Last September, when I renewed my TV licence for the full 12 months, when it was due, I again told them -Not to dare put me on auto=renew, and insisted on a paper licence be sent.
I never received a paper licence.
Fast forward to today, and they have just sent me an email, which at first I thought was a scam. They wanted the direct debit details, for my cancelled DD, so I can stay licenced. They can go whistle.
I should add, I changed banks, to one which didn't support switch, recently.
They email me every year with a reminder and I just click the link (carefully) and pay by debit card, after which they send me a digital licence by email. No paper or DD involved.
I wait for TVL to send me a licence renewal (by post - I have never given them anything electronically so they have no email or SMS information). I put a cheque and the renewal reminder in an envelope and I post it to the address shown in the reminder. Up to the 2024 licence, I was sent a paper licence in the post. In 2025 I received back a receipt instead of a licence.
I don't watch much TV, perhaps a programme or two on 2 or 3 days a week. I am old enough to have qualified for a free licence under the original Government scheme but I don't receive the qualifying benefit the BBC now insists on. If I am legally required to pay to watch TV on any channel, even if I don't watch BBC broadcasts, TVL can at least have the inconvenience of handling a cheque.
TBH the TV license is not so large as to be worth trying to get rid of. Like mosquitoes, it is an irritant, not life and death.
The BBC lost me as a viewer about 15 years ago really. And I don't listen to their radio stations any more either.
Really the Internet has replaced terrestrial broadcasts almost completely now.
Whatever the price (and I don't agree that is minor or trivial), there is also a HUGE principle involved. No-one should be forced by law to pay for a service they'd rather do without as a condition of being able to use a different service - any service - that they really do want.
Looking at general taxation, good luck with that...
I'd say that we are moving towards the correct route on this.
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