TV Licensing PR Harlots: We're Helping to Save Paper

TV Licensing's PR people are always good for a giggle.

It looks like their latest campaign, which has been drip fed to local newspapers and radio stations across the nation, extols the virtues of paying online and thereby saving time and paper.

TV Licensing PR harlot Martin Dyan, who works for Fishburn (formerly Fishburn Hedges), gave this insightful commentary to The Breeze 107.6 radio station based in Basingstoke: "There has actually been an increase in the number of people paying online.

"It's actually up from 4.2 million last year to 5.2 million people across the UK.

"It's always great to see people getting away from paper and just trying to be a bit more online. 

"It helps keep the paper trail down; everything becomes a lot more efficient; and you're still able to get the same service and still watch that fantastic TV that you like to watch.

"It's certainly becoming, if not already, the way to get a licence."

Now for the bits that Dyan forgot to mention. TV Licensing is so concerned about saving time, paper and administrative costs that it actually sends out about 100,000 reminder letters every single working day. 

Of those 100,000 letters, each costing around 18.4 pence for postage alone (2012 figures), more than 80,000 of them are destined for properties where no TV licence is needed. That's according to the BBC's own figures, which state that more than 4 out of 5 unlicensed addresses are correctly unlicensed.

In other words every single working day TV Licensing is effectively flushing almost £20,000 of public money straight down the drain by sending letters to people who don't need them. That's only accounting for the postal costs. We estimate that the true cost of distributing these letters is actually twice that amount, when printing and sorting costs are taken into account.

Ponder that one the next time TV Licensing are peddling their planted smut in the local newspaper or radio station.