Yes, you are quite right: a matter of principle. To these ministers and to you it is a matter of principle not to pay, but to most people in Sweden it is a principle to pay if they can afford it. And most can and do. After all you do not get 700 millions a year without quite a lot of people paying their fee.

By the way those 700 are divided between television, radio and educational programs (UR) so it does not all go to television, though I suspect SVT takes the biggest part. But anyway, we just concluded that this is a matter of principle, not economics.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se