TV Licence article Discussion

cw18

Britannia12345 said:

I'm going to cancel mine again.
When is the best point in the month to cancel?

At the end, because they don't refund part months.    I did mine on 31st Dec (2010) and was refunded Jan, Feb and March (left on the current licence) plus April, May and June (which I'd already paid towards the next one as I was on the monthly Direct Debit scheme).

_vexorg_

They do send a nice letter saying the "no licence needed confirmation".

sjp1966

Was looking to dump the TV licence as we really only watch netflix, you tube videos (not youtube TV), and possibly disney and amazon if we decide to go for it, I went to the TV licence website and they say the below, so now I am confused as it seems to muddy the waters by saying live services on certain media like (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)

If I go to/use those services how do i know if it is a programme i can watch or one that could net me a 1 grand fine?

 

pphillips

sjp1966 said:

Was looking to dump the TV licence as we really only watch netflix, you tube videos (not youtube TV), and possibly disney and amazon if we decide to go for it, I went to the TV licence website and they say the below, so now I am confused as it seems to muddy the waters by saying live services on certain media like (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)

If I go to/use those services how do i know if it is a programme i can watch or one that could net me a 1 grand fine?

 

The wording is deliberately written to confound you but what they're really saying is:
1. You need a TV licence to watch or record TV programmes as they are being broadcast.
2.You also need a TV licence to watch or download any BBC programmes from BBC iPlayer.
3. The device you use to watch or record any of the above is irrelevant.

What this means practically is that you can watch anything on any online TV service except:
A. BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer and
B. A TV channel as it's being broadcast 
This gives you a very wide scope of on-demand and catch up programmes you can watch without a TV licence. You can also watch any live streams online, as long as you're not watching a TV channel.

cw18

sjp1966 said:

I went to the TV licence website and they say the below, so now I am confused as it seems to muddy the waters by saying live services on certain media like (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)

If I go to/use those services how do i know if it is a programme i can watch or one that could net me a 1 grand fine?

The only things I've heard of that Amazon Prime have shown Live have been sporting events.  As I have no interest whatsoever in sport, that's not a problem for me.

I've just been into some apps to check what it says where.   When I use the left arrow to get up the sidebar menu in Itv Hub, the second one down is 'Live TV' - so all I need to do is stay out of that.    Most of the terrestrial TV apps have a very similar layout, though the one in My5 is at the top of the screen!

NowTV has a 'Tv Guide', and if you access something through that it's Live.   You can't use a Sports Pass without a TV Licence, as that is all Live.

I've never had (nor seen) Sky Go, so I can't comment on that one.

YouTube is the one that totally confuses me, so don't venture into that looking for something to watch.

Cornucopia

cw18 said:

YouTube is the one that totally confuses me, so don't venture into that looking for something to watch.

When TVL talk about "Live TV" that's not really what they mean.   What they really mean is scheduled TV broadcasts (being viewed at the time of transmission).

So... on Youtube (where there is a lot of Live content) you can watch anything that is not a parallel stream to a licensed TV channel.   At the moment, the main thing not to watch without a TV Licence is Sky News.  

pphillips

cw18 said:

sjp1966 said:

I went to the TV licence website and they say the below, so now I am confused as it seems to muddy the waters by saying live services on certain media like (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)

If I go to/use those services how do i know if it is a programme i can watch or one that could net me a 1 grand fine?

The only things I've heard of that Amazon Prime have shown Live have been sporting events.  As I have no interest whatsoever in sport, that's not a problem for me.

I've just been into some apps to check what it says where.   When I use the left arrow to get up the sidebar menu in Itv Hub, the second one down is 'Live TV' - so all I need to do is stay out of that.    Most of the terrestrial TV apps have a very similar layout, though the one in My5 is at the top of the screen!

NowTV has a 'Tv Guide', and if you access something through that it's Live.   You can't use a Sports Pass without a TV Licence, as that is all Live.

I've never had (nor seen) Sky Go, so I can't comment on that one.

YouTube is the one that totally confuses me, so don't venture into that looking for something to watch.

Amazon Prime sporting events is an interesting one. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there is any way to watch these events in the UK without an internet connection. The same goes for many of the live streams on YouTube.

I've checked OFCOM's list of broadcasters but both Amazon and YouTube are missing from the list.

cw18

Cornucopia said:

When TVL talk about "Live TV" that's not really what they mean.   What they really mean is scheduled TV broadcasts (being viewed at the time of transmission).

So... on Youtube (where there is a lot of Live content) you can watch anything that is not a parallel stream to a licensed TV channel.   At the moment, the main thing not to watch without a TV Licence is Sky News.  

As pphilips says, Live broadcasts on Amazon Prime could be classed as the same as YouTube live streams - they're live within the viewing system, but not being broadcast as a parallel stream to a licenced TV channel.    (My understanding has always been that the live Sport on Amazon Prime isn't available elsewhere - in the same way Sky have sport exclusives, and so do some of the terrestrial channels.)

Cornucopia

Where the Amazon Live Sport event is unique to Amazon, it definitely doesn't require a Licence.   

Where the event is also being shown live by a Broadcaster on a Broadcast channel, it's probably still okay because the stream is physically different, and there will likely be differences in graphics and commentary.

If Amazon were to do joint production with a Broadcaster that could get a bit trickier.

Dreamscometrue

Yay, I have cancelled it! It was up for renewal but I hardly watch tv anyway. I've started making a list of rare things I might watch on catch up.