[M2Ys4U]

>No one you know has been sent to prison over TV licences.

Nobody ever gets sent to prison for not having a TV licence. It is not an imprisonable offence.

People occasionally get sent to prison for refusing to pay the court-ordered fine that they get for not having a TV licence, but that's a different thing all together.

[threshold]

"but that's a different thing all together."

Only if by different you mean the same.

[M2Ys4U]

No, I said different and I meant different.

[vimacs2]

Think the OP is right on this one actually. If you're struggling financially, this is functionally equivilent to criminalising poverty regardless of the steps involved. It's also frankly bullshit that a corporation can charge a toll for all live television broadcasts in a country even when it has no bearing on their own content.

Simple solution: Put all of their shite behind an id system and charge a fee for that. Don't monopolise fucking live tv as if it runs off the stored farts of Jimmy Saville.