Not everyone has to pay – and there’s a simple and legal way to avoid paying this £180 annual fee
Not everyone will need a TV Licence(Image: Getty)
People with a Netflix subscription – regardless of their tier – may need to pay a fee of £180, depending on what they watch.
UK households currently pay £180 a year for a colour TV Licence, or £60.50 for a black-and-white set, after the fee increased on April 1, 2026. Failure to pay when needed could land people in hot water, and a fine of £1,000.
Although many people assume a TV Licence only applies to watching the BBC, that is not true. A TV Licence covers far more than BBC content, including:
All TV channels like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, U&Dave and international channels
Pay TV services like Sky, Virgin Media and EE TV
Live TV on streaming services – like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video
Everything on BBC iPlayer
Watching, recording and downloading on any device
Do I need a TV Licence to watch Netflix?
It depends. Officials note: “If you are watching a TV programme that is being broadcast live on Netflix, you need to be covered by a TV Licence. You don’t need a TV Licence to watch on-demand programmes on Netflix.”
If you want to keep watching Netflix and avoid paying the Licence fee, simply do not watch any live TV or events on the platform and watch your usual on-demand content. This means you can watch classics like Gilmore Girls, Manifest, Breaking Bad, and the latest competition series, Wonka’s The Golden Ticket – without the need for a TV Licence.
If you live in a shared household, the UK Government confirms: “You need your own TV Licence if you have separate tenancy agreements and you watch TV in your own room.”
You can have one TV Licence for the whole household if you either:
watch TV in a single shared area
have a joint tenancy agreement
I have a Netflix subscription – so why do I need a TV Licence?
TV Licensing explains: “Paying for a Netflix subscription grants you access to a large and varied catalogue of movies, series, documentaries and more. Paying for a TV Licence lets you legally watch and record TV on any channel via a range of TV services, including Sky, Freeview, Virgin and Freesat.
“With a TV Licence, you can also watch live on streaming services (e.g. Amazon Prime and Channel 4) and access the full suite of award-winning movies, series and documentaries on BBC iPlayer.
“Some households enjoy having access to Netflix as well as being covered by a licence. Other households prefer to only pay for a TV Licence to watch live on TV and streaming services, including iPlayer, on any device.”
Netflix isn’t the only streaming service you may need to buy a TV Licence for, on top of the subscription fee. TV Licensing further states: “If you’re watching TV showing live on Amazon Prime, you need to be covered by a TV Licence. You don’t need a TV Licence if you’re only watching on-demand programmes on Amazon Prime.”
You could be fined £1,000
You can be fined up to £1,000 if you watch or record live TV without a Licence. TV Licensing warns: “You could be prosecuted if we find that you have been watching, recording or downloading programmes illegally.
“The maximum penalty is a £1,000 fine plus any legal costs and/or compensation you may be ordered to pay. The maximum fine is £2,000 in Guernsey.”
It’s not your imagination. Political discourse on Twitter really has grown meaner in recent years, according to a new study.
The research, published Thursday in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that the level of incivility in tweets by members of Congress increased by 23% between 2009 and 2019 — a change the study’s authors attribute in part to how Twitter’s “like” and “retweet” buttons reinforce the spread of toxic content.
Its findings mark “the first robust evidence that incivility is rising among American politicians on Twitter,” wrote the study’s authors, hailing from several U.S. and Canadian universities.
Researchers examined 1.3 million tweets from official congressional accounts between 2009 and 2019. To quantify the levels of incivility, they used artificial intelligence to analyze the messages and assign a toxicity score from 0 to 100, reflecting the likelihood that someone would consider the text to be rude or disrespectful.
The analysis classified a 2009 tweet by then-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) with a high incivility score of 45.1 for accusing a rival of “going AWOL” from his congressional post. And a 2019 tweet by Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) — which said another politician was “endorsing infanticide & proudly doing it!” — scored at 47.6.
To some degree, the increasingly antagonistic tone is due to more civil members of Congress being replaced by less civil ones, the study says. But the findings attribute more of the shift to members themselves changing over time and posting more provocative tweets.
