by Christian » Thu Feb 21, 2008 3:24 pm
I'll give you a rundown of the Swedish version.
Sweden's got a public broadcasting network called SVT, SVeriges Television (Sweden's Television); which costs money to mainting, as they have no corporal advertisements, only ads for scheduled shows. Thus, we have the Television License. In Sweden, it is actually illegal to own a Television Set without paying the license for it, even if you do not use that Television Set to watch TV.
This is a rarely enforced law in Sweden, 'though there's been some amusing ads running about it (like a child creeping out of TV-sets to put snails on the eyes of those who aren't paying their License Fee, then turning to the Viewer and asking in a creepy voice 'Do you also want a snail on your eye?'. I kid you not, this is one of my earliest TV-memories) and those sneaky TV Inspectors knows all the tricks in the book to find out if you have one or not.
This may just be coincidence, but I bought a used TV set from my uncle for a couple of bucks, a small one that I intended to use with my PS2. I plugged in the power, but not the cable that transmits signals.
Then, the day after, a letter pops down in my mailbox reminding me to 'pay my Television License.'
In Sweden, TV-licenses are seriose bosiness, some politicians have even been exposed as NOT PAYING THEIR LICENSE, FOR SHAME! D:<
For a little while, there was talk about upgrading it to Media License, forcing people to pay for MP3 players, TV-sets, computers, cell-phones...
Thankfully this was voted down rather quickly.
Still, I'm not, and I never will, pay the fee as I have only watched one thing on my telly since I moved in here 3 years ago; and that was the recent post-election debate... which was on public television...
There are a few privately owned stations and networks, and most of them are actually pretty good. Still, not good enough to get me hooked on TV again though.