A 40" TV is, like, $300 [0]. The average American watches 5 hours a day [1]. Replace your TV every year, that's $0.16 per hour of entertainment. I probably pay more than that in bus fare and late fees to use the public library.
Big-screen TVs don't belong on the list of excessive consumption items anymore. They are incredibly cheap and deliver enormous utility relative to expenditures that get drastically less hate, like a data plan for even the cheapest smartphone, plane tickets/vacations in general, picking the crossover instead of the compact sedan, picking the very slightly nicer apartment, etc.
I don't know about you, but I don't see watching 5 hours of TV per day as being compatible with the living healthily and being intelligent that the poster you're replying to offered as an alternative, so putting TV on that list seems appropriate.
Money isn't the only currency we use to pay for our current lifestyle. Time, attention, energy, passion and such are all necessary to participate in the kinds of life we want to be living. TVs may not cost a lot in money, though as another poster rightly pointed out, TV also includes programming charges too, but that sedentary activity (both physically and mentally) has a lot of non-monetary costs that prevent you from doing and experiencing other things.
There are a lot of people telling me to be angry that poor people on welfare have big-screen TVs. In the internet personal finance community, big-screen TVs are the #1 example of frivolous irresponsible spending.
Those people aren't mentioning cable or the time spent watching TV. Just the fact that the screens are large. That may have been ostentatious in the 90s but it really isn't anymore - that's all I'm saying.
I think "TV" is a stand-in for "watching TV". That is a common sense reading. And what do you watch on TV? Your statement is correct if you only watch broadcasts, but that is only 9% of the USA public. Almost 90% of USA households have cable. The cable is a monthly fee. That changes the economics that you suggested.
In the UK, the economics are slightly different, but recall that UK taxpayers pay a fee to the BBC.
Going to go off topic here, but I grew up in communist Slovenia back in the day where you had to pay the TV license fee if you owned a TV set. Now, the government provided an official method of canceling the TV "subscription" without physically hauling off the TV appliance, by sealing the electrical plug.
I have a fond memory of one day when my grandma decided to cancel her TV fee. An actual lineman came in at some point, came into the house, stuck this metal lockout device over the plug, and sealed it with a lead (Pb) seal. It was one of my favorite things to play with because it was so squishy and easy to dent.
Wow, that plug is quite, well, foreign to US ears.
In the US, selling a house built before lead paint was outlawed requires a lead disclosure to the buyers (at least in some states). Repainting a house that old requires capturing all the paint chips and dust lest some bit of lead escape and be eaten by a kid.
Intentionally putting a chunk of lead into a house where a child could reach it... you might as well stick a giant, neon "SUE ME" sign right next to it.
Uk taxpayers do not pay a fee to the BBC. Every household that uses equipment to receive live broadcasts much purchase a TV license, but that's quite different.
That's a semantic argument really. The license fee funds the BBC, and the BBC are the ones who care about collecting it (even if at arms length with the official 'enforcer'). Every argument about the future of the license fee, or not paying it on an individual level, explicitly state the BBC as the benefactor of this fee.
The fact that it's tied to equipment capable of receiving live broadcasts (until September) is not much more than a clever workaround.
It's not a semantic argument! The BBC is paid for by people who want to use television equipment (modified slightly to account for new technology). It's not paid by taxpayers, it's paid by users.
Maybe if Cable is free but...most places it's ~$50 a month[1]. Which means the cost of entertainment is closer to $.53 per hour[2]. Which isn't cheap as cheap as you say.
A 40" TV is, like, $300 [0]. The average American watches 5 hours a day [1]. Replace your TV every year, that's $0.16 per hour of entertainment. I probably pay more than that in bus fare and late fees to use the public library.
Big-screen TVs don't belong on the list of excessive consumption items anymore. They are incredibly cheap and deliver enormous utility relative to expenditures that get drastically less hate, like a data plan for even the cheapest smartphone, plane tickets/vacations in general, picking the crossover instead of the compact sedan, picking the very slightly nicer apartment, etc.
[0] http://www.bestbuy.com/site/tvs/led-tvs/pcmcat193400050018.c...
[1] http://www.recode.net/2016/6/27/12041028/tv-hours-per-week-n...