Here in the UK, we have to pay £159 ($198) a year for a TV licence which the law requires we have to watch live TV. For additional channels beyond the BBC and standard paid for by advertising channels, you have to pay more by buying something like Sky, Virgin Media etc. Only things like Netflix or Amazon Prime (as long as it’s not live) are you allowed to watch without a licence. Is this a thing in the USA?

42 comments

  1. No, and literally having a license for everything is one of the most common memes about the UK.

  6. I watch the main broadcast channels using a $20 antenna from Amazon. Everything else I stream.

    But yeah what most people do (if they even pay for non-streaming TV at all) would be similar to the Sky or Virgin Media setup.

  13. No, but idea of paying for something so trivial as Having a simply TV is quite strange.
    I remember watching some videos about how it’s also basically impossible to in-force this law.

  14. There is no license or fees related to having a TV or watching channels “over the air”. However, there are TV companies that you can pay for.

  15. No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.

  16. No. You just have to buy any pay-monthly cable service you want. You can alternatively buy an antenna which gives you a number of over-the-air channels for free of charge. That’s what I have since I can’t afford cable.

  17. Nope. PBS, which is our closest thing to BBC is funded by a government grant and donations from viewers like me.

  18. No, we don’t. However pretty much every over the air channel (and most cable and many streaming services) have commercials that pay for tv.

    PBS (public broadcasting) is the only channel in most markets that doesn’t have commercials, and it’s funded by donations and government grants. I read somewhere that it’s about $1.50 per taxpayer.

  19. No. The Detroit ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and PBS affiliates are broadcast free over the air. I live close enough to Canada that we also get Windsor CBC over the air.

  22. Nope do not need to pay for a TV License to watch TV. But in many areas, since 2009 it has been difficult to get over the air TV, and you need to pay for cable to watch TV.

  24. No, our public-access TV channels are funded by a combination of government grants and donations.

  26. I feel bad your king makes you pay for public television so he can have all he can eat beans on toast

  27. No, I also never paid for a tv license in Scotland at uni 😂 they can only enforce it if you let them in the home

  28. As I’ve come to understand, the UK uses the TV license thing to pay for public broadcasting stations; whether news or educational programs and broadcast stations/networks.

    The US doesn’t do that. The TV itself is a stand-alone purchase and you aren’t taxed on it any further than the sales tax of buying the TV in the first place – or the antenna to receive digital over-air broadcasts, or service providers like Charter or Comcast for TV service, including streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime.

    How the broadcast networks *generally* pay for things is via advertising (mostly for big networks like NBC, CBS, Fox) – or via donation (like PBS running fund-raising drives once or twice a year; people/businesses donate to PBS to keep them running).

    ;;

    The closest thing the US would have to a TV license/tax, is through whatever government spending happens to fund broadcast television stations, through things like grants or similar.

    This would be like our federal or state taxes being spent (in part) to keep PBS running through grant money – which I wouldn’t doubt happens to *some level* depending on the station, or with *some* specific channels or programs. But the typical American isn’t going to be “aware” of this since it would be wrapped up into the yearly federal/state taxes – there is no license involved, but the money would still go to the broadcast station to keep running.

  30. We don’t have anything like that.

    Partly because we don’t have a state-funded broadcasting company like the BBC (PBS gets a little, but nothing comparable). Also, because the backlash would be *insane*.

    Plus we don’t have those magic TV-detecting trucks. 😀

  31. Absolutely not, don’t even know how this work properly be enforced in the US. Pretty sure the “You got a Loicense for that!?” joke spawned from the fact the Brits need a TV License to watch standard programming.

  32. Fun fact: the loicense is half off if you’re blind. Charlie may take my eyes but he’ll never take my freedom.

  34. There’s no specific license but PBS gets general funding from the government that can be adjusted each year.
    I think the majority of their funding is corporate donations now but don’t have their numbers in front of me to confirm.

  35. Yes, the first time I heard of a TV license I thought it was a joke. You can just set up a TV and connect it to an antenna and you got free TV, no license required or asked for.

  42. No but you guys do get some really quality programming out of it. We have no public broadcaster that even comes close to the BBC which has so much good shit (especially inside No 9, which is supposedly getting an American version that I’m almost certain is going to suck)

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