What do we pay the licence fee for?

see the peoples union thread on ear

Because .. they don't, they pay for it, unless they are lucky enough to live close enoguh and can point their aerial that way?

In Ireland you can just get all the BBC channels on Sky no?

You cant get RTE on Sky in UK, paid for by Irish television licence.

So why does it not work the other way round?

If I register my Sky to an Irish address would I have to pay UK TV licence?

Is this from experience Fred?
You may be right, it used to be you needed a card as it was FTV not FTA and you needed a freesat card with a UK address, but it might now be FTA.

On the other hand, you can get plenty foreign channels for free so it's swings and roundabouts :)

That'll be handy for Scotland if it goes separate, it'll still get decent TV instead of the SNPs vision of dr who dubbed into gaelic, shinty, 2 minute union flag hate, and the dear leader appreciation channel.