petition to \u201csave Freeview\u201d<\/a>, which now has 108,000 signatures.<\/p>\n\u201cHigh-speed broadband is unaffordable for many,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t have high-speed internet and don\u2019t want to be told I have to pay for that instead of what I want to spend my own money on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynette, who lives on her own and has a daughter who visits her regularly, said that for people of her generation, the licence fee \u201cdefinitely won\u2019t be worth paying, and it is already outrageous that some have already gone to jail for non-payment\u201d.<\/p>\n
TV Licensing said that nobody is imprisoned for TV Licence evasion \u2013 the maximum sentence is a fine which may be imposed by a court.<\/p>\n
Lynette objected to being \u201ccoerced\u201d into getting an expensive broadband contract to watch TV that is currently free.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people my age would watch the BBC less if it was online only. The BBC seems to think that they know better than everyone else and I think maybe they will find they don\u2019t understand what people want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Closing Freeview, currently still accessed on 10 million main household TV sets, would save the BBC and other UK broadcasters millions of pounds in programme distribution costs.<\/p>\n
\u2018BBC digging its own grave\u2019<\/p>\n
Silver Voices, the senior citizens\u2019 campaign group, said it would back a pensioner licence fee boycott.<\/p>\n
Dennis Reed, the group\u2019s director, said: \u201cThe BBC would be digging its own grave if it is successful in getting the Government to switch off terrestrial signals.<\/p>\n
\u201cMillions of pensioners and low-income households would question why they are being forced to pay for expensive broadband to watch their favourite programmes and then being charged a licence fee on top. Non-compliance with the licence fee would explode.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reed said the Government should write into the new BBC Charter a commitment to support Freeview into the mid-2040s.<\/p>\n
Caroline Abrahams, the charity director for Age UK, said moving to internet-only TV was not a \u201cpractical possibility\u201d until the \u201caffordability challenge\u201d has been met.<\/p>\n
\u201cA shift to internet-only TV would require everyone to have a smart TV and broadband, which millions of older people currently lack. Apart from anything else, these things would be completely unaffordable for an older person on a tight fixed income and few savings set aside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgan Vine, the director of policy at anti-poverty campaign group Independent Age, said television is an \u201cimportant source of information, connection and comfort for many people in later life\u201d but warned that \u201caround a sixth of people aged 65 and over do not use the internet at all\u201d.<\/p>\n
Lynette said that older people like herself would find losing the simplicity of Freeview difficult, and that the online move could condemn older people to loneliness and isolation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would take away my awareness of what was going on in the world, because I wouldn\u2019t be able to figure out how to get through the menus and searches that online television seems to need,\u201d she said. \u201cI tried Sky and I needed a typed sheet with instructions for remote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lynette said she wasn\u2019t against \u201cprogress\u201d but urged broadcasters and the Government to agree to maintain Freeview alongside internet-TV for an indefinite period instead of a \u201crush\u201d to online-only TV.<\/p>\n
Cost of watching TV could rise to \u00a3500<\/p>\n
A recent poll of 26,000 respondents for the Digital Poverty Alliance found that 48 per cent would oppose paying the licence fee, which rises to \u00a3180 in April, if BBC content were only available online.<\/p>\n
Tim Davie, the outgoing BBC director-general, told MPs last year that the timing of switchover was a matter for the Government and that the BBC would not endorse a plan that left a group of viewers unable to receive its programmes.<\/p>\n
A BBC source said: \u201cWe understand the concerns around ensuring that the right conditions are in place for such a transition, which is why early clarity from the Government on the path forward is essential.\u201d<\/p>\n
The additional expense for those who do not currently subscribe to high-speed broadband could see the cost of \u201cfree\u201d TV \u2013 a broadband contract plus the licence fee \u2013 rise to over \u00a3500 per year, according to TV industry consultant Christy Swords.<\/p>\n
\t\tYour next read<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t![\"Article](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/SEI_285995681-e1771595336108.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe BBC could be required to fund transitional support for the elderly and those currently unable to receive high-speed broadband.<\/p>\n
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said: \u201cWe are committed to ensuring that no one is left behind as TV viewing increasingly moves to online platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson said the Government is working across the TV sector on a long-term sustainable approach to TV distribution, adding that a decision on whether to extend the current commitment to digital terrestrial television beyond 2034 would be made as soon as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lynette, 80, launched a petition to ‘save Freeview’, which now has 108,000 signatures Pensioners will boycott the licence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,1576,99,186,233470,1881,184,185,427,37326],"class_list":{"0":"post-501873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-bbc","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-finance","13":"tag-licence-fee","14":"tag-pensioners","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-tv","18":"tag-tv-licence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}