It has been a busy week for TV Licensing, although not for the TV Licensing Blog owing to being away in the bracing fresh air of the Yorkshire Dales.
Today we provide an update on a few TV Licensing related stories, just to gently ease back into the blogging groove.
1. Over-75 TV licences
As calendar rolled over into August, so too came the end of the universal "free" over-75 TV licence. This has been a big story over recent months, but we'll provide a brief overview for the benefit of anyone who doesn't know the situation.
Since 2000 every household with at least one occupant aged 75 or older has been entitled to a concessionary TV licence. The over-75 TV licence was provided "free", but the cost was actually covered by the Government. Basically for every "free" over-75 TV licence issued, the Government paid the BBC its face value.
In 2015 the BBC and Government negotiated the terms of the Corporation's next Royal Charter. The Government wanted a financial settlement that would make the national broadcaster reign in its exorbitant spending and provide its audience with better value for money.
A deal was reached, which required the BBC to accept "full liability" for self-funding the over-75 TV licence. The BBC was very happy with the deal at the time, but has changed its tune now that the time has come for it to honour its financial commitments. You can read a lot more in our earlier articles.
As of 1st April 2020 only those over-75 households with at least one occupant in receipt of Pension Credit will remain eligible for a concessionary TV licence. Every other over-75 household, who received a "free" licence in the past, will now need to pay the £157.50 annual fee if they wish to continue receiving TV programmes (and BBC on-demand programmes) legally.
Of course they could always ditch the TV licence completely in favour of legally-licence-free alternatives, and we would encourage them to do so.
2. Short-dated TV licences
Over the last few days we've noticed a lot of people irate at the short-dating of TV licences. TV licences are valid for one year from the first day of the month in which they are bought or renewed. This means a person buying a TV licence towards the end of the month could be stung the full 12 month cost (currently £157.50) for only 11 months of validity.
Perhaps this is best illustrated by means of an example: Mrs Goggins buys her TV licence on 30th July. It will run for 12 months from the 1st of July, which means it will expire on 30th June the following year.
Short-dating is dishonest and unfair. The BBC is raking in millions in extra revenue by doing it. We have previously challenged the BBC about short-dating. It responded by saying that it was cheaper to administer the purchase/renewal of TV licences by having only one possible renewal date every month.
We consider the BBC's explanation woefully inadequate.
In the meantime we would encourage anyone buying or renewing a TV licence to do so at the very start of the month, which will prevent TV Licensing from stealing days of validity from them.
3. TV Licensing's Mythical 99 Percent Conviction Rate
Our noble colleague Mr H recently uploaded his "Letters from TV Licensing, volume 15" video to YouTube. Please pop across there, drop him a friendly comment and subscribe to his channel.
In the video he deconstructs the text of the latest TV Licensing missive to have landed on his doormat. In an effort to scare recipients into buying a TV licence, the letter contains the following statement: "There is a 99 percent conviction rate for licence fee evasion cases determined by the courts in England and Wales."
We have previously challenged the BBC on how it arrived at this 99 percent figure. In short, when it says "99 percent conviction rate" it really means "99 percent conviction rate for those cases we proceed to prosecute". The 99 percent conviction figure does not include all the cases TV Licensing abandons before a court hearing, which is a significant proportion. We have done further analysis of the 99 percent conviction figure and whichever way you look at it, the BBC's figures just don't stack up.
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