From the paper, I learn that New York State is proposing to increase its taxes on those of high income, and that New York City mandates rent-control on housing for those of lower income.

And further, that an income of $150,000/year is considered "high" for the first purpose, and "lower" for the second purpose.

Perhaps this is just an isolated factoid, but in the hope of making a thread about it, I'll ask for any other governmental linguistic oddities.

[This message was edited by shufitz on Sat Jun 14th, 2003 at 19:16.]

How can $150,000 per year be a lower income?

I always thought the apartment pricing in NY to be intriguing. The way I hear it, if the apt. stays in one family, the rent never raises from year to year. However, since I have never lived there, I am not certain about that.

I'm not sure if it's a linguistic oddity, but there is much governmental confusion here about what constitutes a "household". Various bureaucratic taxes and benefits are levied or paid "per household", but it seems to me that they all use different (sometimes rather vague) definitions.

In the UK every "household" with a TV must have a TV licence (which funds the BBC). We have three student lodgers, and it's great fun trying to establish how many licences they should have -- each student has his/her own room with TV, but they all share a kitchen and often eat together (in the same dining room which we use at other times, or in each others' rooms). We have a TV licence for our "household", which presumably covers the TVs we have in our lounge and various children's bedroooms.

So, how many licences do our lodgers need? None, one, two or three? Last year two of them started a relationship, and ended up most nights watching TV together in one or other of their bedrooms. Did that change the number of licences required?

We also pay council tax (a local tax). That is levied "per property", but if you have a single door behind which separate living arrangements can be found, that is defined as a separate property. Isn't that really a household, then? (Many people have found that they've bought a big house, turned part of it into a separate "granny flat" for a parent, and then found they have to pay council tax on two "properties", even though one property might be the middle floor of three!)

(I avoided writing "storey", because of US/UK confusion!)

My sister-in-law's mother has come from Birmingham to stay for the summer. We were just talking about the TV license required in England. At first we were taken aback by the fact that she had to have a license to have a TV, but then she calmed us down by saying there are no commercials on the 2 BBC channels, so that is what the 112 pounds per year goes to. She also told us that she only had 5 channels on TV. Of course we, being from the land of 400+ cable channels, found this hard to fathom. She said there is cable available but most of her friends and neighbors did not subscribe. A poll to our beyond the pond posters... Do you have cable TV or not? I would bet that all the USAers (except Jerry) probably have cable.

Not all USAers. No time for even broadcast TV, let alone cable!

Some facts and statistics.

In the UK anyone with a TV needs a TV licence costing £116 per year. Oher costs and takeup are:

1. Analogue broadcast TV -- free --- 24 million households. (98%)

2. Analogue cable TV -- many packages, price about £40 per month, more for premium movies. 1.3 million households. (5%)

3. Digital cable TV -- similar price to analogue cable. 2.0 million households (8%)

4. Digital satellite -- similar price to cable. 6.3 million households. (26%)

5. Digital broadcast - free - 1.3 million households but is new and growing 30% per quarter. (5%).

6. Digital Satellite Free to air - free - 0.5 million households. (2%)


The channels are:

1. Analogue broadcast (normal TV for us):

* BBC1 (no adverts)
* BBC2 (no adverts)
* ITV1 (adverts)
* Channel 4 (adverts)
* Five (adverts)

Even when the channel is funded by adverts, these are regulated (by statute) to about 6 minutes per hour -- much less than the US has to tolerate.

All the Pay-TV mechanisms (2,3,4 above) have hundreds of channels of TV and radio plus all five "analogue" TV channels. Apart from BBC1 and BBC2, almost all have advertising, often at close-to US levels.

Digital Terrestrial (5 above) carries about 40 TV and radio channels, including all five "analogue" ones and is free apart from the purchase price of the decoder box. New and growing very fast (it's sold as "Freeview") -- the government hopes this wll be the standard way of watching TV by 2010. BBC channels on this medium are broadcast in widescreen, as are many programmes on the other non-BBC channels. Widescreen TV sales are booming as a result of this and DVDs.

[controversy = on]

Satellite and cable are largely seen as "working-class" so many people wouldn't have it whatever the price; take-up may have peaked. Good for football (i.e soccer), though. (Also a working-class preoccupation, of course.)

