TV licence moan

What is the cost of a radio and television license?

TV is currently £139.50 per year, or £47 if you only want black-&-white.

Radio licenses were abolished in 1971.

I don't remember if you have cable service?

I don't remember if you have cable service?

It depends where you are.  Many larger towns have it available now, but most smaller places don't.   

The subscription fee you pay for cable is completely separate from the TV license though.  Even if you pay for cable TV and don't receive off-air, you are still legally obliged to get a license.

How much does it cost for cable service?

I'm not comin' if it is more than the US

http://www.cable.co.uk/

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/websales/service.do?id=1

Mumbo Jumbo.

 I think £16 a month would be OK??

There is also Sky- 99% of places get satellite coverage, and that is much more common than cable. Starts at £17 a month and can include phone and broadband as well.

How much does it cost for cable service?

I'm not comin' if it is more than the US

Looking around at the prices per month of cable or satellite here in the UK, I find it to be way cheaper than cable in the US. I was paying $70 a month to Time Warner Cable for a TV service only (no internet/phone/cable package, just cable alone) of about maybe 70 channels with none of the premium movie ones (no HBO, etc.) Cable phone and internet would have been just over $100 a month.

By contrast, as the other person said, three in one packages can start as low as under £20 in the UK, yet you still get I believe many more channels to watch even on the cheap fee tier. If you are earning pounds as your income, believe me that "feels" like twenty bucks out of your pocket.

I just really think that these services -- if your area is served by them -- are way cheaper than the US and one of the favourable price comparisons.

Sorry if anyone disagrees, because I know that some Brits actually complain about the price of cable! But live where I lived in the US, 70 bucks per month, and rising each year, just for basic cable and nothing else, and the contrast puts the UK prices in a terrific light. It's cheap here, in a nutshell.

Yes, my cable prices in the US are shocking compared to what I would have paid in the UK. I never had it while I have been here but now as I am getting cable in the US, I am stunned at how high the monthly cost will be.

Yes, my cable prices in the US are shocking compared to what I would have paid in the UK. I never had it while I have been here but now as I am getting cable in the US, I am stunned at how high the monthly cost will be.

I agree; in the US I was getting madder and madder at the prices I was paying for not even the fullest service. The three in one package price wasn't much easier on the budget either. Thats why I'm so "Whooo hoo, no really? Whee hee!!" about what they charge over here, lol! I found cable in the US to be an increasingly rip-off-sensation product to buy...

Sorry if anyone disagrees, because I know that some Brits actually complain about the price of cable! But live where I lived in the US, 70 bucks per month, and rising each year, just for basic cable and nothing else, and the contrast puts the UK prices in a terrific light. It's cheap here, in a nutshell.

I definitely agree with you - I had digital cable and internet installed in the US a few months ago - $66 a month for just broadband and TV, rising to $100 a month after a year, or $99 a month for landline, broadband and TV, rising to $150 a month after a year.

Whereas with Virgin Media in the UK, you can get landline, broadband, digital and mobile phone for £40 a month!

It's even cheaper if you get freesat. =)

There is also Sky- 99% of places get satellite coverage, and that is much more common than cable.

That's one of the reasons why cable TV has been much slower to take off here than in the States.   Direct-broadcast satellite services were promoted quite widely from the mid-1980s onward, and the little 18-inch dishes sprang up everywhere in a relatively short time since for most people this was the only way to watch anything beyond the four main broadcast networks which were then in operation.  DBS didn't really achieve anything like that quick take-up in the U.S., due to cable TV already being available much more widely, even in many relatively small towns of just a few thousand population.

The wide use of DBS in the U.K. is one of the factors which tended to restrict cable growth until more recent years, when bundling of services with phone, internet, etc. has made it a more attractive proposition for many.

It's even cheaper if you get freesat. =)

Remember that there is also digital terrestrial, which is received off-air with a regular UHF rooftop antenna and provides 30 or so channels.  There are other threads on the changeover, but between now and 2012 the existing analog broadcasts are due to be shut down region by region, so this will soon be the only direct off-air terrestrial TV available.

I get TV/HSI and local/LD tlephone for $104 a month. It will probably go up in a few months.

Which TV channels do you get in the UK from the US? (CNN?)

I've got SKY, and we get CNN International, and Fox News, and CNBC.  That's about it as far as I know for American channels, but even on the UK channels, there's no shortage of American shows.  The Daily Show is on More4, ABC Wrold News Tonight is shown on BBC News, CBS Nightly News is on SKY news, Jay Leno on CNBC, and the main stations show the staples like CSI, House, Ugly Betty and so on.  One of the channels we get even shows old episodes of US soaps!