Television License?

Would any of our British members be so kind as to elaborate?

I am finally thoroughly confused by a foreign concept that is literally foreign.

Basically you pay the license so the national TV stations (read: government-owned) have enough money to educate the population.
Anyone with a TV that can receive broadcasts is required to pay the license fee.

Same here in Germany.

So, it's like the PBS pledge drives, only you don't have much of an option?

its a way to pry money out of our hands as always. We pay for the BBC service so imagine you have all your TV stations they all have adverts right?

Well BBC one, two, three and four.... are ad-less
you also get the radio stations, but thats about it. so out of the hundreds of channels we have four of them we pay for and they arnt the best for broadcasting anyway.

Law is law i suppose

Fort constant repeats and mediocre shows and an insane amount of soap operas - I know what I'd rather be using my £100+ fee for...

Seems also now if you can watch TV on your laptop or PC, because it's a monitor, you're also meant to pay... nice.

but the great thing about using your computer for TV is that there is no broadcast signal so they wont be able to track a signal.

Id rather it be free and have adverts. I also think there was an extreme amount of cheek before the iplayer came out it was supposed to come out as a stand alone apllication like 40D (channel four On Demand) and to be only used on Windows, thankfully they changed it, if they didnt i would not be paying my Fee thats for sure