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A television licence (or more correctly broadcast receiver licence, as it usually also pays for public radio) is an official licence required in many countries for all owners of television (and sometimes also radio) receivers. It is a form of hypothecation tax to fund public broadcasting, thus allowing public broadcasters to transmit programmes without, or with only supplemental, funding from radio and television commercials.
The television licence was originally known as a radio licence, and was used to fund public radio broadcasting. With the arrival of television some countries created a separate additional television licence, while others simply increased the radio licence fee to cover the additional cost of TV broadcasting, changing the licence's name from "radio licence" to "TV licence" or "receiver licence". Today most countries fund public radio broadcasting from the same licence fee that is used for television, although a few still have separate radio licences, or apply a lower or no fee at all for consumers who only have a radio. Some countries also have different fees for users with colour or monochrome TV. Many give discounts for elderly and/or disabled consumers.

Television licences around the world

Europe
The Albanian licence fee is 800 Lekë (around €6.30) per year. However, the licence fee makes up only a small part of public broadcaster RTSh's funding. RTSh is mainly funded directly from the government through taxes (58%), the remaining 42% comes from commercials and the licence fee.

Albania
In accordance with the Austria RGG (TV and Radio Licence Law) all broadcasting reception equipment in use or operational at a given location must be registered. The location of the equipment is taken to be places of residence or any other premises with a uniform purpose of use.
Responsible for licence administration in Austria is GIS - Gebühren Info Service GmbH, a 100% subsidiary of the Austrian Broadcasting Company (ORF), as well as an agency of the Ministry of Finance, charged with performing functions concerning national interests. Transaction volume in 2006 amounted to EUR 668 million, 66% of which are allocated to the ORF for financing the organisation and it's programs, and 34% are allocated to the federal government and the local governments (taxes and funding of local cultural activities). GIS employs some 193 people and appr. 125 free lancers in field service. 3.3 million Austrian households are registered at GIS, percentage of licence dodgers in Austria amounts to 4%.
The main principle of GIS'communication strategy is to inform instead of control. To achieve this goal GIS uses a four-channel communication strategy:
The annual television & radio licence varies in price depending on which state one lives in. Annual fees from June 2006 are:

Above-the-line activities (advertising campaigns in print media, radio and TV)
Direct Mails
Distribution channels – outlets where people can acquire the necessary forms for registering (post offices, banks, tobacconists, five GIS Service Centers throughout Austria)
Field service – customer consultants visiting households not yet registered Austria
The licence fee in Belgium's Walloon region (encompassing the French and German speaking communities) is €149.67 for a TV and €26.72 for a car radio. Only one licence is needed for each household regardless of how many television sets there are. However, each car with a radio must have a separate car radio licence. Household radios do not require a licence. The money raised by the fee is used to fund Belgium's French and German public broadcasters (RTBF and BRF respectively).

Belgium (Walloon region)
The licence fee in Bosnia and Herzegovina is around € 36 per year. The civil war and the associated collapse of infrastructure caused very high evasion rates. This has in part been resolved by collecting the licence fee as part of a household's telephone bill. The licence is used to fund PBSBiH (Public Broadcasting Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina) which is a umbrella organisation of three separate broadcasters. These are BHRT (Radio Television of Bosnia Herzegovina), which serves the whole country; RTFBiH (Radio-Television of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina) that serves Bosnian-Croat and Bosniak population; and RTRS (Radio-Television of the Republika Srpska), which serves the Bosnian Serb people.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
The licence fee in Croatia is set each year in accordance with the Croatian Radio Television Act, 2001. The act states that the total licence fee is equal to 1.5% of the average net salary in the previous year. This works out at about €100 per year per household with at least one radio or TV receiver.
The fee is the main source of revenue for the national broadcaster Hrvatska Radiotelevizija (HRT), and a secondary source of income for other national and local broadcasters, which receive a minority share of this money. Despite the licence money, HRT's programmes are still not free of advertisements, but the percentage of air time which may be devoted to advertising is limited by law and is lower than the one that applies to commercial broadcasters.

