TV Licence - ALL TV licence discussion/queries in this thread.

Harry Palmr

Its so stupid a thing to even attempt to scare people with though. They don't randomly call if they did they'd be wasting a huge amount of time and money - oh wait!

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

SPDUB

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I just got a flyer through the postbox telling me to have my licence ready for inspection! Who do these people think they are?!

Sounds like someone up to a scam .I'd call the Gardai

Mingus08

Hi,

I have an old TV that isn't able to pick up the new digital signals. I do watch netflix on it though.

I'm presuming this isn't a piece of equipment that can receive broadcast signals and therefore doesn't need a licence?

Thanks

Johnboy1951

Mingus08 wrote: »

Hi,

I have an old TV that isn't able to pick up the new digital signals. I do watch netflix on it though.

I'm presuming this isn't a piece of equipment that can receive broadcast signals and therefore doesn't need a licence?

Thanks

I wouldn't.

It IS capable of receiving broadcast signals (even though there might not be any available presently), so it does fall under the regulation.

Sam Russell

Mingus08 wrote: »

Hi,

I have an old TV that isn't able to pick up the new digital signals. I do watch netflix on it though.

I'm presuming this isn't a piece of equipment that can receive broadcast signals and therefore doesn't need a licence?

Thanks

If it has a tuner then it needs a licence - sorry but that is the rule.

It can receive broadcast signals even though they are not broadcast any more - actually that TV could receive UPC analogue signals as they are still broadcast.

Mingus08

Thanks. I'll get rid of it and buy a monitor.

adammcs

Hi all, I recently got UPC who are now Virgin into my apartment. It is the Horizon Set top box that is giving me my internet and phone connection and it has a subscription to horizon tv, but I don't have a TV in the place. Does this mean I have to get a TV licence as I don't have a television or does the fact that I have the tv as part of the bundle mean I am stuck paying? Thanks.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

sirbidders

In England the BBC is ad free as it is funded by the TV licence fee. While I can appreciate the fact that we probably do not have the population to support this, and this is why ads are required to keep the programming to any sort of acceptable level. I would not consider the current Late Late or new Ray Darcy show to be an acceptable way to spend any public money. I find it grossly unfair that TV3 do not receive some portion of the licence fee to aid their broadcasting.

On a second note, does anyone know if SKY or UPC pay any fee to RTE for broadcasting their channels through their subscription service? I ask as when you have an "inactive" SKY box (subs expired) only the UK freeview channels are available. I would assume as RTE is a free to air channel this would be able to be viewed also unless there was a fee? Anyone able to shed any light on this?

The Cush

sirbidders wrote: »

I find it grossly unfair that TV3 do not receive some portion of the licence fee to aid their broadcasting.

I don't, that's a condition of the commercial licence they bid for, were awarded and accepted and renewed a few years ago. They could've returned it at any time if they weren't happy with it. Add to that they were owned by Doughty Hanson, a company worth $8bn, since 2006 and are now owned by Liberty Global, a company worth over $70bn. They had an Anglo loan of €80m+ written off plus a further write-down of almost $9m when they bought back their own loans from IBRC, over €90m of state aid.
RTÉ's licence fee will now be up against the financial might of Liberty Global and ITV owned TV3, UTVI respectively.

sirbidders wrote: »

On a second note, does anyone know if SKY or UPC pay any fee to RTE for broadcasting their channels through their subscription service? I ask as when you have an "inactive" SKY box (subs expired) only the UK freeview channels are available. I would assume as RTE is a free to air channel this would be able to be viewed also unless there was a fee? Anyone able to shed any light on this?

UPC and Sky don't pay RTÉ for the right to transmit their channels and likewise RTÉ doesn't charge them for their channels. The problem is programme rights, the Irish channels buy programming for a population of 6m (if you include NI). Broadcasting FTA via satellite covers a very large footprint of over 100m (incl. UK/western Europe) which the Irish channels could not afford hence the reason they're encrypted and only available to an Irish audience. The UK channels are available FTA because they pay for the rights to cover overspill into Ireland and parts of Europe.

This from a Dáil Committee discussion with RTÉ a few years ago

The BBC, ITV and a number of other companies have put their services on one of the wideband Astra satellites. The services are broadcast unencrypted, or “in the clear” as we call it. The trouble with those wideband satellites is that they have a very big footprint. If RTE were to be put up on a wideband satellite, its services would be in the clear to the UK, France, Holland and many other countries. One might ask why that should not be done, to which I would respond that we do not have the resources to purchase the rights to enable us to broadcast into those countries. We buy programming that allows us to broadcast to 4.5 million people. We do not have the money to broadcast to 100 million people. Therefore, the option taken by the BBC when Freesat was launched is not available to us.

