In this great green and pleasant land of ours, we have some utterly rediculously outdated legislation covering mundane issues of “great national importance”, such as TV Licensing. In this country, it is illegal to watch TV transmissions without paying a license to the evil people at Capita – a commercial company to whom the beurocratic and unfair tactics of money extraction for the ludicrous TV License is outsourced on an anual basis.
One of the arguments for the license is that it pays for the BBC. This is not of much consolation to those who don’t want to watch the BBC, or who would rather pay a supplement to receive this service – or have the government otherwise pay for the service without forcing anyone with electronic apparatus capable of receiving transmissions to pay, just in case they happen to receive a picture. A side effect of this remit is that BBC carries no advertisements on its terrestrial channels in the UK – except of course for Capita (aka the seeminly evil people running TV Licensing themselves). Just like the advert I just saw which prompted me to call up and start an official complaint, and to write this blog entry.
Another argument for the liencense fee is that it pays for the government’s own terrestrial transmission capability – the transmission masts around the country that transmit both the BBC as well as other services too. Except, those of us watching through cable or satellite services don’t require the services of these land masts – in our case completely useless, even as an emergency broadcast medium, because we don’t even have a roof antenna connected to any TV here.
I just saw an advertisement from the wonderfully evil marketeers at TV Licensing, who wanted to remind us that they’ve wasted many more millions of taxpayer’s money (I’ll call it a tax, since that’s what it really is) on a big national database (probably running on some ludicrously expensive and horribly proprietary platform, but we’ll ignore that argument for the moment) which lists which addresses do not have a TV License. The implication behind this advert is that anyone without a TV License must be breaking the law and it serves as a “friendly reminder” that you can call up to get hold of one. I did call up, as I have done in previous years, on this occasion to complain that the advert:
- Was offensive. It implies that people must have a TV License or they are breaking the law. It is perfectly legal to have a TV that is never tuned in to TV channels (for example to play a video game on some console system – and I believe also if you just watch videos and DVDs) or just to not own one at all. This would be me, if I lived on my own – I don’t need a TV – indeed a number of my friends don’t own TVs and don’t seem to be missing much.
- Was a commercial advertisement on BBC1 and thus a violation of the BBC charter and wholly inappropriate as an advertisement for a service run by Capita on behalf of their shareholders.
I’ve asked them to call me and explain why it is I should not make an official complaint against that advertisement and have it taken off the air.
TV Licensing annoy me. Greatly. I’ve called in the past to ask them at what point an oscilloscope with suitable modifications becomes a TV under the letter of the pointless law behind the license and have not received an adequate response (because there is no proper response to that point – the license is contradictory in nature and possibly violates some of my European rights too). Sunday Times journalist Jonathan Miller has been campaigning against the license for quite some time – see also the Abolish the TV License website for further information on this worthy fight against the powers that be. I hope he ultimately causes enough awkwardness that a few people are embarassed into doing something.
Jon.