How can Noel Edmunds and other celebrities get away with not paying their tv licence?

Are you sure it's not a wind up? First I've heard about it.

PS - I haven't bought a TV License - but don't tell anyone!

Got a link?

Voted hot! Anyone know how to get out of paying a TV license? BBC is carp!!

yes, dont pay it, and when they eventually call at your residence, tell em to p*ss off. of course, it's illegal (presuming you want to watch tv), but morally I have no issues with it personally. I disagree with the whole concept and resent being taxed to support a privately owned and controlled company.

i hate paying my tv license id rather they just put adverts on the bloody channels i only ever watch bbc 1 for eastenders i have sky so better things to watch

I used to be quite pro-TV licence, well, this was before branching out on my own.

Now I feel very bitter towards paying for a non-essential service that should, in this day and age, find a way to finance itself. I like (at least some of) what the BBC brings to this country but we live in an age where information is available for free via dozens of methods, whenever we want it.

The BBC are no longer the power they once were - with the Internet I see absolutely no reason why I should be paying £140/year for something I only take a very slight interest in (those wonderful documentaries could be easily funded by advertising / other sales).

Unfortunately paying for the TV licence isn't something I have a say in due to living circumstances, but if it was down to me I'd not pay it - out of principle.

I have a lot of respect for the BBC, but their business model shouldn't be able to continue the way it does in 2008.

Noel did pay his TV licence in the end anyway so this thread is moot

There is an easy way to not pay the licence fee, don't buy equipment capable of watching live tv.

The Office
QI
Have I Got News For You
Blue Planet
Life On Mars
Radio 2
Terry Wogan
Screenwipe
BBC 4

The licence fee is worth it alone for just one of those. I think some people get angry because they read the Sun / Daily Mail and it says "ROSS GETS PAID £16 MILLION!!" (he doesn't) and they think their money is being wasted.

I post a lot over at the SomethingAwful.com forums and there's a lot of Americans, Europeans, Asians there that say they'd LOVE something like the BBC that produces so much brilliant TV and radio (not counting that useless tool Chris Moyles though)

I don't think you realise how good something is until you haven't got it anymore.

I detuned my tv and video a few years back because I was fed up of the violence, foul language, promotion of occult - sex - voyeurism and so on. We informed the licencing authority and they sent someone round to check we had detuned like we said and since then we have only had one more check to ensure we are still not watching live tv. Sometimes we watch tv when we are at gramps or on holiday where we saturate ourselves in the cookery programmes, but when I see the other stuff that's on, I am still glad that we decided to detune at home.
That's the boring bit over, what we do watch now is lots of dvds on subscription from Tesco dvd rental of the good ol' great ol' days. We also have an extensive collection of stuff thanks to Amazon, Ebay, the local charity shops and the daily mail. Who remembers the shows "I love Lucy" "The Colgate Comedy Hour" Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, "The Dick Van Dyke show", Norman Wisdom films, Only Fools & Horses, Porridge, Gerry Anderson's Torchy, Four Feather Falls, Supercar, Fireball XL 5 Thunderbirds etc. I have the series of Bergerac, Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Murder She Wrote, Fawlty Towers etc and even a lot of educational stuff as well all very watchable again and again.

And what tv channel were all these on originally??

Pretty much shared out amongst all of them but the standards were a lot higher then and the comedy more clean and original, not the toilet humour we seem to have nowadays. Of course I did mention a few USA classics that we didn't get over here at the time as well.
My eleven year old daughter is hooked to the old classics and her friends find them to be great too when they come around.

Bergerac, Fawlty Towers, Sherlock Holmes, Murder She Wrote - all BBC.

My point being, if you didnt pay your licence, they wouldn't have been made in the first place for you to now enjoy on DVD.

Saying that, I work at the bbc and even I don't agree with having to pay for the licence either!