Talk:Television licensing in the United Kingdom

Radio licences

Can we clear up some issues about radio licences - either here, or elesewhere.

AIUI:

• The radio licence was introduced with the early days of the BBC. It was a levy on new sets, from UK manufacturers. It could be evaded legally by imported sets (not sure if this was legal, or if it should be paid on importation), or by home-built sets. The levy was a one-off per set, not a an annual and there was no effort at enforcement on listeners.
• Was there any sort of licence stamp on such a licensed radio?
• When VHF services began, this licence either changed or was seen as a more serious target for enforcement?
• The whole radio licence system was witdrawn in 1971.

Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 12:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Your understanding is incorrect on every level.

The 'broadcast receiving licence', to give it its correct name, was not a levy on anything. It was a physical licence that you had to obtain from the Post Office to operate any receiver capable of receiving any type of wireless telegraphy wave (television was yet to appear at first). One licence covered the entire household to operate any number of receivers. Except: that the basic licence did not cover any receiver permanently installed in a road vehicle. For that, an extra licence was required. In the 1960's, removeable car radios were quite popular as they were exempt from the extra licence (plus thieves couldn't nick that which was not there).

When television was introduced in 1936, an extra licence was required for the reception of the 'BBC Television Service'. Ultimately, some time after the war, the differing licences were rolled into one, the difference being in the stamp applied to the licence form.

In 1967, when colour broadcasts were started, a new and more expensive colour licence was introduced. In the early 1970's the requirement for a licence for audio only receivers was dropped, and a licence was only required for television receivers (either colour or black and white).

As an aside, the television licensing authorities insisted for around two decades, that a television licence was required for a cable television (i.e. one that did not receive wireless radio waves). This was challenged in 1974, when a resident's association for an estate where TV aerials were prohibited (forcing the residents to rent an overpriced TV to operate with the proprietary redifusion cable system) insisted that the existing TV licence did not cover cable TVs. They pointed out that the wording on the licence as to what it did cover specifically licenced only receivers that received wireless signals and displayed a TV picture. Although the licensing authority never took the case to court, said resident's association was hacked off when the law (and the wording on the licence) was changed within the year. -RFenergy (talk) 19:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks. Do you have a date (and ideally a source we can use) for the first date of a radio licence? Why do some sources (see the newspaper sources linked from the detector van article) claim that there was an issue about foreign sets?

Around 1963, a new generation of TV detector van was developed. Some effort and complexity went into making these also capable of detecting VHF radios. Any idea why? Some vague sources have implied that this was because there was some licence revenue being evaded by them.

I remember the Rediffusion case - or at least, it coming up in a lecture ten years later. AIUI, it hinged on the sets being rented from Rediffusion. As such, they were built down to a price and simply didn't have an RF tuner in them. I was a BT apprentice in Hull at the time (a lonely role) and Rediffusion was still quite prevalent in Hull.

TV licensing is still quite confused on WP, there's a lot about "fake detector vans" and it could use any help you might offer. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Finding sources to support historical material from so long ago is always a problem. Googling anything to do with licensing brings up no shortage of hits, but all to do with licensing of current equipment such as wireless microphones etc.

A bit of fumbling around turns up the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1923 which first introduced the licence at a cost of ten shillings (£0.50) per year (roughly a quarter of a week's wages for your average labourer). I cannot find an on line version of the act. I have not found what the cost of the licence for a radio installed in a vehicle was, but I did find a reference in a parliamentary document that such a separate licence did exist (which means I haven't lost my memory, because I had one for a short while!).

The licence for a combined television and radio licence was introduced in June 1946 at a cost of £2. This was apparently by ministerial order so there is no act or regulation for the introduction. The radio only licence remained at ten shillings. In October 1963 the excise duty on the licence was abolished and the BBC received the whole fee instead of around 70% as had previously been the case. Up until this point the Post Office kept 12.5% of the licence fee; the treasury then took 10% of the first million licences; 20% of the second million and then 30% thereafter as excise duty.

The supplementary fee for colour televisions was introduced in January 1968 (coinciding with the introduction of colour broadcasting). In February 1971, the requirement for a licence for audio only receivers was abolished along with the separate licence for car radios.

Following the enactment of the Broadcasting Act 1990, the BBC were made solely responsible for licensing (including setting the fee). The BBC sub-contracted the administration and collection out.

There has been lots of speculation as to whether TV (and historically - radio) detector vans were real or fake. They were indeed very real and were able to detect what you were watching or listening to and in which room of the house the set was located. Prior to the early 1960's, the detector vans could only detect radio sets tuned to the medium and long wave bands. But from around 1962 VHF (FM) only sets had started to appear on the market so the vans had to be upgraded to detect these sets. From 1971, the vans were no longer required to detect radio sets.

There appears to be confusion about the licensing of foreign sets. The issue was not over the receiving licence but the licensing of patent rights. The British Valve Association charged any vendor of radio receivers 2/6d (£0.125) per valve holder to cover one, some or all of their member's patent rights. The charge was relatively easy to collect from British manufacturers, but foreign makers were somewhat reluctant to pay the charge. Some companies even attempted to evade the charge (at least in part) by combining multiple valve structures in one envelope (a practice originally prohibited by the BVA).

To say that the Redifusion sets were built to a price is somewhat understating the issue. They were total junk (but to be fair so were all other TV sets built solely for the rental market). That market was largely one big con. You rented (and paid for) a brand new TV set. If you were lucky it might survive three months before it failed. Not to worry, the rental company would swap your failed set for another the very same day (originally including evenings, Sundays and even Christmas Day). However, the layer of dirt betrayed that you now had someone else's god knows how many year's old repaired TV set.

