TV license inspector visit

Freakyzoidberg

Hello,

I just had the visit of a TV license inspector.

A friend of mine gave me last month, a CRT tv set, but as actually I never watch it, it's actually unplugged.

I received a letter from an post about the license, which lead me to make arrangement with a friend to bring it to garbage dump (which we wanted to do this week end)


Anyway, the tv inspector asked me several question, she got my name wrong, and told me that because there is a TV on the premises on this day she would have to report it, she then asked me if I knew how to pay for the license.

As I would like to avoid any problem, I went straight away on the website and paid for a license (even though I am still thinking of trashing the tv set)

Now the "have to report it" worries me.

What do that actually mean? will I have to go to court or get the 1000 fine ?
am I safe because I paid the license on the same day of the visit of the inspector ?

Thank you

Paulw

Freakyzoidberg wrote: »

am I safe because I paid the license on the same day of the visit of the inspector ?

You will be fine because you now have the license. Once the inspector enters the details to their system, it will now come back that a license was purchased today.

Freakyzoidberg

Ok thank you for your answer

now I hope the computer is smart enough to link the address they have and the address I filled, as I live in a building complex, the address can be tricky sometimes

cson

Out of interest; I'm pretty sure they have no authority to enter your property thus could one answer the door and refuse admittance and that unless the TV was in plain view they couldn't do anything at that point?

Theoretically one could say "Fook off and get a warrant from the District Court if you want to come in here"?

Can they actually prove you have/are using a TV without gaining access to the property?

johndaman66

cson wrote: »

Theoretically one could say "Fook off and get a warrant from the District Court if you want to come in here"?

I live with my LandLord and he fully takes care of the TV license out of his own pocket. I know if I was a home/ appartment owner and they called around I'd tell them nicely to sling their hook first. If they were persistant I'd tell em something along the lines of what you suggest above. Considering all you get out of it and advertising every few minutes. You pay a TV license in the UK but they don't have a bucket load of advertising every few minutes so why should we accept it.

cson wrote: »

Can they actually prove you have/are using a TV without gaining access to the property?

Apparently not. A aerial on the chimney would be a bit of a giveaway but thats not decisive either as seemingly they cannot tell if a signal is being drawn, with non digital terrestrial tv signal anyway. My brother is big into this sort of thing. He done electrical engineering at college, put up aerials and satellite dishes for people, is forever reading up on this sort of thing and messing around with compasses trying to find the astra and hotbird satellites. He seems to know his stuff. He told me they can hazard a bit of a guess from their equipment but cant tell conclusively by any means.

I'm getting a good bit off topic now but I often wonder how they can tell for example that 360,000 people watched Fair City on such and such a night. Even if they were able to tell how many TV's were tuned into that station for half an hour how can they tell how many people were in each room watching each TV?

spockety

If you have an aerial you need a license even if you don't have a tv.

They know how many people watch shows because a sample of the population have special boxes from nielsen which track what they watch, and the ratings are extrapolated from that.

UDP

spockety wrote: »

If you have an aerial you need a license even if you don't have a tv.

That is incorrect.

You need a license for a "Television set" as defined by the Broadcasting Act 2009

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2009/en/act/pub/0018/sec0140.html#sec140 wrote:

“ television set ” means any electronic apparatus capable of receiving and exhibiting television broadcasting services broadcast for general reception (whether or not its use for that purpose is dependent on the use of anything else in conjunction with it) and any software or assembly comprising such apparatus and other apparatus;

So basically you need to be able to display the broadcast too - actually displying the broadcast is the most important part.

ShaShaBear

Yeah, I got nabbed for having a computer screen that could connect to my TV aerial, even though I insisted that it was a computer. It has the ability to display TV and that's the end of it. What a joke!

mikemac

“ television set ” means any electronic apparatus capable of receiving and exhibiting television broadcasting services broadcast for general reception

These days you can stream sports onto your phone, either unofficially with streams or officially like NFL.com or baseball with MLB.com

They'll probably be taxing mobile phones soon enough...

ShaShaBear

Definetely only a matter of time. I was shocked that I had to pay €160 quid for owning a monitor. These days, if you have the right cables, you can connect anything to anything, so this is gonna bite a lot of people in the ass. I wouldn't even mind, but my flat is essentially one massive room with a small bedroom and bathroom attached, the aerial is about 12 feet away (with a hot-press and electric storage radiator in the way) from a plug socket - I'd have a hard time watching TV!