[controversy = off]

The number of channels is largely irrelevant, in fact. The five main channels all have well-defined characters, and satellite/cable really just offers (in addition) continuous sport, news, cartoons, music and shopping channels, plus four more "mainstream" channels (BBC3, ITV2, E4, Sky One). Freeview carries the five main channels, continuous music, news and shopping channels, plus BBC3 and ITV2, so it really only lacks E4, Sky One (which often get first run of poplular series like Buffy six months ahead of the main channels) and sport, and cartoons, and doesn't need cable or satellite dish, so is understandably popular in some circles. A sort of "thinking man's satellite."

In short, I could have said that virtually everyone has 5-channel broadcast TV for free, and about 45% have hundreds of channels of pay-TV in some form, usually satellite rather than cable.

The new Freeview service is a compromise, offering about 40 channels for free, and is proving popular. It needs only a set-top box to be inserted between TV and aerial, no other cost.

No cable TV in my home - Never had it, never will!

I watch too damn much TV as it is with four or five regular stations. There's too much life to be lived to squander as much as we do simply viewing.

(Of course, if I had teen or pre-teen kids in the house, the TV situation, among many others, would be completely different I'm sure.)

I have analogue cable TV, which provides 42 channels. Some, like the movie and sports channels, require extra payment, and I don't subscribe to them. That brings the number of channels I can actually watch to about 34. Of those about ten I never want to watch anyway.

No cable or satellite here either but I should give you a bit of history.

When satellite TV was launched in the UK (before cable was around) there were two rival systems and broadcasters in place. British Satelite Broadcasting used a small square aerial (a "squaerial") and had one set of channels. Sky Broadcasting) used a larger round aerial and had a different set of channels. It varied but roughly speaking BSB had a lot of old British programs while Sky had a lot of (then) contemporary US ones.
The systems battled it out for a while and BSB lost - although officially they just merged. In essence Sky cherry picked the BSB channels and dumped the rest.

Being far more interested in old British programs then modern American ones I had BSB and when it disappeared I got rid of the system.

When cable rolled around there seemed to be enough of interest to take it so I did, but my taste was clearly too minority as all the channels I had bought it for gradually shut down for lack of viewrs leaving it that we were paying the twenty pounds a month so that my Dad could watch the never ending cycle of repeats of Dad's Army, Some Mothers Do 'Av 'Em, It Ain't Half Hot Mum and Last of the Summer Wine.

So we got rid of it again.

Nowadays there is a never ending stream of adverts, telephone salesmen and door to door salesmen trying to convince me that I need digital TV. When, as the inevitably do, they reach the argument that eventually the Government will stop analogue broadcasts and I will have to have digital they seem completely unable to grasp the concept that I will have the choice of not having a TV at all. This apparently makes me some kind of freak of nature.

Very occasionally I hear of a series on cable and think - I wish I could see that, maybe I should reconnect. To counter this urge I sit down for an hour with a TV guide and read the whole of the schedule for every channel for that day. The contemplation of so much dross always cures me completely of this momentary insanity.

Non curo ! Si metrum no habet, non est poema.

Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.

[This message was edited by BobHale on Mon Jun 16th, 2003 at 11:36.]

We have cable, though it is probably a waste. We mainly have it so that we can watch our beloved Bulls.

I have cable TV and find it very useful. I watch Discovery, History and similar knowledge channels and it is worth the subscription for that.

I NEVER watch any sport or listen to pop music so around half the 100+ channels are of no use to me.

Richard English

quote:

---

Originally posted by Richard English:
I NEVER watch any sport or listen to pop music so around half the 100+ channels are of no use to me.

---

I swear that every time you say something like this, I get this mental picture of you wailing away on an air guitar in your Rolls with Black Sabbath cranked up as high as your sound system permits.

And yes, yes, I am fully aware that this is not, could not be, never was, and never will be the case so no indignant assurances of that sort need be made. It's just a Methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much sort of knee-jerk reaction that, in part, zips in and about the little grey cells that call my noggin home.


And B.H., I'm with you all the way. For a full nine-year stretch, I once went completely without a TV. By choice, mind you, not abject poverty. Granted, for much of that time I was stationed overseas where the selection of programming was not the greatest but even so... This was during the period that both "Dallas" (never saw one show) and "Dynasty" (saw just one at a friend's home) were popular so, not being able to discuss their latest goings-on around the proverbial water cooler, I was somewhat an outcast. Suited me fine!

Cable TV in our home. But an antenna just doesn't work up here, too much interference, I guess. My husband likes to get his motorcycle and snowmobile races on tv, and I enjoy the home improvement shows and the movies made for women. Although, I did go for over a year without turning on the tube at all! On 9-11, I tried to turn the tv on, and couldn't figure out how to anymore!