It's only an offense if you watch live TV [1]. They could have just lumped it in with your taxes, like they do in many other countries with state TV, but this approach in theory lets you opt out, even if they like to check up on you all too regularly. I suppose one downside of the BBC approach is tax is usually proportional to your income, while the TV license fee is not, and in fact you need to pay it even if you have no income. We had great games of hiding our TV in the closet as students whenever the license people came down the street.

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...

> hiding our TV in the closet as students whenever the license people came down the street

There are people going door-to-door to check TV licenses? Are they cops, what kind of power do they have? Seems extremely annoying and dystopian.

They have zero power, it's just a man with a clipboard asking to have a look around your house, the correct response is to shut the door in their face.

They rely on a uniform and vague threatening language to trick people into thinking they have any authority.

Not a UK citizen, but from previous discussions on the topic:

> There are people going door-to-door to check TV licenses?

yes

> Are they cops?

no

> what kind of power do they have?

none. I mean write you a fine if you admit to illegally watching TV I guess. But as far as I've been told you can have the TV on and visible to the guy and go "nah that's an aquarium" and be fine.

What happened to the vans with antennae that scanned for operating TVs (there’s an IF oscillator in there I guess) to find unlicensed receivers?

The BBC has never offered any proof or explanation of how they worked, and there is some suspicion that they are fakes used for their psychological effect.

You can absolutely listen for the TV heterodyne leakage.

The bbc has been in a state of cost cutting as the Tory government of past 15 years has consistently throttled the licence fee as “punishment” for not being state controlled enough (ie Tory’s feel the BBC is biased against them

This is unlikely - partly any news media is biased against government as they do the actual decisions, but mostly the BBC is middle class britain incarnate, whereas the tories represent - well whatever the right wing is becoming these days.

As for licence fee - it’s basically a historical accident that became a ring fenced tax. Governments have strong views about people not paying taxes.

It’s not a criminal offense not to be a subscriber… it’s a criminal offense to pirate their content without being a subscriber.

Pretty much the same as using Cable TV or Satellite TV without paying for a subscription. I don't see much difference between paying the BBC and paying Comcast.

In the case of Satellite TV, in the 1990s there were companies that sold decoder boxes so you could use a dish antenna without paying the Satellite TV company. You'd pay the pirating company instead. Lots of cat-and-mouse games involving changing encryption methods.