Freeview, Freesat and Now Freely - None of Which Are Free.
Other
I'm seeing a lot of televisions now including the freely service where you don't need an aerial or satellite connection to watch live TV just a internet connection. As ever none of these 'free' services are free you must have a £170 TV licence to use them.
However I wonder how this effects your chances of being prosecuted for TV Licence evasion. There is now a 2 way connection when accessing live TV broadcasts. It feels like this could be a huge aid in prosecuting people. It is still a criminal offence to not pay the TV licence and one third of women in prison are there for non-payment of the TV licence in that they were fined for not buying a TV licence and then didn't pay that fine. Remember TV licence evasion is a criminal offence so you get a criminal record etc it is not like not paying your credit card bill or tab at your local pub which are civil offences. You can seriously damage your job prospects, chance of a mortgage and have sky high car insurance etc by not paying your TV licence and being prosecuted despite being a unfair tax for a service you have no interest in which is the crime itself in my opinion.
It would have been a great opportunity with freely to have a simple option where you state you don't have a TV Licence and you would still have access to live channels funded by advertising like ITV but as it stand its still illegal to watch any live TV without a TV licence. This massively damages the income of many channels funded by advertising. It is now over 3 million homes that don't have a TV licence possibly more. The amount of homes giving up their TV licence is accelerating. Freely could be a greater risk of prosecution for many families. You may disconnect the aerial and satellite connection but if someone in your house accesses Freely services like a child you could be liable for a huge expense and even a criminal record. You need a internet connection for all the streaming services so you can't just disable the internet. If you are buying a TV with Freely perhaps choose a TV with the android operating system so you can disable the freely app possibly like many have disabled the iplayer app.
TV licence should be scrapped it's out dated the bbc should do ads like all the other channels
I'm sure I read somewhere recently that labour were getting rid of the criminal offence for not having a licence, a few years we had a licence guy knock on the door, he was the most obnoxious person I've ever spoken too, a complete moron, we had a licence yet still had the need to check
It's unbelievable, prisons are so full that they are releasing drug dealers , thieves and other serious offenders yet continue to jail people not having a tv licence
They treat this as a serious crime, it is a joke , how many people are jailed for not having a driving licence , hardly any i guess , and these people have the ability to kill someone driving a two tonne vehicle , what danger is an unlicenced tv watcher to the public, none
I have said it before, get the lazy BBC to pay their own way as other networks have too and stop persecuting people for watching tv programmes which lets face it are mainly absolute rubbish anyway
Bring back capital punishment and our prisond.will be less busy. Get rid of murderers and pedos for a start
If only, I have sky, but got a new tv last Christmas which I can’t access what tv gives me which I can’t get from sky. Also I hate it as before I only had to use my sky remote for all, on:off, volume etc . Now need two controllers and tv ones are huge hefty!
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