UK households with an Amazon Fire Stick have been issued a £174 alert ahead of a major change next year.
The government has confirmed the TV Licence fee will rise in line with inflation from April, adding an extra £5, or 42p per month, to bills. It follows a previous £10.50 rise which brought the charge to its current £169.50 in April this year.
The charge, which will be £174.50 in total, will apply to any household that watches or records live TV on any channel or service, or uses BBC iPlayer. This applies to households watching or recording live TV on a Fire Stick.
You are legally required to have a TV licence if you:
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watch or record TV on any channel via any TV service, such as Sky, Virgin, Freeview, Freesat
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watch live content on streaming services, such as ITVX, Channel 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go
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use BBC iPlayer
TV Licences are per house, not per person, so if you live in a house with several people you don’t all need to have one in some cases.
If you have separate tenancy agreements and you watch TV in your own room then you will need your own TV Licence. But you can have one for the whole household if you watch TV in a single shared area, or have a joint tenancy agreement.
If you watch or record live TV without a TV Licence you can be issued a fine of up to £1,000.
Of course if you don’t want to fork out £174.50 for a TV Licence, there are instances where you don’t need one so it depends on your viewing preferences. You don’t need a TV Licence to watch:
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streaming services, such as Netflix and Disney Plus
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on-demand TV through services like All 4 and Amazon Prime Video
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videos on websites, such as YouTube
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DVDs or Blurays
You may also be able to get a free or discounted TV Licence if you’re aged 75 or over and get Pension Credit, or if you’re blind or in residential care.
The government has said it will use a review of the BBC’s Royal Charter, which will include a public consultation, to consider funding options to support the BBC’s long-term future and it will be expanding the Simple Payment Plan (SPP) to help struggling households.
It says the expansion will allow an estimated additional 9,000 unlicensed households experiencing financial difficulty per month to split up the annual payment into more manageable fortnightly and monthly instalments.
