What am I paying a German TV licence for?

As is often said these days, it's only old people who watch TV live. Personally, I prefer to watch things later, when it is convenient for me to do so and, more importantly, when the entire series is over. I don't like watching a long series on a week-to-week basis. I like to binge-watch and get the whole story over and done with in one single day.

Now, at the BBC, the archive or 'Mediathek' as the Germans call it, is named the BBC iPlayer. Over on ITV, it is known as the ITV Hub. Thanks to the Beebs app, I can access these two channels (as well as Channel 4) and watch whatever I like, when I like.

If I want to watch Death in Paradise (which is also shown on German TV, but dubbed so that everyone sounds exactly the same as everyone else in every other German TV series), if I have a fancy to watch Death in Paradise, I can watch ALL 10 SERIES. All the episodes are available to watch at any time.

The same goes for Silent Witness. All 21 series available right now on the BBC iPlayer. True, the ITV Hub doesn't have loads and loads of episodes of its major series there, but ITV is not covered by the BBC TV licence. (ITV stands for Independent Television.)

So, I can watch entire series of Luther, Spiral (French/BBC production), Montalbano (Italian), oh, all sorts of crime fiction...along with comedies, soaps (not for me) and documentaries.

Here in Germany, ever since 2013, every household has been forced to pay for a TV licence. Whether you have a television set or not. I have never had one. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, however, I could watch live via Zattoo or enter the 'Mediatheken' of the various TV channels.

I have recently discovered the comedy crime series Hubert und Staller (and later, when one actor dropped out - Hubert ohne Staller). There have been 10 series so far, with over 148 episodes. 

Guess how many episodes you can find in the various archives of the German TV channels? Two. A measly two episodes.

Seeing as how I am paying more than 17 euros a month for a German TV and radio licence, I'd like some bloody service. 

The BBC TV licence costs less than the German TV licence and that guarantees absolutely no commercials. The German TV licence raises EUR 7.5 billion a year (equivalent to a euro from every man, woman and child on the planet) and then rakes in a further 500,000,000 (half a billion) euros in advertising.

And with all that money, they can't make their TV series available online? Why? What the hell am I paying all this money to them for when they don't provide me with entertainment?

Can you tell how much I resent paying for the German TV licence?