In an age when every household has at least one computer and in many cases a number of units – a time when we can access anything from the internet – is there any benefit to owning a television?
Like the majority of homes in the UK indeed across the world we have a large square box standing in the corner which displays coloured pictures and spouts noise. The pleasure of having this box currently costs the household a compulsory £142.50 for the licence and £18.00 for the Virgin Media companies programme package.
I am almost ashamed to admit that in our house we have three laptops and during the majority of evenings each of us sits facing our screens and the evening passes without much conversation (the horrors of this modern family living are another article entirely) as we tap our keyboards and the TV plays in the background.
While the humour of this scenario is that last night I sat at my machine working, my daughter used hers to chat on MSN while my husband watched a missed show on BBCiplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/?16,19,23,06,04,2008 – the serious point is why indeed we have a TV at all.
Ok so currently we get BBC and ITV through the internet by way of a historic programme list, but we can also see many – probably all unreleased items through http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk2PebxHnHM.
It must only be a matter of time before the digital companies offer a subscription facility to watch their channels in the same way.
Bearing in mind that current legislation suggests that you can watch television on your PC without a licence provided it is not a live broadcast I can not imagine any household gladly giving up the cost of a licence. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5081350.stm Especially when you consider the added benefit of being able to watch a multiple of programmes at the same time – something that very family had fought over!
Maybe we should all consider it now, because undoubtedly when the rush sets in they will find a way of charging us to ensure they keep their revenues up. An interesting point in itself as they started the whole thing by offering this type of free viewing.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I think you’ll find more and more people are giving up the cost of a TV licence – we have owned a TV for over a year now, and not once used it for watching live television (the action which requires a licence).
You can use a TV for video games, DVDs, or hooked up to a computer to watch non-live services such as iPlayer or 4oD – none of which require a licence.