TV licence fee to rise by from April – official MSE News discussion

MSE_Kelvin

The annual cost of a standard colour TV licence will rise to £169.50 from 1 April 2024 – an increase of £10.50 on the current price of £159 a year – the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has announced. It's the first increase to the fee since April 2021. Read the full story...

TV licence fee to rise by £10.50 a year to £169.50 from April 2024

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HumberFlyer

46p a day.... I not a lot will disagree, but i think it is brilliant for that price

Petriix

Is it worth cancelling in March (can you get a refund?) then getting my partner to apply for a new one in their name? 

Cornucopia

Petriix said:

Is it worth cancelling in March (can you get a refund?) then getting my partner to apply for a new one in their name? 

AFAIK, there's no value in doing this - the monthly DD cost, and the quarterly cost will simply be pro-rata to the annual cost as it applies across the time period you have a Licence for.

If you've paid annually, then cancelling would cost you more, I would have thought.

Slinky

Cornucopia said:

Petriix said:

Is it worth cancelling in March (can you get a refund?) then getting my partner to apply for a new one in their name? 

AFAIK, there's no value in doing this - the monthly DD cost, and the quarterly cost will simply be pro-rata to the annual cost as it applies across the time period you have a Licence for.

If you've paid annually, then cancelling would cost you more, I would have thought.

And you'll end up actually paying out more for the first six months, as when you first take out a licence paying by DD you pay the annual cost over 6 months, then the monthly cost after that, so you pay six months in advance, then 6 in arrears IIRC.

FredaJones

So +£14 a month.

Perhaps it could be argued that for a family, two adults and a couple of children, that is good value but for those living on their own who have to pay the same amount, I don't think so.

Petriix

Cornucopia said:

Petriix said:

Is it worth cancelling in March (can you get a refund?) then getting my partner to apply for a new one in their name? 

AFAIK, there's no value in doing this - the monthly DD cost, and the quarterly cost will simply be pro-rata to the annual cost as it applies across the time period you have a Licence for.

If you've paid annually, then cancelling would cost you more, I would have thought.

Your last sentence doesn't make sense. If you pay annually then presumably the cost for the full year is whatever the price is on the day you buy. Reading a little further it seems they will refund any full unused months so cancelling on 31 March and buying a new licence on that day would cost the current £159 price. My current licence expires on 31 August 2024 so I would expect a refund of 5 months worth of £13.25. I'd definitely save money by doing this. 

Cornucopia

Petriix said:

Cornucopia said:

Petriix said:

Is it worth cancelling in March (can you get a refund?) then getting my partner to apply for a new one in their name? 

AFAIK, there's no value in doing this - the monthly DD cost, and the quarterly cost will simply be pro-rata to the annual cost as it applies across the time period you have a Licence for.

If you've paid annually, then cancelling would cost you more, I would have thought.

Your last sentence doesn't make sense. If you pay annually then presumably the cost for the full year is whatever the price is on the day you buy. Reading a little further it seems they will refund any full unused months so cancelling on 31 March and buying a new licence on that day would cost the current £159 price. My current licence expires on 31 August 2024 so I would expect a refund of 5 months worth of £13.25. I'd definitely save money by doing this. 

I *think* that it'll cost you more because the unexpired portion of your Licence was originally charged at £159, and your new Licence would be charged at the new rate of £169.50.  

So, if you are obtaining a refund of 5 months that would be worth £66.25 and your new Licence would cost you £70.62 for the same period. 

Also, Licences and refunds are for full calendar months only, so you'd need to cancel on 31 March and not obtain your new Licence until 1 April.    

edit:   I think I understand what you're suggesting, now.   You mean canceling in February and renewing in March at the old price to beat the increase in April.   Yes, that would work if you cancel on 29 February and take out a new Licence on 1 March.   I don't know whether TVL would try to prevent that in some way (they can be quite sneaky).

Also bear in mind that they ask for a reason (and sometimes proof of that reason) when people cancel Licences.   

Petriix

I regularly go for periods without a TV licence. There's no point in buying one if you don't intend to watch live broadcasts or Iplayer content. The reason for cancelling is simply 'I no longer require a licence'.

You're probably right that I should cancel on the last day of February then get the new one on the first day of March. As they would be in different names I can't see how they could prevent it. There's no particular reason to stop people doing something just because it's the optimal timing. 

Ultimately it's just delaying my price rise for 6 months, but that would potentially mean paying the lowest renewal price each year as long as I want to retain a continuous license. Better than paying the inflated price after April each year. 

mmmmikey

I've just cancelled my licence and asked for a refund, but before I did that I unplugged the aerial for a week and deleted the iPlayer app off my TV to see if I would really miss it. The reality is I've been watching very little live TV other than the news and the occasional international football tournament, and using iPlayer infrequently too. I do miss the BBC News a bit but that's ony really because of habit - there are other good news services available on catch up and lots of individual reports on YouTube. So the bottom line for me is that the licence fee is very poor value. 

I really think the whole way of paying for the BBC has become anachronistic and a fundamental rethink is required. It seems strange to have to pay a licence fee, the majority of which (or all?) goes to the BBC to get live TV from other sources. In effect it's just a tax on the airwaves and that aspect would, IMHO, be more appropriately collected / charged for separately with the BBC becoming a subscription service just like any other subscription service that you could choose either to pay for or not.

km1500

quite a lot of the licence fee goes towards paying for their gold plated pension scheme rather than making programmes