When tuning in legally required a licence. It was a paper licence that came in a variety of colours over the years, including light blue and green.
Yes, for much of the 20th century in Britain, you needed a licence simply to listen to the radio. Long before the modern era of streaming subscriptions and smart speakers, and before television dominated the living room, radio was the nation’s main source of news, entertainment, and music. For years, in most homes, the radio was the height of technology.
And if you owned a wireless set, as it was called back then, you were expected to pay for the privilege. Not just for the radio itself, which was not affordable to everyone, but for a yearly licence to listen to it.
Where It All Began
The radio licence dates back to 1922, when the newly formed British Broadcasting Company began regular broadcasts. At the time, like most new technology that had the power to change the lives of people, radio was considered revolutionary.
To fund broadcasting, the government introduced a licence fee of 10 shillings. It was intended to regulate ownership of receiving equipment. In 1923, 200,000 licences were issued. By 1930, it was three million, and by 1949, over nine million.
When the Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927, the licence system remained in place. The principle behind it was to provide the BBC with a steady, independent source of income. This would be free from advertising and commercial sponsorship. It was a principle that would shape British broadcasting for decades, and still does.
Owning a radio without a licence was technically illegal. There were inspectors who had the authority to investigate suspected evasion. Fines could be imposed for non-compliance, and there was genuine public awareness, and questioning, of the requirement.
BBC radio even had its own listings magazine. It was called The Radio Times, and for years all it listed and promoted, was BBC radio programmes. When BBC1 and then BBC2 television arrived, that changed. The magazine remains today, and although radio is now only a small part of it, the name remains as a historical, and nostalgic, reminder.
A Fixture of Everyday Life
By the 1960s and 70s, radio was part of our daily lives. As with all technology aimed at the masses, over time the cost of a radio became more affordable. Sets sat on kitchen counters, bedside tables and in the living room. Many homes would have several radios, and all were covered by one licence.
Even as television became the dominant technology for entertainment in the home, the radio remained. Families woke to the morning news, listened to drama serials, comedy, and from the 1960s, pop music. In 1967, BBC Radio 1 hit the air waves, a final recognition that there was a youth culture in Britain that had and wanted its own music. This was partly a response to the pirate radio ships like Radio Caroline.
Even after television arrived, and had its own licence, the licence requirement for BBC radio still applied. If your household owned a radio, you still had to hold a valid radio licence. This meant that most homes had two licences, one for television and another for radio. Over time, combined licences were introduced, but the radio-only licence remained cheaper.
While the funding from each licence went to the BBC, both covered the BBC, commercial television and radio. But, even if you only watched commercial television, and listened to commercial radio, like today, you still needed a licence to do so.
Enforcement and Evasion
Enforcement was probably never as dramatic as popular myth suggested, but there was a sense amongst people that “they” might know if you were listening without paying. How would they catch you? When television arrived, the television detection vans became part of urban legend. Like today, addresses without the record of a licence, might be sent a threatening letter, and a visit.
It was more likely to happen for those without a television licence though.
In reality, the cost of a radio-only licence was modest. For most people, it was simply another household bill, alongside, the TV licence, fishing licence and dog licence. But some questioned why listening to radio, especially when commercial stations began appearing, should require a fee at all.
The End of the Radio Licence
The separate radio licence was finally abolished in 1971. From that point onward, only a television licence was required to receive broadcast television signals, and radio. Listening to radio alone no longer required payment.
As to the reasons?
Difficult to say. By then, society had changed. Portable transistor radios were widespread. Car radios were common. Policing individual radio ownership had become increasingly impractical, and difficult to do. And most people had the television licence, which could also fund radio (I believe that for a while, it was called, the Television and Radio Licence).
I also remember reading that some politicians thought that the radio licence was unfair on pensioners, many of which only listened to radio.
The abolition marked the end of an era. It was a small but symbolic shift away from the highly regulated beginnings of broadcasting.
Listening to Radio Today — A Modern Day Licensing Anomaly
It’s sometimes forgotten that, even today, the television licence pays for all BBC services. When I was a lad, we had BBC 1 and 2, Radio 1–4, The World Service, and BBC local radio. That was it. Every service could be watched or heard through a television or radio.
Today, it is very different, including for radio. Everything can now be watched and heard on a variety of tech gadgets, including PCs, laptops, palmtops, smartphones, and satellite. A VPN makes you totally anonymous, and you can watch programmes from anywhere in the world.
BBC radio is still funded by the television licence, yet if you only listen to radio, you do not need any licence. That includes BBC radio. So, if tomorrow a TV licence inspector turns up at your door, go and greet them with a radio tuned in to BBC Radio. A licence is no longer needed to listen to any radio broadcast in Britain, BBC or commercial, and it has been that way since 1971. (But, if you don’t have a TV licence and are watching live television — on any device, that’s a different matter).
A Reminder of How Broadcasting Began
The radio licence may seem quaint now, but it reflects a time when radio broadcasting was new, powerful, and taken seriously as a national service. Funding it through a licence fee was intended to protect its independence. It did so for many years.
For those who grew up in the 1960s and 70s Britain, the licence itself may barely register in our memory. It was just another form to be filled in, another certificate kept somewhere safe, next to the dog licence that few of us bought (or not).
But it’s a reminder that even something as simple as turning on the radio once required official permission. Turning it on without that little piece of coloured paper, was breaking the law. For decades, it was routine.
Photo by Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewaa on Unsplash
Photo by Rod Flores on Unsplash
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