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How many direct TV receivers do I need for 3 rooms?

Do I need a TV licence?

  • Hi All, I live in student accommodation while i'm at University. According to the owners, we need a licence for each of our rooms and another group one if we watch TV in our common room. A couple of weeks ago we had letters from TV Licencing saying we need to tell them if we need a licence or not. Originally I told them that we have a licence for the common room and I dont need one for my room. Yesterday my flatmate received a letter saying their room is under investigation as they didnt respond to the letter. At the bottom of the letter I saw that I might be able to watch TV in my room, covered by my parents licence, as long as I met all 3 conditions. Conditions were something like: Your out of term address is your parents house, your parents have an active licence and the device you watch TV on isnt connected to an aerial or the wall socket. When Im not at uni accomodation I will be at home with my family, they have a TV licence and the device I will be watching TV on is my laptop which wont be plugged into the wall socket when watching TV. As I meet all three conditions, can I just start watching TV or do I have to notify them?

  • Answer:

    If you meet the following conditions, then yes you can legally watch TV without purchasing an additional licence: 1) Your non-term-time address has a full colour TV licence. 2) You are using a device powered by its own internal batteries to watch TV (e.g an unplugged laptop). You are under no obligation to communicate with TV Licensing at all. You do not need to confirm your circumstances to them, whether you need a licence or not. Contrary to previous answers having the capability to watch TV does not automatically mean you need a licence. If that was the case then everybody with a web-enabled PC would need a licence, which is clearly absurd because most of them won't watch live TV. I know a lot about this because I am a leading blogger on the issue. You might find the following articles on my blog useful: http://tv-licensing.blogspot.com/2009/08/heading-to-university-tv-licence.html http://tv-licensing.blogspot.com/2011/09/tv-licensing-simple-questions-and.html

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It's possible you don't, but if you connect your laptop to the mains while watching you do. Will the battery do a full length film? The difficulty is convincing the TV Licence people that you meet the regulations if they investigate. Of course if you only watch catch-up and nothing "live" you don't, but the general rule is that if you have the capability of watching live with a mains connection you will do so and must have an expensive licence

The original Peter G

My understanding is that its the address that needs a licence. For instance my home has 4 televisions but I only pay one TV licence so I would think as long as there is a licence with the address you live at then that should be enough. Phone the licensing authority and ask them about this as the owners of the accommodation may have interpreted the rules incorrectly.

fleefly

To Verify it all Properly contact the Licencing People either on your laptop or internet cafe, and ask ? it wont cost you anything and they are helpful.

Ormeside

If you have a TV in your room at university you have to have a TV license - simple as that.

psych_78

if you have a tc in your room for your own personal use then you need a licence

starlight

"Hi Split, Spotted your question - thought we could help. You're right in saying that if you meet all the following conditions while in halls, you don't need a licence: 1. Your out-of-term address is covered by a TV Licence 2. AND you only use TV receiving equipment that is powered solely by its own internal batteries 3. AND you have not connected it to an aerial or plugged it into the mains. Please see here for more details: http://bit.ly/studentstvl. With regard to notifying us about this, it would certainly be helpful for us to update our system. It's easy to do - just visit: http://bit.ly/nosetclaim. Hope this helps. All the best, TV Licensing Support [email protected] "

TV Licensing Support

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