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TV Licences
Almost 390,000 people across the UK were caught watching a TV
without a valid licence during 2011, according to figures published by TV
Licensing.
That’s around five per cent of the viewing population, or 1 in 20
households.
More than 50,000 evaders were tracked down in the Greater London area,
17,400 in Glasgow, 10,700 in Birmingham, 8,200 in Liverpool and 7,700 in
Manchester, with over 4,000 in each of Nottingham, Bristol, Belfast, Hull
and Edinburgh.
The report stressed that the majority of households were watching legally,
with over 25 million valid licences across the country and the estimated
rate of evasion remaining steady.
A TV Licensing spokesperson said: “TV viewing is as popular as ever, with
the percentage of households who have a television set at 96.7 per cent...
"On behalf of licence-fee payers, we are committed to tackling evasion and
enforcing the law amongst the small minority who should pay, but don’t. It’s
only fair."
A colour TV licence costs £145.50 per year, with evaders liable to face
fines of up to £1,000.
Despite the traditional image of detector vans circling neighbourhoods in
search of offenders, only a handful are active these days and most evaders
are caught by comparing a database of UK households against records of
licence holders.
It was today in 1952 that the first television detector van
was introduced.
February
01
2012 - waveguide.co.uk
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