The increase in incivility was most pronounced among liberal Democrats, especially in the first half of President Trump’s term.
“They were much more likely to be reacting negatively to Donald Trump — both his behaviors and his tweets,” said Robb Willer, a co-author and director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford University.
The study analyzed tweets during President Obama’s two terms and the first two years of Trump’s presidency. (The sample did not include posts from the contentious 2020 election or the start of President Biden’s term.)
The analysis also evaluated Obama’s and Trump’s tweets. Obama’s posts had an average incivility score of 13.4, which remained fairly steady over his two terms. In Trump’s first year, his score was 18.8, and it climbed to 23.0 by 2019.
The study didn’t place any moral judgments on Twitter incivility, Willer said. People sending harshly worded tweets “might have all sorts of explanations that might be morally well-founded and valid for why they engaged in the speech they did.”
Whatever the motivation, the more toxic tweets stand out in Twitter’s crowded online platform. The average congressional tweets were not especially uncivil, with relatively low scores. But the tweets with higher toxicity scores tended to get much more attention, via retweets and likes, which increase the public’s exposures to such messages and make incivility seem more prominent than it actually is, according to the study.
The study’s results indicate “the people running these accounts are learning from these metrics they can see and doing more of whatever gets likes and retweets,” Willer said.
But, as the common Twitter disclaimer goes, retweets and likes don’t equal endorsement. People may retweet a message to draw attention to content they dislike, for example. Willer said their research indicated that users are largely not fond of toxic tweets, despite appearances to the contrary.
“There’s a possibility here that the Twitter platform, with its pretty spare metrics, may be misleading people that certain tweets are more popular with people … than they really are,” Willer said.
Just as congressional Twitter feeds have grown more toxic, so have the tweets of the general population, the authors said, based on a rough sample of civilian posts.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), one of the most prolific tweeters of California’s congressional delegation, said he wasn’t surprised to hear that incivility has grown on the platform — which he blamed partly on anonymous users and bots. His own feed has plenty of pointed messages to Republicans, often delivered with dry humor, as well as standard fare highlighting his work in Congress.
After 13 years on the platform, Lieu said it’s still hard to predict what will take off in the Twittersphere.
“Sometimes I’ll write what I think is an amazing tweet about a very important policy point and get only a few” likes or retweets, he said. But an evening observation that Scotch and peanut butter make a tasty combination will yield “astronomical” engagement.
One consistent factor for a viral tweet: Trump.
“What I’ve found is in the last five years, when the former president would say something stupid or say something false, and I responded to that, that would get higher engagement,” Lieu said. “If the former president is going to say 27 false things a week, I’m going to try to highlight all 27 false things he said.”
While Twitter has not been seen as a hub of civility for some time, some on the platform expressed fears this week that the tone may worsen now that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk is set to take the reins. Musk says Twitter’s current system of content moderation clamps down on speech. He has said he wants fewer restrictions on what can and cannot be posted, although he has not given many specifics; users have warned that loosening the rules could lead to upticks in harassment, abuse or pornographic images.
Republicans, meanwhile, have celebrated Musk’s takeover, anticipating he will lift moderation that they see as silencing their views. Among other issues, they object to Trump and other prominent right-wing politicians being blocked or suspended from the site. And Twitter’s fact-checking of false claims of election fraud and COVID-19 misinformation has had a disproportionate effect on right-leaning accounts.
“The most uncivil aspect of Twitter is the company’s transparent censoring of free speech and silencing of conservatives,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall). “Additionally, the platform will not reach its potential or best serve its users until it demonstrates a commitment to fundamental fairness. I’m optimistic that may soon happen.”
Imagine a Saturday night “spectacular,” under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing as fireworks explode in the night sky — for $10?
Not a pipe dream.
The L.A. Phil has taken a major step in expanding its accessibility. The organization announced this week that it will offer Los Angeles County residents with active Medi-Cal or EBT cards $10 tickets to L.A. Phil performances at the Hollywood Bowl starting with the 2027 season.
