It was due to be decriminalised, but the government postponed it:
I donât quite follow the maths on these two paragraphs though
Almost a third of womenâs convictions are for not paying the TV licence fee - with women being ten times more likely to be convicted for not paying the ÂŁ157.50 annual fee than men, Ministry of Justice data recently released showed.
Any individual who watches or records live TV or utilises iPlayer without a TV licence is guilty of a criminal offence and could be sent to jail for not paying their court fine. Some 74 per cent of the 114,000 convictions for licence fee dodging in 2019 were for women â up 3 per cent since 2015.
EDIT: maybe they mean that out of the prosecutions that are brought, the rate of conviction for women is ten times that of men, which leads to 74% of all convictions being women.
I donât really view things as âMY taxes go to THISâ, but if I did want to start thinking like that then Iâd already have a lot of pretty awful shit to get aggy about paying for before I get to the BBC. In the grand scheme of rotten British institutions theyâre pretty low on the totem.
The only thing I can think is that maybe way more men are charged and acquitted and thatâs what the first para is alluding to? And the second para is just a breakdown of total convictions?
Men are less likely to admit to the crime of illegally watching telly in court.
There is no âdetector vanâ, and no evidence unless you admit to watching telly.
The only people who get convicted of not having a TV licence are the people who admit to watching TV.
Without meaning to generalise, women tend to be more passive and honest, whereas men will threaten the TV licence man with a broom and hear no more of it.
Do you need it to listen to radio? Hope I donât get put in licence fee jail for sometimes having radio 3 on in the car. Itâs only for short local trips when itâs not worth putting a CD in, and thatâs only about once a month, even less these days, your honour. Please be lenient, all I did was turn the car on, I canât remember the last time I touched the radio itself.
i like some of radio 1. i always have radio 4 on and i think the only thing i donât hate is clive james. donât have a digital radio. who makes donât tell the bride?
Just following on from what @TheBarbieMovie2023 says in the original post, and without wishing to out myself in any way, I do know prosecutions against women for tv licence nonpayment has something to do with protecting the breadwinner (usually a man, in a traditional nuclear family) from receiving a conviction that would affect employment prospects
If they bring Robot Wars back again then all is forgiven in my eyes, Iâll pay the fee. Shunt would probably sort out the transphobes and far right cranks given the chance.
Nah. Kuenssberg giving Prince Andrew a grilling for example. Or the fella on the One Show asking David Cameron âhow do you sleep?â. Or Gary Linekerâs pro-refugee stance.
I agree with you that the right tend to moan about its cultural/arts programming. Most of the panel shows are left-leaning, but they wouldnât really be funny if they were right-wing.
Neither the One Show nor Match Of The Day are news programmes (and the BBC have changed their policy as a direct result of the likes of Lineker expressing mild empathy on twitter).
It wasnât Kuenssberg who did the Prince Andrew interview, btw, it was Emily Maitlis.
I think most of the panel shows are packed with middle of the road small âcâ conservative centrist dad comedians.