My first TV memories are of a valve-driven contraption which had to ‘warm -up’, delivering a black and white picture and a choice of only two channels, BBC or ITV.
In the yawning gaps in the schedule between Andy Pandy and Jackanory, telly would default to a test card. Yes, there was nothing on. At all.
If you stayed up late enough, the BBC would play the National Anthem and then shut down, Auntie Beeb making the not unreasonable assumption that it was time the nation went to bed.
The high water mark of British TV was perhaps the 1977 Morecambe and Wise Christmas show when 29m people – more than half the population – sat down and laughed at the same jokes, at the same time.
Back in 1977, there were still only three British TV channels. Today, that total – including all terrestrial, satellite, Freeview and cable options – is 948, and 2011 will see the number rise to 1,000.
Among those channels is Peace TV – 24/7 ‘edutainment’ devoted to Islam – or Revelation TV doing the same job for Christianity. There are 32 channels with ‘Sky’ in the title, channel after channel devoted to selling us tat we never knew we needed, Nollywood Movies, supplying 24 hours-a-day Nigerian films, and Northern Birds which I suspect isn’t a TV channel for ornithologists.
In our new multi-channel, time-shifted TV age, the nation will never again sit down and laugh together as it did at Morecambe and Wise in 1977. It is pretty remarkable that, with all the competing options, we still manage to get as many as 17.7m people watching the same programme – The X Factor final.
The heartening thing is that all this bewildering competition has not stopped Britain continuing to produce some wonderful programmes, even if some of the formats dominating our festive viewing – Doctor Who, Upstairs Downstairs – are more whiskery than Santa.
Does having 1,000 channels mean we are 500 times better entertained than when I first sat down to Andy Pandy?
It’s more likely that enormous choice leads to individuals indulging in less adventurous and less eclectic viewing.
It is possible to immerse yourself in non-stop sport, or an endless stream of repeated American sitcoms.
The Jeremy Clarkson-alikes will get blokier by the day on a diet of Dave. Even the mainstream terrestrial channels invite us to gorge to the point of nausea on winning brands such as X Factor or I’m A Celebrity...
If and when we get partisan news channels, we may follow the multi-channel lead set by the USA, where whole sections of society have their morality and political viewpoint shaped by fire-and-brimstone televangelists and right wing polemicists.
If so, TV will have gone from being that which unites us to that which divides us. Broadcasting will have become narrowcasting.
I can’t think of a better way of combating that than by maintaining a strong, well-funded and independent BBC.
Of course, there is an alternative even to the BBC and those thousand other TV channels.
As a Beeb children’s programme from the 1970s once perversely challenged us: Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?
A lot of effort for not much information
IF we can muster one slender theme from 2010, it is that this year we got to know more than we needed to about public figutres’ private thoughts.
First we had Gordon Brown, out on the stump in Rochdale, grinning and gladhanding Gillian Duffy, and then being overheard describing her as a ‘bigoted woman’, thanks to a TV mic still attached to his lapel.
Then we had the WikiLeaks revelations, dragging 250,000 confidential documents written by American diplomats into the public domain, exposing less than diplomatic comments that Afghan president Hamid Karzai is ‘driven by paranoia’ or that Chancellor Angela Merkel is the only leader man enough to rule Europe. Then we had the Daily Telegraph sending two giggly undercover reporters to induce a string of indiscretions from Business Secretary Vince Cable.
I have a deep disquiet about the idea of diplomatic missives being splurged all over the internet. Not because it puts lives at risk, necessarily, but because there never seemed to be any overriding public interest in publishing that which was, by its very nature, never intended for publication.
As for two-faced politicians, can any of us claim not to have smiled to someone’s face and then cursed them, unjustly, behind their back? Can any of us claim not to have nodded enthusiastically at the boss’s latest strategy then gone home and told our spouse how half-baked it is?
An awful lot of journalistic endeavour seemed to be expended in demonstrating that which we knew already.
Wednesday whinge
IN its coverage of the Boxing Day sales, The Times chanced upon a nurse elbowing her way through the crowds at Selfridges with no less than five designer handbags.
The MEN found, champing at the bit to spend, spend, spend on Gucci bags at Selfridges in Manchester, a student from Bolton University.
Can someone tell me when this age of austerity is supposed to kick in?
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Today I'm looking through the square window. I've never smiled in someone's face then cursed them unjustly, behind their back. I prefer to do it in front of them; that could explain the holes in my head ;-). Just kidding.
Eating soil is more interesting than TV these days, except when CITY are on.
Our leading soaps, Coronation Street and Eastenders, continue to produce high audience ratings. Viewing figures for The X Factor reach such high levels because the clever marketing of it is not as a talent show but as a soap opera. As in the 'real' soaps, The X Factor concentrates on the characters and relationships of those on screen; the judges are its long-standing characters whilst the transient contestants come and go amid a contrived sense of drama; and it has a series of storylines about the characters which are played out, not on the TV, but in the newspapers. It will continue to be successful because it follows a proven formula and is a god-send to the inter-dependent tabloid press, hungry for celebrity drivel.
