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Comment by mortallywounded | Hacker News Reader

I can only imagine the faux ignorance when a TV inspector knocks on your door and asks if your TV is running.

"Huh, TV? I don't have a TV..."

In a classic episode of The Young Ones, when the TV inspector knocks on the door, the others stall him while Vyvyan attempts to eat the TV.

Finally the inspector barges in and finds Vyvyan with a power cord hanging out of his mouth to which he replies “It’s a toaster”.

I miss TV shows like that; just simple plots based on real-life scenarios that we can all relate to.

For those without a TV, you may still require a license to watch live streams on your computer/smartphone.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ33

And on-demand things from the BBC, that got added in the last royal charter.

I wish they would just lock it away behind a licensed paywall.

They word that as vaguely as possible, far more vague than the actual law states, but basically no, only if the stream is the equivalent of watching live on a BBC channel. They're just hoping you interpret their vague nonsense as liberally as possible 'to be safe'.

Wouldnt call it faux ignorance, the section of society without one is likely quite large. It was before youtube and co took off and the number of viewers very likely went down afterwards.

I moved to the UK circa 2009 when I just turned 18. I was raised on the internet and broke enough not to own a TV.

Got harassed by so, so many TV tax envelopes and visits over the next couple years, they were just SO convinced I was lying to them because of course some 18-something year old kid would have a TV, how could he not?

Left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

I informed the TVLA that my mum's flat had been empty since her death and they can stop sending monthly harassing letters.

Picked up the mail there again last weekend, we're now on an 'Enforcement Action' and _will_ be visited, etc, etc.

Meanwhile, I'm 90% certain I'll be cancelling my own Licence soon and deleting iPlayer off my AppleTV, mostly because the BBC can't figure out how to make subtitles work on it, so if I'm going to have to pirate Doctor Who so my wife can watch with subtitles anyway, why bother paying in the first place?

The BBC is definitely an institution whose best days are long past. It's not really their fault - successive generations of political ruling classes have really hated them and wanted to see the end of public service broadcasting in the UK, but when presented with opportunities to showcase their value the BBC are definitely experts at stuffing it up.

The TVLA is borderline criminal.

It's the main reason I hate the BBC now.

What other service is openly accessible but you get fined if you use it?

Use the bus without a ticket? Drive without insurance? Road tax?

Kids can't accidentally drive a car or ride a bus (and most towns in the UK have pay-to-ride buses).

I remember reading about said ignorance once early smartphones and laptops could have a TV tuner.

Other than the short-lived “HTC Lobster” (yes, that’s its name), which had a DVB-H receiver, I’m not aware of any phones having a TV tuner.

Did any laptops have built-in tuners that weren’t just PC-cards, though?

——-

EDIT: Huh… apparently the Lobster was actually TV-over-DAB and not DVB-H, which was used by some Nokia phones.

a lot of chinese, korean, or japanese. basically phones targeting the asian market had them.

I remember buying a phone that had a retractable antenna on the side. most you were not able to buy outside asian markets since they would probably not work.

much like dual sim phone, there was a lot more of them on phone targeting asian markets but very rare when the phone is targeting the rest of the world.

Half remembering an article which I can no longer find from more than 15 years back...

But I seem to recall there being TV tuners available for SD slots on both Palm and Windows devices. Phones didn't necessarily ship with the capability.

Happened to an ex of mine. "Who? No, they're out. I'm just visiting."

Got away with it too.

Unless that person was a complete muppet they probably realized it was an excuse, but didn't think it was worth having a fight about it.

And you're not obligated to talk to them or let them enter your home. "I don't have a TV and I'm not interested in having a discussion about it. Good day to you."

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