Licence fee loophole needs to be closed with law change

chris

A loophole that allows people to watch television on their computer without paying the £142 television licence should be closed by ministers, the BBC Trust said today.

Current rules mean that people who only watch online repeats via the BBC iPlayer are not liable for the levy — amid signs that some people are already taking advantage to watch BBC programmes for free.

Around 40 per cent of students living in halls of residence now use a laptop as their main way to watch television, according to a review of licence fee collection published today by the BBC Trust, the broadcaster’s regulator.

That review concluded that “legislative change is likely to be required in order to reflect technology changes” as the BBC formally recognised for the first time that there is a threat to the licence fee system, which raises £3.5 billion a year for the public broadcaster.

Janet Lewis-Jones, the trustee who led the enquiry, said that the issue “was going to have to be looked at” and called on the Government to examine the issue ahead of a Communications Bill expected in the Queens Speech this autumn.

A licence fee is only required for people who “watch or record TV programmes as they are broadcast” — meaning that the iPlayer is excluded. The service includes all programmes transmitted over the last seven days, and is available to people via the internet or cable television.

Viewer habits are changing rapidly, despite the apparent inconvenience of watching television on a computer. Launched just 15 months ago, the iPlayer — available to watch via computer or cable television — is now used by 500,000 people a day to watch 1.3 million programmes.

Conservatives quickly latched onto the Trust’s concern. Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, said today that while his party still supported the principle of the licence fee to fund the BBC, the broadcaster urgently needed to find new funding models “that go with the grain of modern technology” because it “is not conceivable or practical to charge the licence fee to everyone who buys a computer”.

However, Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of the BBC Trust, argued that the worries were overstated. “This is a death much foretold. Sixteen million television sets were sold in the last five years...the television licence fee is nothing like as fragile as some have suggested”.

Sir Michael also reserved particular criticism for Noel Edmonds, the former host of Noel's House Party, who said he would refuse to pay for his licence because he did not like the BBC’s “threatening” attitude to fee collection.

The chairman described licence fee refusniks as “particularly objectionable of people who have made their reputation in great part because of the BBC or continue to draw some of their income from it”.

In response, Mr Edmonds, who now presents Deal or No Deal on Channel 4, said that Sir Michael had “missed his point” and said that what he objected to the Corporation’s “bullying tactics” when it came to collecting the licence fee. “If I was employed by the BBC now and they used these kind of bullying tactics, I probably would have resigned.”

Nevertheless, the Trust said it would take on board some of Mr Edmonds’ concerns, and as a result it would agree that some of the reminder literature it sends out to people who have yet to pay will be toned down. A menancing voiceover on the “it’s all in the database” TV Licensing advertising campaign has also been replaced with a more upbeat tone.

The BBC believes that most people who use the iPlayer will also watch some form of live television, and so be caught by the existing law. Even people who watch live television — from any broadcaster — on a computer or mobile phone are liable, although it is not clear how far they can be detected.

Ninety-seven percent of homes have a television, and of those just over one in twenty do not pay the levy — a figure that rises to one in ten in Northern Ireland where paying for the BBC was seen in some Catholic communities as collaboration with a British state.


Source:timesonline

Channel Hopper

How will they enforce it though, with proxy servers, laptops, internet cafes, etc ?

Will this be similar to the news from Germany where all PCs require a 'viewing' licence ?

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

rolfw

So is the BBC's iPlayer, an attempt by the government to bring all computers under the tax umbrella.

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peterm3

It would be quite simple to change the law so that subscribing to broadband would require a TV licence. The telcos could be required to release customer details to the TV Licensing people. Maybe it would be better just to fund Public Service Broadcasting from general taxation. It would save all the collection costs for the TV Licence.

Channel Hopper

Broadband subscription charges doesn't address the free interent access areas, though it does make the 'convergence', (a name banded about a few years back) one step closer.

And of course the dialup loophole still remains......

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

rolfw

I'd rather they backtrack on internet TV anyway, at least until there is infrastructure to support it. My internet connection has got slower of the the last two years rather than faster.

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Channel Hopper

Ever set up a BT Vision box ?

I know it is a hybrid system, but tbh when you get a working one in the box the customer is usually very happy with the results.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Pilot

thats true coz ive installed a few but ive found that its quite hard to get a working one and can have problems in certain areas

Channel Hopper

Yeah, sorry. I was going to put 'working one' in bold but thought I might be taken to the cleaners as a result.

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"