Thinking About: Television

About 40 or so years ago my then English teacher tried to do what all good English teachers try – to get a bunch of working-class teenagers to read more or actually just to read something. As part of the process she got us to tell her, and the rest of the class, how much TV we watched during an average week. As the discussion moved around the class we heard from kids who watched 4, 6 and 8 hours of TV each week. The teacher stopped briefly when one kid said 12 hours and she told the rest of the class that it seemed a bit excessive. Then she got to me. During the round-table thing I’d been doing sums in my head and had come up with a figure that took into account the truth, not seeming too excessive and a pinch of shock value. So when she got to me I said 48 hours. She was honestly shocked that one person could sit in front of a TV for two whole days out of each week. What she didn’t realise of course was that the real figure was probably closer to 60 hours than it was to 48.

Back in those days, before I got the reading habit, I’d watch TV from when I got in from school until it was time for bed – so probably somewhere between 4 to 6 hours. On weekends I’d probably watch at least 12 hours of TV a day and that was without watching any sports coverage. Oh, and what made it worse if such a thing was possible is that, back in those long ago days, we only had three TV channels. It wasn’t until I hit my 20’s that we got a fourth channel and a fifth a few years later. These days of course I have access to over a hundred channels without adding any of the pay-to-view stuff. Of course what is ironic about the whole thing is that as the number of channels increased and then exploded I’ve actually been watching less and less TV.

Inevitably it all started with books – which I only really dived into heavily at around 14 years old care of my brother’s friend lending me some classic SF. From then my TV watching probably dropped by at least half or maybe more. It was then that comments about ‘always having my nose in a book’ started. But at least I wasn’t spending every spare hour hooked to the boob tube. Funnily lately I’ve started feeling nostalgic about 70’s and 80’s TV and have picked up a few DVD box sets of my favourite series. Not surprisingly they had nowhere near the reaction to the first time viewing and whilst not exactly boring they seem to be poorly acted, poorly plotted and had terrible special effects. All understandable of course with the 20-20 vision that is hindsight.

In my late 20’s I finally went away to University and during the first year was having so much fun that I hardly watched TV at all except when I was at home during the holidays. I can’t remember missing it. When we moved out for our final two years and had a TV delivered and mostly watched News shows rather than anything else. We became Newsaholics switching from one channel to another to catch any updates. It was around then that 24 hour TV came online and we tried that for a while – we were students after all so didn’t exactly have to get up early – but soon discovered that there was precious little programming available to fill in the extra hours. That came later.

When I started work in the late 80’s I had my own place and the biggest TV I could afford. As a matter of course it went on moments after I came in from work and stayed on till I went to bed. But often it would be on mute whilst I read my books rather than actively being watched. Normally it would only go on during the evenings over the weekend unless there was an afternoon film I wanted to see. These days I have a large – 48 inch – TV in my lounge which gets switched on in the mornings when I get up to allow me to catch up with the world as I get ready for work. Just as in the past I switch it on as soon as I get in from work and generally watch The Big Bang Theory while I’m eating my evening meal. For the next two hours I’m gaming online and after that the TV is usually on mute as I read and listen to CD’s. Weekends are different. When I get home on Friday – early because of accumulated flexi-hours – the TV stays off and doesn’t go on again until Monday morning or if I’m off work it’ll be off until my next work day. If I’m off for any extended period, Christmas say, the TV might stay off for over a week without the least twitch of need or desire. What about TV shows I miss and might enjoy you may ask? I have probably missed some things that I would’ve enjoyed. But I actually can’t think of anything off hand. If something catches my eye I might watch the few episodes then if I’m particularly interested I’ll buy the DVD box set when it comes out. I did this with Game of Thrones for example. Likewise I’ll see Series 6 of Big Bang when it’s released on DVD next month. The big win for me is that way I avoid all of the adverts which I really do hate. It got to the point about two years ago that I simply stopped watching anything on ‘commercial TV’ because of them. Just about the only thing I’ll watch live these days is on the various BBC channels because of their total lack of adverts during their programmes. I have toyed with the idea of ditching the TV all together and just getting something to watch DVD’s on. That might be the next step. It’s certainly something to think about…..