Do you need TV licence for an Amazon Firestick

The licence fee rules around using an Amazon Fire TV Stick explained.

Transcript

00:00So, you're thinking of buying a Fire Stick this Christmas or during the Black Friday

00:07sales but you're wondering, do I need a TV licence to watch it? I'm tech writer Matt

00:12Mohn-Hickson and this is all you need to know. So, an Amazon Fire Stick or other streaming

00:18sticks from other providers like Roku etc. usually are places where you can add apps

00:28or your Netflix's, your Prime Video obviously on Amazon because that's their app, your Paramount

00:37Plus, all the other ones that are out there and if you're just watching on demand or catch

00:46up programmes or like if you're using ITVX to watch yesterday's episode of Love Island

00:52for example, then you don't need a TV licence. The only time you would need a TV licence

00:57in that scenario is if you wanted to watch things on BBC iPlayer. Obviously, that's the

01:01BBC's streaming service so you need to have paid the licence fee to use it which makes

01:07sense. Now, it gets a bit trickier if you are wanting to watch, for example, the rugby

01:15that's on Amazon Prime at the moment because they've got the ultimate nationals like England

01:22are playing, New Zealand and Australia and South Africa and teams like that. So, if you

01:27wanted to watch that, you do need a TV licence and the same when Amazon has Premier League

01:33fixtures which it does in the round Christmas period. So, if you're wanting to watch Premier

01:38League matches, you need a TV licence because you need a TV licence to watch live events

01:44of any kind, even if you're watching them on a streaming service such as Prime Video,

01:49you need to have a TV licence and if you don't, you could land yourself in a bit of hot water

01:54and face prosecution and there's fines of up to £1,000 at the moment. That could change

02:00in the future, Labour are considering scrapping prosecutions but nothing has been confirmed

02:07yet. So, yes, if you have your fire stick, if you're thinking of getting a fire stick,

02:11you won't need a TV licence if you're just going to watch things on streaming and not

02:15watch anything live. But if you're going to watch live things, then you need to pay for

02:20the TV licence and you can go to TV licensing, you can go on that on Google, the website

02:26and that will explain how much you need to pay and where to pay it if that is the case.

02:32I've been Tech Writer Matt Monaghan.