Croatia
The licence fee in Cyprus is indirect but obligatory and paid through electricity bills. The amount to be paid varies according to the total floor area of the property. Its beneficiary is the state broadcaster Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC).
Northern Cyprus ("TRNC" only recognised by Turkey) does not pay the Cypriot licence fee as Cypriot jurisdiction is not applicable in the North. Bayrak Radio and Television Corporation, the North's public broadcaster gets it funds through the North Cypriot government.

Cyprus
The licence fee in the Czech Republic, is currently 1440 Kč (€50.58) as from January 1, 2007, Česká Televize 2006, Czech Television External Relations.</ref> This will increase further to 1620 Kč (€56.90) on January 1 2008. Each household pays for one TV Licence regardless of how many televisions they own. Corporations and the self-employed must pay for a licence for each television. The licence currently forms 68% of, public broadcaster, Česká televize's income, with the rest coming from advertising, sponsorship, and commercial ventures. However, advertising and sponsorship are being phased out as a form of funding for Česká televize. From 2008 no commercials or teleshopping will be allowed except for adverts related to sports and cultural transmissions

Czech Republic
The licence fee in Denmark is 2,150 kr

Denmark
The television fee in Finland is between €208.15 and €215.40 (depending on the interval of payments) per annum for a household with TV (as of 2007). It is the primary source of funding for Yleisradio (YLE). The amount is being adjusted yearly for reasons including transition to digital television.
In 1999, television license fee was renamed television fee, since at that time the new constitution of Finland was being drafted. This new constitution guarantees everyone the right to receive messages without permission as a part of freedom of speech. This had little practical effect.

Finland
In 2005, the television licence fee in France (mainland & Corsica) is €116 and in the overseas departments it is €74. The licence funds services provided by Radio France, France Télévisions and Radio France Internationale. Overseas departments receive the Reseau France d'Outre Mer ('Télé [name of department or territory]', Tempo, and France Ô), whilst the mainland receives France 2, France 3, France 5, Arte,France 4 and Gulli.

France
The licence fee in Germany is €204.36 per annum for TV and radio, and €66.24 for just radio. It is billed by the month, but typically paid quarterly (yearly payments are possible). Unemployed, disabled and generally people (nearly) solely dependent on governmental support for living do not need to pay the licence fee. From 2007, the German government will establish a licence fee for every working Internet link (e.g. mobile phone or PC) if it is the only source for radio and television. Those devices will be charged the radio fee.
The licence fee is used to fund the public broadcasters ZDF, ARD, and Deutschlandradio, ARTE and the public "Third Programs" TV channels and all public radio stations as well. Their budgets are often supplemented by limited advertisements at certains hours of the day.

Germany
The licence fee in Greece is indirect but obligatory and paid through electricity bills. The amount to be paid is €51.60 (2006) for every separate account of the electrical company (including residence, offices, shops and other places provided with electricity). Its beneficiary is the state broadcaster Elliniki Radiophonia Tileorassi (ERT). Predicted 2006 annual revenue of ERT from the licence fee (officially called "retributive" fee) is €262.6M (from €214.3M in 2005).

Greece
In Iceland the TV Licence is 32 460 kr However, this income is supplemented by broadcasting commercials.

Iceland
In 2006, the television licence in Ireland is €158, Furthermore, some RTÉ services, such as RTÉ 2fm, RTÉ Aertel, rte.ie, and the transmission network operate on an entirely commercial basis.
The licence fee does not entirely go to RTÉ. After collection costs, 5% is used for the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland's "Sound and Vision Scheme", which provides a fund for programme production and restoration of archive material which is open to applications from any quarters. 5% of what RTÉ then receive is granted to TG4, as well as a requirement to provide them with programming. The remainder of TG4's funding is direct state grants and commercial income.
The licence must be paid for any premises that has any equipment that can potentially decode TV signals, even those that are not RTÉ's.

Ireland
An Post maintains a database of addresses and uses this to inspect suspected cases of non-payment. Inspectors, who are An Post employees, visit the premises to verify if TV receiving equipment is present. If speedy payment of the licence is not made following an inspection, court proceedings are commenced by An Post.