Many people enjoy TV programmes such as The X Factor, reality TV and chat shows with celebrities. Many people don't. The BBC should remain independently run and publicly financed, not only to provide an unbiased and politically-free view of the world, but so that there's a variety of programmes catering for the preferences of all, not just the populist majority so well served by commercial programme-makers
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'If and when we get partisan news channels, we may follow the multi-channel lead set by the USA, where whole sections of society have their morality and political viewpoint shaped by fire-and-brimstone televangelists and right wing polemicists.'
Send over Andrew Grimes - he'll soon sort them out!
Bruce Springsteen once sang '57 Channels and Nothin' On' which was prophetic at the way British television has gone. The main problem, I fear, is that the advertising revenue used to fund quality mainstream entertainment seen in the past on mainstream terrestrial channels has now been diluted so much across hundreds on smaller TV stations, all they can afford to produce is lightweight reality-style pap. But surely the likes of ITV, BBC and Channel 4 are not helping the cause by having so many channels either. Are they?
" black and white picture and a choice of only two channels, BBC or ITV."
Paul Taylor:must be a mere stripling. My viewing began with only one channel and we were always loking forward to what was on. When ITV arrived on the scene we had a converter box on top of the TV in order to swtch channels. Even ITV programmes were enjoyed.
What did we do for social homogenity before TV.
This has to be the worst year for TV viewing,total rubbish. Sky is just as bad,still showing programs they first shown when they opened in 1989.Talk about repeats.
A well funded BBC does not guarantee anything except more of the rubbish that is already supplied in large quantities by the commercial TV sector.
The BBC has an income of about £3.5 billion per year. Most of that is wasted on formulaic trash like Eastenders, Casualty, Flog It, Car Booty, Cash in the Attic, Celebrity Cash in the Attic, Celebrity dancing competitons and running advertising programmes for the government's gambling operation. Despite many studies showing the harm TV can do to young children, the corporation is the largest manufacturer of such content in the UK.
To fund the tiny proportion of the BBC's output which is not just more of the same kind of tat which commercial channels provide would cost about £500 million per year, not £3.5 billion. We should scrap the BBC's trash and either reduce the licence fee to around £20 per year or keep the licence fee at its current level and use £3 billion per year of the proceeds to fund useful things like home helps for the elderly or student fees for children of poor families.
It is a national disgrace that the revenue from a tax is squandered on dumbed down garbage like Eastenders while poor people are having their services cut.
After the absolute state of TV that we now have, and the fact that some of the best programmes this christmas have been 40 year old repeats, I've decided that next week my freeview box will be going in the bin. The last straw was an advert for the Harrods Sale which wouldn't have been on in our area if ITV still sold advertising by the region instead of by a centralised London Advertising department.
When ITV was separated into its own regions they had a kind of internal market which meant they produced TV of all sorts, mainly by the big 5 of Granada, Yorkshire, ATV, Thames and LWT but with other contributions during the day and at weekends from Anglia and Border and Southern and HTV. We had current affairs, we had talent shows where the auditions were performed off-screen such as Op' Knocks and New Faces, we had game shows which were about having fun rather than being greedy, current affairs included weekend world, World in Action and This week. There was kids TV which had a lot of homegrown non-cartoon stuff such as Magpie, Tiswas and the Tomorrow People, and we had films on in the afternoon - often black and white but for those of us below a certain age, a chance to see those films from the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. We had light entertainment in the form of programmes like the Comedians and Sunday Night from the London Palladium, and apart from celebrity squares, the only time you saw a so-called celeb on a game show was at xmas and bank holiday time so it felt a little special.
Peak time soaps were on for an hour a week with no repeats. Drama was still being made and it was escapist so there was no real need for lots of swearing and violence. Comedy was still being made by ITV and again it was escapist so it didn't matter if it could be considered sexist by todays standards, it only needed to be funny.
But now TV has become lazy, especially ITV. Wall to wall soaps or reality shows with premium rate telephone numbers for instant voting and game shows are largely about selfishness and greed without the fun. I can't remember the last time I saw a British Film on ITV and yet I believe they own one of our old British Film companies.
But freeview isn't as free as its name suggests. It shares a platform with Topup TV and BT which charge for programmes but you need yet another receiver if you want to view them and they are part time channels anyway, even ITV are alleged to be planning to make ITV 3 and 4 into pay channels.
But in the 1980s ITV had 7 minutes an hour of advertising increasing to 9 minutes during peak time, now it's 14 minutes an hour all day.
I didn't think British TV could get as bad as America, Sky took us damn close and ITV not only seemed to have let them but they seemed to have joined . My digibox is going in the bin next week and good riddance to it.
I am proud not to have paid for my TV licence since August 2000. Yes I get the monthly letters, yes I ignore them.
The Nigel Slater film last night was pretty good. Lumps in the throat all round in the abode.
I feel that the BBC is worth every penny of the licience fee. It is the only channel that has provided what could be described as quality entertainment, educational and media services during my life time. I am not saying every minute of every channel and service is gripping and unmissable, but it has consistently provided better than the rest.
My father has all that Sky has to offer (minus HD channels) and when I visit, struggle to find anything of worth beyond the BBC channels.
I dread the possibilities whenever some politician or advisory group calls for advertising or the privatisation on the Beeb. More drivel like the other nearly 1000 channels.
The golden age of British TV ended when Thatcher deregulated it, 1988 onwards.