I sent a message to Mark, the host/producer of tartanpodcast (of which I wrote about in an earlier blog). I had a listen to the tartanpodcast #10 and he was ranting about TV licensing. Me not having gone out of Philippine borders, I told him that I think that TV licensing, as he explained it, was crazy. And he sent me a link to the UK TV Licensing bureau which explains why in the UK every TV set which receives broadcast has to pay a license fee.
Maybe I'm really from a Third World country, or maybe I just like commercials more than some TV shows, but all along I had this concept that TV viewing was free. I guess in some countries it does not appear so. And looking at the PDF document from the TV Licensing bureau, it seems to me that the whole thing was borne out of an outdated concept, whose spirit was lost when it was revised and updated in the 1990's.
Imagine, I buy a car and I need to have it licensed. That I understand. I would be using the vehicle on roads made by the government. I might injure someone and the government has to know who owns the vehicle. But if I buy a TV, I don't need to pay the government for the use of the ether through which radio signals are being transmitted. Makes as much sense as licensing windmills for the use of the wind.
--andoy
15 July 2005
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