Collection
In 2007, the licence fee in Italy was €104.00 per household with a TV set. It is the primary source of income for RAI, which does, however, also broadcast advertising. Italy has problems with collection of the licence, with approximately 10% of viewers not paying their licence. One of the reasons why not, is that the maximum fine is only half the licence (plus the licence on top of that), compared to the UK where the fine is £1000 (about €1500.)
Viewers in the province of Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, which has a large German-speaking majority, can also receive Austrian and German public TV and radio channels via terrestrial transmissions. However, they do not have to pay the German or Austrian license fees.

Italy
The licence fee in the Republic of Macedonia is around €57 per year. It is collected monthly as part of the electricity bill. In addition to licence fee funding, Macedonian Radio-Television (MRT) also takes advertising and sponsorship.

Macedonia
The licence fee in Malta is €34.40.

Malta
In accordance with the Broadcasting Law (Dec. 2002), every household and legal entity, with its seat on the territory of the Republic, where technical conditions for reception of at least one radio or television programme have been provided, is obliged to pay monthly broadcasting subscription fee. The amount of monthly fee is 3.5 EUR
Broadcasting Agency of Montenegro is in charge of collecting the fee (currently through the telephone bills, but ofter the privatization of state owned Telekom, new owners - T-com, announced that they will not administrate the collection of fee upon the July of 2007).
The funds from the subscription received by the Agency belong to:

the Republican public broadcasting services (radio and television) - 75%;
the Agency's fund for the support of the local public broadcasting services (radio and television) - 10%;
the Agency's fund for the support of the commercial broadcasting services (radio and television)- 10%;
the Agency - 5%. Montenegro
The licence fee in Norway is 2039 kr (about €260) per annum (2006). The fee is mandatory for any owner of a TV set, and is the primary source of income for Norsk Rikskringkasting (NRK). The licence fee is charged on a per household basis. Therefore addresses with more than one television receiver only require a single licence.

Norway
The current licence fee in Poland is 200.40 zł (about €47) per annum. 60% of the fee goes to Telewizja Polska with the rest going to public radio. The TV Licence is waived for the over 75s.

Poland
The licence fee in Romania for a household is 48 RON (about € 12) per annum. Small businesses pay about €45 and large businesses about € 150. The licence fee is collected as part of the electricity bill. The licence fee makes up part of Televiziunea Română's funding, with the rest coming from advertising and government grants.

Romania
The total licence in Slovakia comes to approximately € 42 per annum. In addition to the licence fee STV also receives state subsidies and money from advertising.

Slovakia
In 2004, the licence fee in Slovenia stood at SIT 31 644 (about €132). The licence fee is used to fund RTV Slovenija, which supplements its licence fee income by broadcasting commercials

Slovenia

Main article: Television licensing in Sweden Sweden
According to the Swiss Federal Law on Radio and Television (RTVG), the reception of radio and / or television programs must be registered and is subject to reception fees. The fees are paid per house-hold or business location and not per device.
Since 1998, Billag has been responsible for collecting these radio and television reception fees on behalf of the Swiss Federation. It sends around 12 million bills a year to three million households in Switzerland. The collection volume is approximately CHF 1.2 billion (EUR 758 million). It also sends out one million payment reminders a year. In addition, approximately 60,000 recoveries are initiated.
Billag employs approximately 260 people and was founded as a fully owned subsidiary of Swisscom, the leading telecommunications company in Switzerland. Its services make public radio and television possible. Billag is independent of SRG SSR idée suisse which is the national public broadcaster and therefore the primary beneficiary of the collected fees. Regional and local broadcasters also receive funding from fees as long as they provide a public service.
One of Billag's jobs is also to provide information to the general public about registration and fees in all three official languages (German, French, Italian). Radio and TV spots, an interactive website, mailings, brochures and visits by field staff are among the most important communications media.
Persons in residential care as well as those who are receiving supplementary income from the Swiss Confederation in addition to their old-age or invalidity pension, are exempt.
Treating all those subject to fees the same way protects the approximately 96% of consumers that readily fulfil their legal obligations and ensures that conditions are fair for all.
The licence fee in Switzerland is CHF 450.35 (about € 292) per annum for TV and radio. The Swiss licence fee pays for the national public broadcaster SRG SSR idée suisse
Viewers in the province of Bolzano-Bozen, Italy, which has a German-speaking majority, can also receive the Swiss German-language channels via terrestrial digital transmissions, but do not have pay a licence fee.

