Brits refuse to pull plug on B&W TVs!

[OvenMaster]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...and-white.html

[Keefla]

they have to pay a fee to own a tv? or am i reading that wrong?

[Bill Cahill]

That last picture with the "60 year old telly" looks more like it was made in 1960.
Bill Cahill

[David Roper]

Binatone Visionstar...? Make that 1980. No way is that a tube set.

ETA: Binatone celebrated 50 years in business in 2009 so the math doesn't work either.

[Eric H]

I think they got the captions mixed up, maybe they meant that Bush TV was 60 years old?

[zenithfan1]

I think so, it was the only 60 year old looking one there. Cool that they're still using those old sets

[pugs5061]

It sounds as though you need a license to own a TV WTF! Are there any limey's around to confirm this? (I'm 100% British American (back over 250 years though) so I figure this isn't rascist). I think antique radios has a few more overseas patrons. Maybe I'll try there.

[Phil Nelson]

Originally Posted by Keefla

they have to pay a fee to own a tv?

The license fees fund the BBC, and a b/w license is almost £100 cheaper than color. I believe the license entitles you to receive television broadcasts. No fee is owed for merely owning an inoperative TV or using a TV only to watch recorded content.

Phil Nelson

[Tom Albrecht]

In Europe, license fees for owning a radio or TV pay for part of the programming. I'm not sure how it works in Britain, but in Germany and Switzerland there is a periodic fee or tax to be paid. If you don't pay it, someone can actually come and investigate whether you have a radio or TV.

[mattcarranza]

Holy crap...the biggest shocker is that they need a license to watch television? Ill be waiting for that conformation too.

[mattcarranza]

Then again that would make sense since television is state run in the UK.

[pugs5061]

Phil said the license fee is 100 pounds less for a B & W TV. That's like $200-$250 bucks less! to watch TV before the cable companies or service providers get invoved. I'm sure the europeans aren't just watching the homegrown BBC or whatever they have in the rest of europe. If I were in that position I'd be pirating everything under the sun. Sooner or later this will hit the US TV industry and Hollywood pretty big time unless they have already made deals with those european broadcasters. Maybe it already has.

[ChrisW6ATV]

Yes, you need a TV license in the UK. Fortunately, though, it is a "per household" license, not a per-set one, so collectors there are not going broke. Get the details at http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by Keefla

they have to pay a fee to own a tv? or am i reading that wrong?

No, that is correct, the UK has had a licence (British English spelling) fee for television since the beginning of television service, and used to have a licence fee just for radio.

It was established to fund the BBC.

It is interesting that only the UK is well known for its licensing program, when, in fact, the vast majority of countries in Europe and Africa have them


@pugs5061: You're showing your age (I, too, remember when a Pound was USD $2.40, which made a penny (then, 1/12th of a shilling) the same as America's "penny".

Today (30 May 2010), £100 less is only $144.71 less then colour.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by Phil Nelson

The license fees fund the BBC

And it's the government that collects this fee, and then funds the broadcaster? Sounds like that broadcaster better not say nothin' bad about the government or else the government cuts off the funding. We in the USA would never tolerate that situation. We have laws that specifically forbid the government from broadcasting domestically (Voice of America is for foreign listeners, but we still can hear it spilling inside the USA, but almost nobody in the USA ever listens to shortwave anyway). We take our first amendment seriously.
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I'm pretty sure this doesn't violate the "no politics" rule, as everyone agrees that the first amendment is a good thing, conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans.