THE start of the academic year will bring many changes for students in Farnham including, for the first time, the need to buy a TV licence to download or watch BBC programmes on demand.

A change in the law means as of September 1 a licence will be needed to download or watch BBC programmes on demand, including catch-up TV on BBC iPlayer.

Ben Craig, spokesperson for TV Licensing London and the South East said: “Watching catch-up TV is really popular among students and we want to make sure students are aware of the change in law.

“Students can check at our dedicated TV licence for students (tvlicensing.co.uk\studentinfo) page whether they are correctly licensed before the big move.

“And, of course, you still need to be covered by a licence for all live viewing and recording, no matter which channel you are watching or what device you are watching on.”

Students who already have a licence will be covered automatically. A licence will not be needed to watch other on-demand services, such as ITV Player or Netflix.

This applies to all devices, including a smart TV, desktop computer or laptop, mobile phone, tablet, digital box or games console.