Johnboy1951

The Cush wrote: »

UPC and Sky don't pay RTÉ for the right to transmit their channels and likewise RTÉ doesn't charge them for their channels. The problem is programme rights, the Irish channels buy programming for a population of 6m (if you include NI). Broadcasting FTA via satellite covers a very large footprint of over 100m (incl. UK/western Europe) which the Irish channels could not afford hence the reason they're encrypted and only available to an Irish audience. The UK channels are available FTA because they pay for the rights to cover overspill into Ireland and parts of Europe.

I think the point was that the Irish channels could be available to an Irish audience only, on an expired Irish Sky card without the channels being generally FTA. They could be FTV even with an expired Sky card.

I don't know if that is possible .... I suspect it might be .... but Sky have no incentive at all to do it. They would likely lose customers if they did, IMO.
(I do not use Sky so have no recent experience of what the various expired cards might achieve in the different aged Sky boxes or third party boxes.)

sirbidders wrote:

On a second note, does anyone know if SKY or UPC pay any fee to RTE for broadcasting their channels through their subscription service? I ask as when you have an "inactive" SKY box (subs expired) only the UK freeview channels are available. I would assume as RTE is a free to air channel this would be able to be viewed also unless there was a fee? Anyone able to shed any light on this?

The Cush

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I think the point was that the Irish channels could be available to an Irish audience only, on an expired Irish Sky card without the channels being generally FTA. They could be FTV even with an expired Sky card.

I don't know if that is possible .... I suspect it might be .... but Sky have no incentive at all to do it. They would likely lose customers if they did, IMO.

Yes I see that point, it is possible of course but would come at the cost to the broadcasters involved, encryption and card management costs etc. This is taken care of at the moment we believe by Sky and there would be no inventive, as you say, for Sky to make this option freely available. Also Sky cannot offer an Irish only channel package for a fee as per the Broadcasting Act, although my brother was made such an offer when he was cancelling his Sky sub some years ago.

pappyodaniel

Are detector vans still a thing?

How can an inspector know that you have a TV?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

cerastes

therealgirl wrote: »

Hi,
TV licence question
We had a TV licence provided by our landlord in our last house...
We recently moved to a house where the previous tenant had her own licence, so obviously this new address has no TV licence.

Obvious? since the tv licence inspecter turned up? I suppose.
We brought our Sky subscription with us, but a few days later we found we were going to be cut a lot of money from wages...
So I cancelled the Sky subscription & our TV is now sitting in the attic.

Just before I cancelled the sky I got a visit from the TV licence inspector.
He asked my details & had we a TV, I said yes but I'm cancelling everything tomorrow...
He took down my details & said I need a licence...
Silly you
We've always had our landlord provide TV licence before as he has provided a TV at our old address...
So how does this work now?

You buy your own tv?

Someone told me if I had a TV on the day the inspector called I'll need a licence..

Well, they are somewhat right, if you had a tv on, then you have a tv, so yes, you'd need a licence for that, just because its off, broken or whatever doesnt exempt you from it.

This was two days ago...I have an email from sky today to confirm my account is cancelled...
Anyone know what I should do next?
Should I email and ask for inspector to visit again to see there's no TV?

Your sky or other tv subscription has no bearing on whether you are meant to get a tv licence or not.

Thanks

therealgirl wrote: »

Thanks Fred, I see Boards still has its helpful idiots 😒

You told the tv licence inspector you had a tv???

therealgirl wrote: »

Well it's definitely not going to get used here... We've no sky, no boxes or anything... I'll give it to my mum.

You told the tv licence inspector you have a tv though, too late now, should have held out or not answered the door.

So do I email them so with a copy of the sky sub cancellation email attached?

Emailing them about you tv subscription cancellation wont matter a jot, not now or ever, they dont care about that.

therealgirl wrote: »

About six weeks... We had no sky transferred over til last week though

Wont make a bit of difference

therealgirl wrote: »

Also...do I need to get someone to remove the dish& cables that are on the house?

You're renting this house you say, Id advise against doing that as it may be the landlords, even if its from someone elses previous subscription, any damage done may be blamed on you.

crossmolinalad wrote: »

Do the same as in Holland
Cut the fee in half and put it up with the property tax
Problem solved

Or Portugal and cancel it, half would be reasonable, do you really think they will halve it if they do that, even if it cuts the cost of administering it?

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Disconnect the sky/upc box and leave at a friends place that has a licence.

Thats not necessary though really, you cant display a tv signal through it without a tv, if I was in that situation I would go to court if thats all I had.

pappyodaniel wrote: »

Are detector vans still a thing?

How can an inspector know that you have a TV?

By admission of guilt, see above.

I have a tv licence, but only because my other half insists on it and declines to close the curtains. Id be happy to get rid of the tv, but that has been declined unfortunately.

