Not true. I and others I know use a TV only as a screen for videogames and do not watch TV in any form. You explicitly do not need a license just to own a TV.
Interesting, in Croatia it's specifically a fee on owning any type of radio or tv receiver. Nowadays that applies to almost anything, from TVs and car radios to PCs and smartphones.
In Italy it doesn't apply to PCs and smartphones. It does apply to DVB-T dongles though.
It used to be a separate tax, now it's collected as part of the electric bill. You have to opt out explicitly instead of "opting in" by paying; this makes it much worse for people to evade the payment, since they would be making a false statement when opting out. So many people were evading the fee, that it has since been reduced by a third or so.
I've got no TV service here in the US, but a couple large TVs. I watch movies on other media occasionally, but for the most part they're used for video games.
Buying an 80" monitor isn't really cost efficient.