Switzerland

Main articles: Television licensing in the United Kingdom and Television licensing in the United Kingdom‎ (historical) United Kingdom

Asia
The television licence for 2006 in Israel is 400 ₪ (about £50 or €70). The licence fee is the primary source of revenue for the Israel Broadcasting Authority, the state broadcaster; however, its radio stations carry full advertising and its TV programmes sometime receive "sponsorship" from commercial entities to supplement this income.

Israel
In Japan, the annual licence fee for terrestrial television broadcasts is ¥15,490 (about €110) (slightly less if paid by direct debit) and ¥25,520 (about £110 or €164) if you receive satellite broadcasts. There is a separate licence for monochrome TV, and fees are different in Okinawa. The Japanese licence fee pays for the national broadcaster NHK.
While every household in Japan with a television set is required to have a licence, there is no penalty for non-payment, and people are legally entitled to stop licensing inspectors from entering their houses.

Japan
In South Korea, the television licence fee is collected for Korean Broadcasting System(KBS) & Korea Educational Broadcasting System(EBS) and is ₩30000 per year Its purpose is to maintain public broadcasting in South Korea, and to give public broadcasters the resources to do their best to produce and broadcast public interest programs. The fee is collected by the national electrical company (Korean Electric Power Company).

Korea, Republic of
The television licence in Pakistan is Rs300 per year (around €3.86). It is collected as a Rs25 per month charge to all consumers of electricity. The proceeds of the fee are used to fund PTV.

Pakistan
The cost of the TV licence for a household in Singapore is S$110 (about €57). Additional licences are required for radios and TVs in vehicles (S$27 and S$110 respectively).

Singapore

Africa
The licence fee in Ghana is ¢3,000

Ghana
The licence fee in Mauritius is Rs 1200 per year (around €29).

Mauritius
The licence fee in Namibia was N$204 (about €23) in 2001.

Namibia
The licence fee in South Africa is R225 (about €31) per annum (R276 per year if paid on a monthly basis) for TV. A concessionary rate of R65 is available for those over 70, and disabled persons or war veterans who are on social welfare. The licence fee funds SABC

South Africa
The following countries have had television licences, but subsequently abolished them:

Countries where the TV licence has been abolished
Radio licence fees were introduced in Australia in the 1920s to fund the first privately owned broadcasters which were not permitted to sell advertising. With the formation of the government-owned Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1932 the licence fees were used to fund ABC broadcasts while the privately owned stations were permitted to seek revenue from advertising and sponsorship. Television licence fees were also introduced in 1956 when the ABC began TV transmissions. All licence fees were abolished in 1974 by the Australian Labor Party government led by Gough Whitlam on the basis that the near-universality of television and radio services meant that public funding was a fairer method of providing revenue for government-owned radio and television broadcasters. The ABC has since then been funded by government grants, now totalling around A$800 million a year, and its own commercial activities (merchandising, overseas sale of programmes, etc.). In the early 1990s, passing criticism of ABC content was often referred to by the term "where your 8 cents a day goes", referring to the cost each Australian was indirectly contributing to the ABC.

Australia
The Flemish region of Belgium abolished its television licence in 2001. The Flemish broadcaster VRT is now funded from general taxation.

Belgium (Flemish region)
It was announced in Gibraltar's budget speech of June 23, 2006 that Gibraltar would abolish its TV licence. TV licence fees were previously used to part fund the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC). However, the majority of the GBC's funding came in the form of a grant from the government.

Gibraltar
In Hungary the government took over the payment of all television licence fees from the public in 2002. Effectively this means that funding for Magyar Televízió and Duna TV now comes from the government through taxation. As from Spring 2007 commercial units (hotels, bars etc.) have to pay television licence fees again, on a per TV set basis.

India
Malaysia abolished the TV licence at the end of 1999.

Malaysia
The licence fee in the Netherlands was abolished in 2000 due to the excessive collection costs.