It will offer at least 100 of these tickets at each of the orchestra’s Hollywood Bowl concerts. Tickets will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. The L.A. Phil didn’t say exactly how eligible residents could secure such tickets. It plans to announce that process in Spring 2027 before the season starts.
L.A. Phil Vice President of Community and Government Engagement, Cynthia Fuentes, said in an interview that the organization has been “prioritizing accessibility for a very long time.”
“When you create accessibility programs, they have to be very intentional,” Fuentes said. “Folks are really struggling to make ends meet right now, and for us, it’s so important not only that we create great music on our stages, but that people can afford to see it. Your income levels shouldn’t dictate whether you have access to the arts or not.”
The $10 ticket announcement is the latest move towards making L.A. Phil events more accessible at a time when tickets to see the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl are, on average, about $48, Fuentes said.
The L.A. Phil has been offering discounted tickets since the 1970s. It now offers more than 50,000 $1 Hollywood Bowl tickets annually — some seats open to the general public and others given out by the L.A. Phil in partnership with the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and L.A. County Parks, to low-income students, senior centers and others in need.
Last year the L.A. Phil boosted the numbers of its $1 tickets from 36,000 to 55,000. It also distributes tens of thousands of free tickets to non-profit organizations through a program called Community Concert Connections.
The L.A. Phil debuted its new accessibility program at the Ford during the venue’s 2026 season. The program is still active at the Ford.
“That was our pilot program for the L.A. Phil, with the intention of implementing it at the Hollywood Bowl,” Fuentes said. “When we started looking into EBT cardholder tickets, [we realized] it happens in a lot of museums but not a lot at performance arts organizations. Partly because it’s a ticketed structure with assigned seats and it’s a more controlled environment. We wanted to build the infrastructure of how you execute it on the back end. The Ford was an incredible way to start the process — do it on a smaller scale, look at what works and then be able to scale up to the bowl.”
The L.A. Phil is in a period of transition. Daniel Harding will step in as the L.A. Phil’s new Music Director, replacing Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, starting with the 2027–2028 season. He’ll oversee orchestral programming at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. Newly appointed Creative Director Esa-Pekka Salonen begins his tenure at the start of the 2026/27 concert season in early October. He’ll conduct and curate subscription concerts and multidisciplinary projects. Anna Handler will serve as conductor in residence for the next three years starting with the 2026/27 season.
“But Gustavo will be back every summer to do a suite of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and also in December of this year at Walt Disney Concert Hall,” Fuentes said. “He’ll continue to have a presence with the L.A. Phil.”
Operating the Hollywood Bowl is a partnership between the L.A. Phil and the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes the Hollywood Bowl, said in a statement that the L.A. Phil has been “a trailblazer in the arts” for more than a century. Their new accessibility initiative, she said, is “that same spirit of innovation and partnership.”
“The Hollywood Bowl is one of Los Angeles County’s most cherished public assets,” Barger said, “and every resident should have the opportunity to experience the joy, inspiration, and sense of community that it offers.”
“But there’s no other L.A. County facility, for performing arts, that we found in our research that had an EBT Program,” Fuentes added. “Part of our goal is to take our findings to the field to share so that other performing arts non-profits follow, especially L.A. County-based [ones], so we can ensure we’re creating accessibility for everyone in the county.”
Fuentes pointed to her own upbringing to illustrate the importance of accessibility programs in the arts.
“I grew up in South Central with working-class parents that had three kids,” she said. “When you don’t have disposable income, you don’t have opportunities [to see arts performances]. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to a show and share a communal experience around music without the fear of not having enough to make your rent or mortgage.”
Meta has agreed to a landmark $18bn settlement in a major US federal case accusing it of endangering children, the terms of which will force the social media giant to introduce new safety features to platforms including Instagram and Facebook.
The social media giant has faced an avalanche of legal cases against it this year, mostly arguing that it deliberately designed its platforms to be addictive and that they have harmed children. It has already lost two of these and been forced to pay damages.
Under the agreement, child users under the age of 18 will see a slew of changes to their Facebook and Instagram accounts, ranging from night curfews to two-hour usage limits, which Meta must implement as part of the settlement reached on Wednesday with 48 US states.
