BBC iPlayer viewers will soon have to pay the full licence fee to continue watching on demand, the government announced today.

A new Royal Charter for the Corporation revealed the plan to stop viewers from using a legal loophole that meant that users could previously watch the BBC without a TV licence.

The government said: “The licence fee will also be modernised to require all those who consume BBC on-demand content (e.g. on BBC iPlayer) to pay the licence fee," the Mirror reports .

When do you need a TV licence?

Anyone watching or recording live TV broadcasts needs to have a TV licence – no matter what they're watching it on – or they could get a hefty fine.

That means watching on a phone, laptop or tablet still counts as long as it's broadcast. Even if you're using someone else's SkyGo login at home as licences are tied to addresses.

If you're in a shared house, you might well be able to get away with one licence for the house - rather than one each – but in almost every other case you'll need a licence unless you never watch broadcast TV.

But there's some good news - while you need a licence, you might not need to pay full price for one.

When you don't need to pay for a TV licence

With the single exception of using iPlayer, if you’re not watching or recording live TV, you don’t need a licence.

So catch-up TV services run by other channels, streaming or downloading programmes after they’ve been shown or programmes available online before being shown on TV don't count.

That means you don't need a TV licence to watch:

  • Non-BBC on demand services – including catch-up TV and on demand previews
  • On demand movies from providers like Sky, Virgin Media, BT Vision, Netflix and Amazon Instant Video.
  • Recorded films and programmes either from a disc (e.g. DVD or Blu-ray) or downloaded from the internet.
  • On demand internet video clips through services like YouTube.

If you don't watch or record live TV on any device, or use iPlayer, you can let TV Licensing know by completing a declaration here

But be careful, because while it's possible, right now very few people fall into that category.