> Coin operated TV? How many shows are even worth paying for? <
That might have something to do with the UK’s idiotic TV licensing fee. Even today you’ve got buy a license if you want to watch TV. It’s £174.50 per year for a color TV and £58.50 for a black and white TV.
And they actually have detection vans driving around, trying to catch naughty unlicensed TV watchers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
That’s just to watch programs on the BBC, which is no longer a channel wort a bucket or warm spit even.
And mostly the TV fee is paying for the BBC, right? So the government can propagandize you.
I had an English girlfriend ten years ago and I spent a lot of time talking over the phone with her when she was back in England and I was in the States. One afternoon she freaked out and was telling me that the TV coppers were in her neighborhood and she had to go. I didn’t understand what she was talking about. She hadn’t paid her TV tax! I could not figure out how that scheme works. I guess if your TV is on, they can tell with their antenna vans. But how can they tell if someone is receiving transmissions? Transmitting, okay.
Are there fewer commercials?