Mark2665

I had a call from the tg licence inspector this evening while I was out, left a card saying the property has no tv licence get one within 5days to avoid further problems and will be back within 21days etc. I am only renting this property here about 4months had it on my list to do forgot until now. My question is I never had one before and want to get one now can I sign up and do the direct debits as a new customer and just pay for the year as I go along monthly? Or is that just for the coming year as in 2017? Any help greatly appreciated

Mark2665

I had a call from the tv licence inspector this evening while I was out, left a card saying the property has no tv licence get one within 5days to avoid further problems and will be back within 21days etc. I am only renting this property here about 4months had it on my list to do forgot until now. My question is I never had one before and want to get one now can I sign up and do the direct debits as a new customer and just pay for the year as I go along monthly? Or is that just for the coming year as in 2017? Any help greatly appreciated

brightspark

http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/MainContent/Personal+Customers/More+from+An+Post/TV+Licence/tvlicence250108.htm

icdg

Not just a duplicate thread, we have a rule that all TV Licencing questions MUST be asked in the sticky.

icdg

Cerastes no more of the bold red text here please

r@t

hi

I live in a house with 4 other people its a house share with my name and one other on the lease. today i got a statutory declaration. it was in my name and not sure how they got it. there is no tv in the common areas of the house and none in my room, however after asking the other people in the house one has a tv in his room and he has no license. i showed him the letter and he isn't bothered. i told him to get rid of the tv but he said he doesn't want to, he wants to chance his arm so to speak. as its in his room which i have no access to i have no control over this situation . what can i do? can i call up and explain the situation or am i responsible regardless as its addressed to me?

EDIT: for anyone interested i will be meeting a solicitor at the citizen information center later tonight... illl post how it goes

SARCHER

It is my understanding that the fees collected from the TV Licence are to go to the funding of Public Broadcasting. I own a television set, but it is not connected to any service and does not receive any channels, it's basically a monitor at this point.

I am having a difficult time paying a fee for a service that I don't use. I've written the communications division and am told that regardless of whether I use the service or not I have to pay the fee and that there is no appeal process.

I feel like there has to be some other legal recourse as I don't use Public Broadcasting and should not have to pay for it. Additionally I believe that a station should be funded by it's advertisers and not the public purse but that is a different kettle of fish.

Does anyone know the best way to go about fighting this?

Dodge

SARCHER wrote: »

I own a television set

Does anyone know the best way to go about fighting this?

You can't. You own a TV set, you must pay for it's license. End of story.

SARCHER

Surely there is some recourse. I can't imagine that I am the only person that has a problem funding a service that I don't use. I license my car because I use it. If I had a car that wasn't in use, I could cancel the tax, so why can't I 'unsubscribe' to a service that I don't use?

whippet

SARCHER wrote: »

Surely there is some recourse. I can't imagine that I am the only person that has a problem funding a service that I don't use. I license my car because I use it. If I had a car that wasn't in use, I could cancel the tax, so why can't I 'unsubscribe' to a service that I don't use?

it is provided for in legislation. If you have a device that you need to pay the charge. There isn't an avenue for recourse.

In theory it is about public broadcasting and a public service. Not a subscription to RTE Television. Also the fee goes towards RTE radio.

Dodge

SARCHER wrote: »

Surely there is some recourse. I can't imagine that I am the only person that has a problem funding a service that I don't use. I license my car because I use it. If I had a car that wasn't in use, I could cancel the tax, so why can't I 'unsubscribe' to a service that I don't use?

You don't subscribe to it. You have to pay it if you own a TV

You can waffle all you like, but it's as simple as that

SARCHER

I don't consider it waffling Dodge. It's hard to fathom that people are forced to pay for a service they don't use. I am not prepared to do that and thus have sought feedback on ways around it.

It seems it may be prudent for me to rid myself of the TV set altogether and simply purchase a monitor if there is no alternative legally.

I think you have made your point, let's let others who may have more positive responses reply at this juncture as I am seeking suggestions/solutions which is why I wrote the post in the first place.

Thanks for your feedback.

eeguy

SARCHER wrote: »

It seems it may be prudent for me to rid myself of the TV set altogether and simply purchase a monitor if there is no alternative legally.

What is the difference between a TV and a monitor in terms of TV licenses?

Can I buy a large monitor and claim it's not a TV since it has no capacity to receive a signal without additional hardware?

Kintarō Hattori

eeguy wrote: »

What is the difference between a TV and a monitor in terms of TV licenses?

Can I buy a large monitor and claim it's not a TV since it has no capacity to receive a signal without additional hardware?

Yes you can but the delayed broadcasting charge will render that loophole null and void when it eventually comes in.