So, one of the great things about Sweden, compared to the Czech Republic at least, and a lot of European countries, is that TV is for the most part in English. Well, it is in the original language of the programming, making by default most movies and TV shows in English. Its awesome.
However, there are some really weird things about TV in Sweden. One is the TV license. If you own a TV or radio, you are obligated to pay the Radio and TV license. This costs about 2,076 SEK a year, or about 200 Euro a year. Its a lot to pay for only two public channels and the public radio (which the whole world can stream, btw, completely free).
How do they know you have a TV? Well, you report it. They call you up randomly and ask you if you have a TV. If you lie, just make sure you keep it away from your window, for if they see it, you will have to pay the fee plus a fine. And don’t plan to buy any new TVs or if you do, ask someone who pays already for the license to buy it for you. When you purchase a TV the company is obligated to send in your name and address to the Radio and TV stalkers. Big brother is always watching!
This isn’t the only weird thing about TV. Over the weekends, great movies are playing. But be careful if you decide to start a movie at 9pm on TV4. At 10pm, no matter what is on, there will be a 15 minute break for news and weather. You can even see it on the online TV guide for Sweden.
All in all I can’t complain about the TV here. While we don’t have one at home, when visit friends and family that DO cough up the 200 euros a year, I love enjoying good old English TV and films with Swedish subtitles. And some of the Swedish programs aren’t too shabby themselves! But that is for another post 🙂
>> And don’t plan to buy any new TVs or if you do, ask someone
>> who pays already for the license to buy it for you
That’s only necessary if you don’t intend to pay the fee (and, I assume, don’t intend to watch the channels provided by those who do pay).
Yep, exactly, that is TV1 and TV2 that is covered under the licenses I think… When we were learning about it in SFI, I think only 40%-50% of Swedes pay the TV licenses. However, technically, if you have Internet, you have radio, so you should pay as well, but I don’t think the gov’t has figured that part out… yet…
wait….what if you had a tv and didnt want the cable or radio? just wanted to watch movies on dvd…do you still have to pay the 200 euro? if so. that kind of crap! although it does keep the family out of the house! lol. what about your internet? is that expensive too? i guess its now bad considering i pay about 1200 dollar a year for only 69 channels. lol maybe a little less. my bill is about 86 dollars a month. so i guess 200 euro a year isnt that bad! but it is only two channels? wow!
Yep, doesn’t matter, you still have to pay :/ Internet isn’t that bad, it actually comes with our bills for the apartment. While we own the apartment, we still pay rent for the garage, cleaning the community area, heat and electricity. Internet is included in that.
From Wikipedia: SVT1, SVT2, SVT24, SVTB, SVTK, SVT1 HD, SVT2 HD, SVT Play, SVT World, SVT UR and 12 district channels
That plus four national radio stations and a number of local radio stations too.
Granted, the HD channels show the same thing as their non HD counterparts and SVT Play also show the same material.
SVTK (Kunskapskanalen) and SVT UR show educational programs. SVTK show mostly bought material while SVT UR mostly their own productions.
SVTB (Barnkanalen) is for children, and SVT24 is a 24 hour news channel.
So it’s a bit more than two channels.
My mother in law pays the TV license, and I have to say she only gets the first two channels listed. And when we are over there watching TV (which is all the time) we NEVER watch those two channels.
I’m not against paying the TV license, and was informed by other Swedes (in SFI) how to get by not to pay it. I don’t think it is that much, but unfortunately it is channels I would never watch. But I AM against a gov’t forcing users to pay for something they may not even use. If the gov’t wants everyone to pay for these channels even if they don’t use it, I think they would be much better off just taking it off our taxes like they do with everything else and not even dealing with a TV licenses. Would probably lower the costs, and then there would be no need for people cold calling you just to see if you own a TV.
Your mother in law is a he? Wow. 🙂
Perhaps ha hasn’t switched to digital broadcasting yet?
The idea is that the government has no say in how SVT uses its money since it doesn’t get its money from the government. Otherwise it could easily turn into a propaganda machine.
I have never paid the license. I don’t have a TV now and I didn’t when I had things that technically were TVs. In my opinion they were video monitors for games, I didn’t have them connected to an antenna. But I think the reasoning behind the fee is good.
If you don’t watch those channels, don’t pay. It’s little more than your conscience that makes you.
No, my mother in law is not a he nor a ha, she is a she 😉 We all do typos time to time.
I didn’t realize SVT was a private company, but if so not a very smart one in any case. I should start broadcasting something to everyone and then demand people to pay it. Its like the people who wash your car at a stop light and then demand that you pay for it 😀
And if you owned a TV by law you have to pay. As stated by the Radiotjanst ” It doesn’t matter which channels you watch, the mere fact that you have a TV receiver makes you liable to pay for a radio and TV fee.”
I am merely stating one argument I’ve heard from multiple Swedes. They don’t watch those channels, so they don’t want to pay fee. I don’t own a TV, so I don’t pay 😉 SVT is an interesting cultural aspect of Sweden in any way you look at it.
It isn’t a private company, it’s owned by the state. But the state can only give it general guidelines on what to broadcast, it has no say in how those guidelines shall be executed.
There is the law and there is the public opinion of its severity. I’d say that not paying the license if you don’t watch the channels ranks very low in the opinion of most swedes. You could see it as a mild form of civil disobedience.
A better solution (at least for me) would be to nationalize the broadcasting infrastructure (including cables) and make every user of that pay a license.
There’s a reason for the news breaks on TV4, you know. In the old days (90’s), when they were the first to air commercial tv from Sweden (unlike kanal 5, TV3, sexan etc that broadcast from the UK to circumvent Swedish laws), they were only allowed to run ads in between programmes and of cause that meant less income if airing long shows or films as they couldn’t be interrupted by ads. By claiming the news had to be aired at 10 every day for the benefit of the public (news being so important and all), they could circumvent that part of the treaty and show extra blocks of ads before and after the news break. Since some time now, they may chop up the programmes and run ads several times each hour, but they still keep the news at 10. For old tradition’s sake maybe.
SVT is not private nor state owned actually: it’s owned by a foundation that is funded by licence money. That distinction is important (not least to the SVT employees) as it means they are independant public service, not state television which could be used for political propaganda and influenced by ministers — as is the case in many countries.