Redifusion sets did have an RF tuner, just not compatible with any known broadcast standard, only their proprietary cable system (installed at a fraction of the real installation costs to estate developers). The big problem was that each television channel arrived modulated onto a carrier (of unknown frequency) at the distribution box on its own set unshielded twisted pair cables (all channels on the same frequency). A faint image from all the other channels was always visible over what you were watching because of the absence of shielding. I have no idea what the signal standard was but it did require an eight pin plug on the rear of the TV (connecting seven signal lines plus an earth). -RFenergy (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I have added the history in as requested. The article is somewhat of a mish mash having no real history section. I might have tried to create one but time does no permit at the moment. -RFenergy (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

And... I found a reference for it! -RFenergy (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Just a thought on Rediffusion. As I recall them, they didn't have an RF tuner, by any useful term. The distribution system was circuit-switched, so there was one signal, at the same carrier frequency, on each pair. This gave the infamous crosstalk problem. So the "tuner" had to do some frequency conversion and demodulation, but it didn't have any tuning ability, it didn't even have any selectivity (to the level of a recognisable tuner) and as the signal strength was enormous over cable, it didn't have the sensitivity of an air-borne receiver either.

As a kid through the '70s, we always had ex-rental sets. Most of them the Philips G8 chassis. Our local repair guy had a supply of them, in fairly decent condition. This was a much more middle-class option than renting, and so thrifty too. Of course what it meant in practice was that your TV was always a model behind those who were renting. Still, these days I have one that's smaller than the wall it's on - how retro is that? Andy Dingley (talk) 16:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I apologise if I did not explain as clearly as I had hoped. The distributed signal was not baseband video. If it was, then the need to rent a dedicated Redifusion TV would be circumvented by the ability to use a non rented television monitor. You are correct that the TV had no tuning ability as such. Any selectivity was irrelevant as there was only one frequency of signal. The input to the TV was a carrier signal, but the TV only received a single frequency (and I would strongly suspect that the design was a TRF as a superhet would offer no advantage). The signal was clearly complex in some way as it did require eight conductors to make it work. As you note: the channel was selected at the wall mounted interface box and not by the TV set. The signal strength of the cable signal would not affect the level of cross talk. That was entirely down to the coupling between the various twisted pairs. I have no information as to whether Redifusion twisted the differing pairs with different pitches which would be an obvious move, but the level of cross talk does not suggest it. It would be unlikely with sixteen twisted pairs (four for each of the four channels plus spares for future expansion). I recall the wall box had twelve switch positions, but my memory may be out by a position or three.

I am reliably informed that Redifusion did offer a 'cable video recorder' in the 1980's, but it was just a normal rental recorder with a UHF input fed from the cable via a UHF modulator. Although you could record one channel while watching another, the recorder could not make successive recordings from different channels unattended. The work around was to connect the recorder to a television aerial. -RFenergy (talk) 17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

As to it being retro to have a TV smaller than the wall it's mounted on. It would be a novel installation where the TV is larger than the wall it's on. I haven't got around to inventing a Tardis type dimensional control unit. - yet. -RFenergy (talk) 17:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Radio 4? last week. The latest fashion is for people to order TVs larger than their actual walls. So dealers of these (high-end, several grand) devices are not only having to deliver them in a van, as they're too big for a car, but they're having to do preliminary site visits first to measure up - the viewers having repeatedly demonstrated their own inability to do so. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Wireless Telegraphy Act 1923

There was no Wireless Telegraphy Act in 1923. Mauls (talk) 11:29, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Effectiveness of TV detection

For possible inclusion in the "Detection Technology" section:

Official information has just been released into the public domain that casts into doubt the effectiveness of the BBC's TV detection technology. The TV Licensing Blog obtained the most recent (12 July 2022) report by the Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office on the BBC. Para 5.2.4 of the report states: "That said, the success rate (of detection) is limited, with only a small number of deployments resulting in further enforcement action, such as the execution of a search warrant. This could be due to the limitations of the detection equipment, which is apparently struggling to keep up with the technological advancements in television viewing." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7C:DABA:9300:8868:316C:FBDF:2B06 (talk) 13:34, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

"People living exclusively in a mobile dwelling... are not legally able to watch a television"(?)

This sentence is presently in the section "Television use away from home": "People living exclusively in a mobile dwelling such as a touring caravan or a constantly cruising canal boat, who do not have a static address, are not legally able to watch a television as they cannot purchase a licence without one."

There is no reference, and it looks to me like Original Research (analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources).

There is some discussion online, but none I would consider as reliable sources:

https://livingonanarrowboat.co.uk/boat-tv-narrowboat-television-license-requirements/

https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/topic/15182-television-licence/

https://narrowboats.uk/do-you-need-a-tv-licence-on-a-narrowboat/#:~:text=If%20you%20live%20on%20the,Televisions

A suitable source may exist, so for the moment I have added a "citation needed". FrankSier (talk) 17:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the fact that TVL could be wrong, this may be of interest:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/tv_licence_no_fixed_address/response/1134820/attach/4/RFI20180432%20response.pdf Bigbird3141 (talk) 10:13, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

When a licence is required

It would be helpful if there was a history of how the requirement has changed over the years. At one point (until 2003?) I believe a licence was required for any equipment "capable of receiving" TV programmes (whether it was used or not for that purpose was irrelevant). This changed to being a requirement to use the equipment to watch programmes - I suspect this was partly because all computers were "capable" of watching TV live, but it was unreasonable to expect every computer to be covered by a licence. There have been minor changes subsequently, some of which are mentioned in the article. Can anyone provide some suitably reference details of all the changes? Bigbird3141 (talk) 10:04, 26 September 2024 (UTC)