The agreement could have a global ripple effect as several countries around the world are already taking regulatory action against Meta and other social media companies over their platforms.
So, what is in the settlement Meta has reached in the United States, and how will Instagram and Facebook change for users?
Colorado Chief Trial Counsel Jason Slothouber leaves the courthouse with team members after Meta Platforms agreed to a settlement to resolve claims by states across the US that the company designed those platforms to get children addicted, in Oakland, California, the United States, August 26, 2026 [Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters]
What was the lawsuit about?
Twenty-nine US states sued Meta, accusing it of designing its platforms in ways that “encourage addictive behaviour, fail to verify users’ ages, encourage adolescents to bypass parental controls, and inadequately safeguard against harmful content and/or intentionally amplify harmful and exploitative content”, according to filings at the Court of Appeal in California.
The first four of the states that originally filed their federal lawsuit against Meta in 2023 – California, Kentucky, Colorado and New Jersey – began their cases in a California federal trial last week.
The attorneys general bringing the case also asked the court to order that changes be made to Meta’s platforms to protect young social media users. In particular, they demanded that Meta introduce a process of parental verification for teenage users; change its “dopamine-manipulating” algorithms; remove image filters for users’ personal images; forbid the creation of multiple accounts; and end “disappearing” messages and posts.
The lawsuit also alleged Meta had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting, retaining and using personal data from children under 13 without proper parental consent.
In February this year, Meta lost a multimillion-dollar case brought on similar grounds by a young woman referred to as KGM in Los Angeles, over platform features linked to addiction in younger users.
In March, a US jury ordered Meta to pay $375m for endangering children in a case brought by the state of New Mexico.
Last month, a judge in New Mexico also ordered Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to pay a further $567m in a second phase of the trial.
Witness Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, leaves the courthouse as Meta faces a landmark trial in federal court in Oakland, California, the US, August 25, 2026 [Manuel Orbegozo/Reuters]
Meta denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle after evidence was heard that Meta knew its products harmed children’s mental health. The total payout – to be paid over 10 years – is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201bn.
The company, which was originally founded as Facebook in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, agreed to make maximum payments totalling $16.7bn to 47 US states as well as Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; American Samoa; and the Northern Mariana Islands.
Among those, California could receive a $2.2bn payout, while New York could receive $1.1bn. Texas reached a separate settlement worth more than $1bn. Some states will deposit funds they receive in general accounts, while others will earmark portions to address children’s mental health services.
The settlement does not require Meta to discontinue personalised recommendations or targeted advertising.
It also does not address some content researchers found particularly problematic, including posts that made Instagram users uncomfortable with their body image.
“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” Meta said in a blog post. “We want to get this right for parents and teens.”
Novva Tolson, 15, and Annie Wang, 15, pose as they scroll through their social media feeds, in Sydney, Australia, July 14, 2026 [Jeremy Piper/Reuters]
What changes will be seen on Instagram and Facebook?
Under the agreement, children under 18 using Meta platforms will be restricted to two hours’ use per day, with a night curfew in place from midnight to 6am. Meta will limit “social comparison” features by hiding likes and reactions to children’s accounts, and will ban “cosmetic procedure filters” that alter the appearance of a user’s image, as a default setting. These settings will only be able to be overruled by parental consent.
The company also agreed to disable the majority of push notifications from the platforms during school hours – 8am to 3pm – for teenage users.
It will also facilitate much closer parental supervision of social media accounts by giving designated adults the ability to more extensively monitor and change settings on a social media account.
Parents and guardians will be able to receive information about time spent on platform apps, and usernames of social connections and accounts sending messages to children.
Supervising parents will also receive daily notifications from Meta any time the teen account messages an adult account for the first time, as well as a link to the adult’s account. Parental accounts will also be notified any time the teen account searches for keywords related to suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
Meta also agreed to improve the technology used to check children’s ages, using its own as well as third-party tools, with regular outside audits on how well this monitoring is working. This measure is particularly notable because Australia banned under-16s from using social media platforms in December last year. However, the Australian internet watchdog, eSafety, found in August this year that more than eight in 10 young Australian teens and preteens continue to use them – largely because age-check procedures are ineffective.
