The ramblings of a madman: TV License

You have a variety of licences. These all seem quite logical. I mean a license to own a gun perhaps. Makes sense. A license to drive, yup, that makes perfect sense. A license to sell alcohol. Again, that's just dandy.

TV license? No, I don't get it. I'm not at risk of killing anyone with my TV set. Nope, not my preferred weapon of choice against an intruder, as much I would love to smash my TV over his head. Nope, I couldn't run anyone over with my wonderful flat screen either. Nah. I couldn't sell my Samsung to someone underage who would later be getting their stomach pumped at the local hospital for ingested circuit boards. Hardly.

So, why I ask, am I forced to hold a license for watching TV in the privacy of my own home? Out of all the licenses that affect my daily life, they are all optional. I can decide if I really need a KAC M110 sniper rifle to scare my local fox. I can decide if I want to drive around in a flash car that I can barely afford to put petrol in. Yes, I can even decide if I want to open up a pub and sell pints for a living.

So why can't I decide if I want to watch the BBC? What if I don't watch Eastenders? What if I don't care for the wonderful delights of the One Show and its cardboard presenters? What if I don't want to sit up all night and watch a programme on BBC 2 that lasts from 1:20am to 4:00am called "This is BBC2", which wait for it... Previews upcoming BBC 2 programmes. As much as this all sounds riveting, I'm at a loss as to why something as unimportant as a TV broadcaster has been forced onto me with no choice.

Most licenses even though costly to attain, usually give you some kind of value for money. Longevity in licenses usually do carry their weight. Now imagine having to pay every year to have your driving license renewed? Yeah, that's stupid right? Well, TV licenses are so important that they need annual renewal. At £145.50p per year for the pleasure, (Legally blind people do get a half price discount), I personally feel the BBC is slightly failing to give me my moneys worth. Let's face it, all the BBC is good for is 'Match of the Day', and the odd wildlife programme narrated by Sir David Attenborough. Oh yeah, and the World Cup that comes round every four years. (The BBC do have the best opening credits to any major global sporting event. They also do really good slow motion montages at the closing of any major global sporting event. All four minutes of it set to a really cool soundtrack, designed to captivate and inspire you, and usually does. However, that inspiration is swiftly killed off when the 'News at Ten' chimes in right after with gloomy economic updates.

Since when did watching TV become so important it became a law? For if I failed to cough up for this ridiculous mandatory license, I would face criminal charges. I would be summoned in front of a very serious looking judge who would be wearing a very silly wig. (Yes, judges here wear curly wigs. Google it). He would proceed to tell me I'm a menace to society and that I have been reeking havoc on the very fabric of society by watching Ant and Dec on a Saturday night without a license and then bang his wooden hammer on his little perch. Unlicensed TV watching is a seriously dangerous activity in this country. Men in black sit in vans under the cover of night with mini satellites pointed at your house trying to determine if you're watching TV illegally. These secret agents have been known to knock at your door and demand you show them your TV-less frontroom. I can just picture it now...  Two men in black suits, black ties and black sunglasses knocking at my door getting all Matrix on me and uttering the sentence: "Excuse me sir, we have reason to believe there is illegal TV watching going on at this address."

Seriously? As I type this I have to pinch myself that this is actually real. This actually does happen.

Infact, in 2011 - 2012, the BBC racked up a whopping £3.681 BILLION pounds from this imposed license fee. This went on pretty important things such as - Phil Mitchell's wages, the upkeep of the Queen Vic', the annual funeral that takes place every December on Eastenders, all the supposedly uber cool Radio One Dj's, and, of course, Top Gear.  Yes, here in the UK, paying billions of pounds to watch three rich, out of shape, grumpy middle aged English men drive around in the worlds most luxurious sports cars is actually a law.

Well, anyway, at least this country abolished a law in 1971 to hold a mandatory license for any radio that had a plug.

**Exhales**

Joshua, TCC