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posted by martyb on Thursday November 08 2018, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-don't-see-what-you-did-there dept.

BBC:

More than 7,000 people still watch TV in black and white more than half a century after colour broadcasts began.

London has the most TV licences for black and white sets at 1,768, followed by 431 in the West Midlands and 390 in Greater Manchester.

A total of 7,161 UK households have failed to start watching in colour despite transmissions starting in 1967.

BBC2 was the first channel to regularly broadcast in colour from July that year with the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

The number of black and white licences has almost halved in the past five years and is down from 212,000 in 2000.

Aha! Those must be the last Manichaeans.


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday November 09 2018, @02:23AM (4 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday November 09 2018, @02:23AM (#759663) Homepage Journal

    ?

    If I watched Dr. Who off of a streaming service on my phone, would I have to pay the tax for my phone?

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Friday November 09 2018, @07:05AM (3 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Friday November 09 2018, @07:05AM (#759752)

    If I watched Dr. Who off of a streaming service on my phone, would I have to pay the tax for my phone?"

    If it is a BBC originated stream, watched in the UK, then yes*. I'm not sure what the status is for non-residents (e.g. tourists) There are some odd rules around broadcasting by cable and satellite in the EU, so you might be able to watch a stream in another EU country if your phone can receive the Over-the-Air broadcast from satellites that point (mostly) at the UK.

    https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/satellite-and-cable-directive [europa.eu]

    The directive is due to be changed to 'catch up' with the rise of Internet-based distribution, including streaming.

    https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9136d4c6-49d2-43c0-a094-9686a2fd3516 [lexology.com]

    *The rules changed relatively recently: it used to be that you only needed a licence if the stream was a simulcast with the OTA programme - using the BBC's online service to watch the programme at other times did not require a licence, but that changed.

    • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday November 09 2018, @03:29PM (2 children)

      by Unixnut (5779) on Friday November 09 2018, @03:29PM (#759893)

      Its a lot more complicated than that, as the TV licence is not attached to the person, but the household.

      For example. I don't have a TV, or the TV licence, which is fine as I don't watch TV. However, if a friend comes round (who does pay the TV licence) and wants to show me something streamed on their device from their iplayer account, can they do so legally?

      Believe it or not, the answer apparently is "it depends on whether the device is plugged in". If the device is plugged into anything in my house (e.g. a charger), then it is considered part of my household and, as I don't have a TV licence, you cannot watch BBC on it.

      However, if the device is standalone and not plugged into anything, it is fine to watch BBC on it, because it is then covered by the owners licence (as a temporarily remote nodepoint from their household), a bit like how back in the day you could watch the bbc on a portable/pocket TV when outside, because you pay the TV licence in your house.
      The same logic results in you being able to stream the BBC to your device while on a train, or in a cafe, without worrying whether they have a TV licence or not.

      The above applies even if they use my net connection for the stream. So you end up in a situation where you can watch BBC in my house without a TV licence, as long as the machine it is watched on belongs to a TV licence payer, and it is not connected to my house in any way.

      In reality, it is unlikely anyone is going to bust down your door and arrest you if your friend shows you a stream on their device while it is plugged into a charger, the law itself is quite convoluted with regards to licensing.

      • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Friday November 09 2018, @03:51PM (1 child)

        by pTamok (3042) on Friday November 09 2018, @03:51PM (#759901)

        Well, I was assuming that MDC owned the phone, and it was powered of its own internal batteries at the time.

        I am aware of the extreme convolutions of the regulations, and was trying to keep it relatively simple.

        It looks like with Brexit, the UK will probably not participate in the (digital) single market, so any hopes of ex-pats being able to get BBC legitimately across the EU/EEA look to be emaciatedly slim at best.

        The media conglomerates are not going to like being forced to offer pan-single market deals. It will hit their revenues, no matter what, and has the potential remove service from inhabitants of countries with below average purchasing power if the media giants play hard-ball and refuse to offer pan-single market low price deals. I can see that being spun as the EU's fault.

        • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday November 09 2018, @05:23PM

          by Unixnut (5779) on Friday November 09 2018, @05:23PM (#759941)

          Don't even get me started on Brexit. Ever since the vote the number of EU companies willing to offer me contracts has dwindled to almost nothing, and even then, only the occasional short 3 month stint, with no auto renewal or permanence offered. Companies don't want to bother with the headache and uncertainty of my ability to live and work in the EU, so go for other contractors.

          As such, I have to pack up and head back to the UK, after years living in the EU, with no idea if there will be any decent work for me there. At least I will have the TV licence harassers to entertain me again...

          Truth be told, I suspect pan-single market deals on TV access to the be the least of the UK's worries, especially if they end up with a hard Brexit, as seems likely to occur.

          > I am aware of the extreme convolutions of the regulations, and was trying to keep it relatively simple.

          Come now, how could you leave it out? Half the fun is in the convolutions of the regulations. :-) It's the only silver lining to the whole mess!