Can someone please explain how does paid TV works in the UK? I know they have a system that requires home viewers to have TV licenses, but beyond that my understanding is lacking. Is a TV license basically the same for a UK TV license holder as basic cable or satellite for a US subscriber to those services? (Yes I am aware that it is trivially easy to watch TV in the UK without a license and that the penalty for it if you get caught is not all that severe compared to the analogous crime of theft of services.) If my comparison of the license to basic cable is accurate, does this mean that with the license being issued by the government, that there is a state monopoly on TV broadcast distribution? And that makes me curious about who gets the revenue from premium channels that viewers don't automatically get access to with a license as well.
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Can someone please explain how does paid TV works in the UK? I know they have a system that requires home viewers to have TV licenses, but beyond that my understanding is lacking. Is a TV license basically the same for a UK TV license holder as basic cable or satellite for a US subscriber to those services? (Yes I am aware that it is trivially easy to watch TV in the UK without a license and that the penalty for it if you get caught is not all that severe compared to the analogous crime of theft of services.) If my comparison of the license to basic cable is accurate, does this mean that with the license being issued by the government, that there is a state monopoly on TV broadcast distribution? And that makes me curious about who gets the revenue from premium channels that viewers don't automatically get access to with a license as well.