What? "200k people prosecuted" for not paying a TV license? i find this really hard to believe what evidence can you really use that someone is watching live tv. If someone watches it via computer and they tv company work with the broadband provider to establish this the argument could always be someone is bootlegging your WIFI. They could take your computer to check but seems costly procedure for the £1k fine.
Having a TV in your house doesnt hold up as proof either in court. Total scam this TV license thing.
From the article, it seems they used to have equipment that was able to detect if people were watching TV, which could only be live TV at the time (the 70s):
"There has always been some uncertainty (or outright suspicion) about the competence of television licence detection vans, made famous in the 1970s, with adverts showing what may, at the time, have appeared to be state-of-the-art equipment, allowing inspectors to drive around with whirring green radar displays alerting them to the presence of unlicensed homes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq7luWzbouo"