Taxing

The tv licence fee is going up by £3 a year. The new rate, £157.50 starts in April. The increase has been calculated by Government using the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rate of inflation, measured as the average rate of CPI over the last 12 months to September 2019, which works out at 2.00%.

In Germany, an annual tv licence is 210 euros - currently £178.63. In France, a tv licence for 2020 costs 138 euros - £117.37. Channels can show ads up to 8pm. In Denmark, the tv licence, at 339 euros a year, has just been abolished. DR is funded from general taxation, but its income has been cut by 20%. In Sweden the tv licence of 2,400 krona (around £190) was abolished in 2018, replaced by a 1% rise in personal income tax, capped at 1,300 krona (around £103).