Amazon Prime viewers will have to pay licence fee to watch live TV despite absence of BBC
Viewers of Amazon’s live TV service Amazon Channels, which includes content from ITV, Discovery and Eurosport, will have to pay the TV licence fee despite the fact BBC content is absent from the catalogue.
Amazon Prime viewers will have to pay licence fee to watch live TV content including ITV
The new service, offering Prime subscribers live TV and sports on its video platform for the first time in Europe, was announced last week (23 May).
UK law requires all users of live television to buy a licence even if it is being streamed over the internet rather than using terrestrial.
In a blog on TV Licensing's website, spokesperson Jason Hill said: "If you watch or record live TV, either through your TV or live online through a website, then you need to be covered by a TV Licence."
It means Prime users will have to pay Amazon’s annual £79 subscription (or £7.99 a month), the £147 annual licence fee plus an extra fee for each of the channels they want to watch. These costs vary between £1.49 to £9.49 a month. ITV content costs an additional £3.99 a month.
Amazon updated its help page for Amazon Channels after TV Licensing published its blog on Friday to include a statement under its 'Watch Live' sections that reads: "If you are using Watch Live with your Channel subscription, you will need a valid TV Licence."
One of the service's key selling points at launch was its competitive price point against pay-TV providers in the UK such as Sky, which offers its cheapest package of channels at £22 a month not including Sky Sports.
The addition of the licence fee could have an impact on its appeal to those viewers migrating online from terrestrial broadcast for cheaper content, although the number of people taking out licences has continued to rise over recent years to hit a record 25.5m in March 2015, according to TV Licensing, the body that administers the fee.
In fact, according to Hill, around 94% of people are correctly licensed in the UK so are already covered to watch live TV online.
"This change will not affect the huge majority of households which are already licensed," he added.
That said, it is not yet known if the BBC's closing of the iPlayer loophole in September last year - which forces viewers accessing BBC content via its online catch-up service to pay the licence fee - has affected the amount of licences taken out in the UK or if the enforcement of the rule has pushed viewers to streaming services, as a Broadband Genie study predicted.