So far, Meta has only agreed to pay 70 percent of the settlement, or roughly $12.7bn, over the next 10 years. It will only pay the remaining amount, about $5bn, if its rivals – including Snapchat, TikTok and Alphabet-owned YouTube – adopt similar measures and agree to pay the same. It also said it would reduce time restrictions to one hour per day if other platforms do the same.
These changes would be phased over time. Once the court approves the settlement, non-personalised feeds would be introduced within four months; broader compliance measures within six months; and major age-assurance requirements within one year.
While these changes will apply to users in the US, it is unclear if Meta plans to introduce them worldwide. However, Meta is already under rising regulatory pressure in European Union countries and those elsewhere to implement similar changes.
How much difference will these changes make?
Critics and child safety advocates have acknowledged that this settlement has forced landmark changes by Meta, the world’s biggest social media company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, each of which has more than two to three billion monthly active users.
However, critics say the central plank of Meta’s latest settlement deal is the move to restrict teens to two hours per day on platforms, rather than fundamentally changing their addictive algorithms.
Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project, which campaigns for youth safety online, said the deal is a “historic settlement that will have a lasting impact, but we cannot truly protect all children and teens until these protections are required on every platform and are permanent – that’s something only Congress can do”.
Ella Bradshaw, policy officer for child safety online at the NSPCC, a UK children’s charity, welcomed moves to rein in “addictive” design features like personalised algorithms and likes. “These are the things that we know keep children hooked and feeling out of control of their screen time, so action here is necessary and welcome. However, important gaps remain,” she told Al Jazeera.
Bradshaw described the settlement as taking “piecemeal action” on tackling risky features and addictive design choices which drive harm of children.
“This means features like disappearing messages, infinite scroll, the ability to gift and livestreaming remain unaddressed. Similarly, little has been announced on how Meta’s AI chatbots will be made safer – better guardrails are needed, particularly when children raise safeguarding concerns.”
Bradshaw also called for stronger protections for younger children as well as protections that “don’t suddenly drop away the moment a teenager turns 18.”
Furthermore, she said: “Not all children have families they can rely on to oversee their online worlds and help them to stay safe. We know that the issue of patchy online protections extends across the online world.
“This settlement must spur governments and regulators to go further faster; taking stronger action across the online ecosystem including private messaging, AI tools and online gaming. Without that wider shift, children will continue to face avoidable harm.”
What action are other countries taking against Meta?
While action against social media giants in the US is mostly taking the form of lawsuits, elsewhere it is regulators who are leading the charge.
In the European Union, regulators are pursuing several legal and regulatory cases against Meta, covering antitrust rules for artificial intelligence (AI) on WhatsApp, as well as child safety protections and addictive platform features under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The EU specifically accused the group of designing Facebook and Instagram to be “addictive”, adding that Meta has failed to adequately assess the danger its products pose to users’ physical and mental health.
On Thursday, a European Commission spokesperson said it is waiting on Meta to present changes to limit the addictive designs of its social networks.
“We have been very clear … Meta knows what we are expecting from them. … the ball is in Meta’s court,” Thomas Regnier said. “Now it is for the company to offer these commitments in the European Union to protect our kids here, too.”
In June, the UK government also announced a sweeping ban on social media for those below 16 to come into force next year, following a global trend after Australia pioneered it. The UK is also considering overnight curfews and ways to prevent infinite scrolling for those under 18.
In Brazil, a prominent consumer rights organisation, the Collective Defence Institute, filed twin lawsuits for three billion reais ($525m) in damages against the Brazilian subsidiaries of Meta, TikTok and Kwai in October 2024.
Those lawsuits also accuse the groups of failing to implement safeguards against addiction and use by children and adolescents. Since March this year, platforms have been required to link the accounts of children below 16 to legal guardians under Brazil’s Digital Statute for Children and Adolescents.
South Korea’s media regulator also reacted on Thursday to Meta’s settlement, calling for better protections for young users to be ideally applied worldwide, rather than just in specific markets.
