're too big for a car, but they're having to do preliminary site visits first to measure up - the viewers having repeatedly demonstrated their own inability to do so. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Wireless Telegraphy Act 1923

There was no Wireless Telegraphy Act in 1923. Mauls (talk) 11:29, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Effectiveness of TV detection

For possible inclusion in the "Detection Technology" section:

Official information has just been released into the public domain that casts into doubt the effectiveness of the BBC's TV detection technology. The TV Licensing Blog obtained the most recent (12 July 2022) report by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office on the BBC. Para 5.2.4 of the report states: "That said, the success rate (of detection) is limited, with only a small number of deployments resulting in further enforcement action, such as the execution of a search warrant. This could be due to the limitations of the detection equipment, which is apparently struggling to keep up with the technological advancements in television viewing." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:DABA:9300:8868:316C:FBDF:2B06 (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2024 (UTC)