Essentially, their model is to assume that anyone without a TV is lying, and does have a TV.
This is not strictly true. I've had no TV license for several years; after the first letter, I filled in the "declaration of no live TV signal" form (or whatever it's called) on their website, and since then, they haven't bothered me once. This is despite having a TV clearly visible through my living-room window (that I use exclusively for games and DVDs). Maybe I'm just lucky.
That said, I feel it slightly ridiculous that you need a TV license (which is for funding the BBC) to watch live TV, even if you never watch any BBC channels -- but you don't need one to listen to BBC radio stations, or use their website, or even stream BBC shows on iPlayer after broadcast. If I didn't suspect it'd pave the way for the government to cannibalise their funding, I'd say it'd make much more sense for the BBC to be funded through general taxation instead of the current horribly over-engineered TV license system.
Fair enough. I think you must just have been lucky. I know people who have told them over and over and over again to no avail (and indeed, you can find many such people on the web).
This is not strictly true. I've had no TV license for several years; after the first letter, I filled in the "declaration of no live TV signal" form (or whatever it's called) on their website, and since then, they haven't bothered me once. This is despite having a TV clearly visible through my living-room window (that I use exclusively for games and DVDs). Maybe I'm just lucky.
That said, I feel it slightly ridiculous that you need a TV license (which is for funding the BBC) to watch live TV, even if you never watch any BBC channels -- but you don't need one to listen to BBC radio stations, or use their website, or even stream BBC shows on iPlayer after broadcast. If I didn't suspect it'd pave the way for the government to cannibalise their funding, I'd say it'd make much more sense for the BBC to be funded through general taxation instead of the current horribly over-engineered TV license system.