It was the one question I forgot to ask; hopefully, he won’t mind if I do it via here.

But this debate fascinated me….

http://www.tomski.com/2008/01/dont_own_a_tv_you_might_still.shtml#comments

Not only for the murky legal water that surrounded this whole issue of when is a TV not a TV, but a PC. Or, indeed, when is a TV not a TV, but a screen…

But the other household piece of receiving equipment that appeared to have slipped beneath the radar.

Because if I’m sat on a train somewhere with my shiny new Apple iPhone in the palm of my hand and there’s a points failure just outside Colchester, at what point does the combination of iPlayer and mobile phone qualify for a TV licence?

What if we’re producing a whole generation of kids that will live their lives through what’s sat in the palm of their hand? God clearly forbid, but what in the event of the next 9/11 everyone is sat there watching BBC News24 ‘live’ on their mobiles – does that not now make a mobile phone a TV?

And should the detector vans not now be parked outside every secondary school playground in the country, picking off the kids one by one?

‘But I’ve never used it as a TV, honest, sir…’

‘Ah, but you’re capable of it, aren’t you?’

I’ve no idea. And judging by the well-informed comments cited above, I’m not sure anyone is wholly the wiser.

But there we are – is a TV not a TV when it’s an Apple iPhone?

Discuss.    

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