The NZ Post Office began licensing tv sets on the 1st of August 1960; a household needed to hold a license if they had one or more tv sets in a home. Enforcement of this requirement began a month later.
Sharp Increase In Licensing
(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 9 1961.
In the last two weeks a fully-equipped television detector van has been roaming the streets of Auckland, and in the same fortnight the rate of issue of television licences has more than doubled.
“Licence issues had settled down to a steady 60 or 70 a week,” said a Post Office official today. ‘‘But with the announcement that the van was going on the road they jumped to 142 the week before last, and 132 last week.
“When the effect of the van wears off we expect the number to drop off again,” he said.
Another factor might be shops which were selling television sets at sale prices, with reductions of as much as £6O or £7O. But retailers said the numbers of sets sold at the lower prices was not great. Most were either old models or demonstration sets.
By the end of last week 4285 sets had been licensed in the Auckland area.
Network bluff
Press, 13 February 1975
ANY old ladies who have been cowering behind the door in fear of the television detector van can relax. There is no such thing.
In a national propaganda effort to increase revenue from television licence fees, the N.Z.B.C. has been spreading alarm and despondency quite unnecessarily.
Its amusing network television commercial (the one in which Fred Dagg is sitting in front of his television set wearing his gummies) urges viewers to get licences without delay because “TV detector vans may be working in your area now.”
But that is not true. The Post Office confirmed yesterday that it has no television detector vans, has never had any, and has no plans to get any. It keeps track of licence-holders through a computer records system, and makes polite inquiries at the door if it suspects a defaulter.
Mr Ben Coury, the N.Z.B.C.’s public relations officer, agreed yesterday that the advertisement was “up the chute.” It was prepared by the corporation’s own production people, who had “a hazy idea” that television detector vans were used to pinpoint unlicensed sets.
“We’re having another look at it,” said Mr Coury. Although it took a lot of time and money to make the commercial, it was quite likely that it would now be withdrawn
*The license fee was abolished in 2000, with reports at the time recording that licenses held at 31 Dec 1999 numbered 854,685. Taken at face value this would have meant a drop in households with TVs to 1977 numbers which seems unrealistic; more likely the impending end to the requirement to pay the fee caused a number of TV owners to stop paying their fees, so I've used Stats NZ figures on household TV ownership for later years.
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