Netherlands
Licence fees were first used in New Zealand to fund the radio services of what was to become the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation. Television was introduced in 1960, and with it the television licence fee. The licence fee was capped at NZ$100 a year (around €49) in the 1970s, and the country's two television channels, while still publicly owned, became increasingly reliant on advertising. Later known as the public broadcasting fee, the licence fee was finally abolished in New Zealand in 1999, partly because the administration costs to collect the tax relative to the level of revenue was unviable, and also because the TV channels had become commercial revenue generators for the government with hardly any public service obligations left.

New Zealand
The licence fee was abolished in 1992 by the Cavaco-Silva government, the fee funded the national public broadcaster RTP (Rádio e Televisão de Portugal). It was replaced with direct governmant subsidy and advertisements.

Portugal

Countries that never had a television or broadcasting licence

Europe
In Liechtenstein there is the public radio station Radio Liechtenstein. It was founded as private station in 1995, but was nationalized in 2004. Radio L is funded on commercials and government grants. There is no (neither public nor private) television station in Liechentenstein. People in Liechtenstein also watch and listen to Swiss, Austrian and German broadcasters.

Liechtenstein
Luxembourg has never had a television licence, because when RTL (RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg) was established, it was simply a commercial broadcaster, and acted with public broadcasting dimension in its programming. Plus many Luxembourgers are trilingual in French, German and Luxembourgish, so many watched French, German and Belgian television as well as local TV, so putting a television licence in place would be seen as unfair.

Luxembourg
Monaco has never had a television licence, because when TMC (Télé Monte Carlo) was established, it was simply a government-owned commercial broadcaster, and acted with public broadcasting dimension in its programming.

Monaco
The reasons why the idea of a licence fee never caught on in Canada or the United States bear some differences.

North America
The Canadian public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, lagged slightly behind the private American broadcasters in providing radio and then television service to Canadians. Many, but not all, Canadians had access to radio and television signals from stations in the northern U.S. Thus unlike the BBC, the CBC had to compete with other English language stations for most of its viewing audience. A licence fee to own a television would almost certainly have been viewed as unfair by Canadians who could only watch one and later two channels, while others would presumably pay the same fee and get four and later five. Moreover, by early 1960s, close to every Canadian household had acquired a television set, giving limited weight to the argument that a licence fee is fair to those who do not own a television. As a result, the Canadian government chose to fund the CBC from its general revenues, although CBC Television also sells advertising to cover some of its expenses.

Canada
In the United States, historically, privately owned "commercial" radio stations selling advertising quickly proved to be commercially viable enterprises during the first half of the twentieth century; though a few governments owned non-commercial radio stations (such as WNYC, owned by New York City from 1922 to 1997), most were owned by charitable organizations and supported by donations. The pattern repeated itself with television in the second half of that century, except that some governments, mostly states, also established educational television stations alongside the privately owned stations.
The United States did eventually create the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in 1967, which eventually led to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio; however, those are loose networks of non-commercial stations owned by state and local governments or charitable organizations, more like U.S. commercial networks (though there are some differences) than European public broadcasters. The CPB and virtually all government-owned stations are funded through general revenues, supplemented by funding in the form of memberships, and donations from private citizens and charitable organizations.
Since the annual funding for public television in the United States is only about $2 per capita, a separate tax or fee for public television would probably prove unviable.
In some rural portions of the United States, broadcast translator districts exist, which are funded by an ad valorem property tax on all property within the district [1], or a parcel tax on each dwelling unit within the district. Failure to pay the TV translator tax has the same repercussions as failing to pay any other property tax, including a lien placed on the property and eventual seizure. [2] In addition, fines can be levied on viewers who watch TV from the signals from the translator without paying the fee. Depending on the jurisdiction, the tax may be charged regardless of whether the resident watches TV from the translator or instead watches it via cable or satellite, or the property owner may certify that they do not use the translator district's services and get a waiver.

United States

Asia
Iran has never had a television licence. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the state broadcaster has been Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, which before 1979 was called National Iranian Radio and Television. In Iran private broadcasting is illegal.

Opinions of television licensing systems