Government may extend TV licence fee to cover BBC iPlayer
The Government is considering plans to extend the TV licence fee to cover BBC iPlayer – and other catch-up TV services such as the forthcoming YouView.
Currently British viewers must pay £145.50 for a television licence if they watch or record programmes as they are broadcast, whether on a TV, computer, mobile phone or tablet.
However, viewing programmes after they have been broadcast on a catch-up service such as iPlayer does not require a licence, as you can read here.
With a rapidly growing number of internet-enabled TVs (IPTVs) and set-top boxes hitting the market, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is considering an overhaul of the licence fee to bring it into line with new technologies.
A spokesman says: "The Government is aware of developing technologies and the changing viewing habits of those who watch television programmes. How the BBC is funded as these issues evolve is a matter the department will need to address in the near future."
The BBC insists that no changes are needed, pointing to its own research showing that only 0.2% of households watch only catch-up television, with no live viewing, each week.
A BBC spokesman adds: "We believe the current system works very efficiently and do not see a need to change its scope at present."
What do you think? Should iPlayer remain outside the TV licence fee? Let us know in the Comments box below.
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Comments
More bureaucracy? I see no point in bothering with this legislation when there are far more important matters the government should be worrying about at present. If it begins to impact seriously on the BBC revenues then that is when the matter should be addressed. In general I believe in the principle of funding the BBC by licence, unlike sczaro, providing that they are successful in curbing their more wasteful practices. Commercial channels, in my opinion, have become unwatchable unless recorded first to enable skipping of the huge amount of advertising in the more popular programs e.g. Downton Abbey, DC Banks etc.
Err, how would the BBC make and broadcast all its programmes if there was no licence fee?
waste of taxpayers money, license fee should be abolished anyway. what freedom do people get if they are not allowed to watch tv legally without paying the license fee? surely, that is not what you will call freedom. and who are those people who these money goes to and where are they spending it? for their own luxury, i am paying it because i am not free to see what is happening around me.
I would guess that most of the 'unlicensed' iPlayer users will be either Students or overseas users outside the FreeSat footprint using location cloning.
Students have little spare money, so there's little point of chasing them and it's impossible to charge overseas users.
Conclusion: the idea is a waste of time as it will cost more to setup and monitor than any possible gain in income.