Best TV Moment For Quite A While

On the subject of TV:  for this moment alone (Thick Of It, finale, 20:50 onwards - what ensemble acting !) I could almost forgive the BBC everything.

Almost.

ND

I used to think this was odd..now i'm not so sure.

I think TV might be on the way out. Not so much the medium of television but the actual television set.

When I started to look at blogs I was quite surprised to find there seemed to be a large number of people who didn't own a Television. This seemed..well..weird. Like not owning a phone. Or a microwave. Or a bed.

Modern conveniences are not expensive. Only 30 years ago television was expensive enough that specialist shops rented them out to our parents. Now Tv, like all modern gadgets has a 'spend what you like' price elasticity. A perfectly serviceable flat screen TV/dvd/bluray and media system is available for about 1/2 a weeks pay from the average wage.

So why, I wondered, didn't people have them? I thought it a bit odd. Was it, like a friend of mine, a fierce unwillingness to pay the BBC any money? Or another friend who has only laptops and just watches DVDs and downloads, not actual live TV?  And I think even 5 years ago that would have been a bit..erm..strange. 

In 2012 there were almost 25 million TV licences sold, almost exactly the number of houses in the UK, raising some £3.8bn for the BBC alone just to make entertainment for us to watch on TV. So if 99.9% of people have a TV, then not having one must be abnormal, right? These odd people making jam by candlelight in their wicker homes instead of watching quality entertainment must be eco loons weeping over a squashed daisy or survivalists stacking guns and taking steroids or religious oddballs searching out the Word.

I have been monitoring my own recent TV use and its dismal. I'm struggling to watch programs I actually like. TV seems to have become old hat. I now watch less than 10 hours a week. I listen to far more radio than Tv.  At least twice as much, maybe 3 times as much. Mostly because its easy to combine with other activities. I listen to music as much as I watch TV. In fact I pay video games more than I watch TV. I certainly use the internet far far more than TV use.

And that is the root of the TVs demise. There are other things to do. And they are now easy to do. Read a book direct on download. Multiplayer mayhem {wars of the roses- a current fav} All night shopping. News. current affairs. Gossip. Politics. Youtube. Facebook. Twitter. And general mooching around.

I am the absolubte focus for TV execs. I have young children that keep me inside in the evenings. My commute is short. I go to bed very late. I have smart TV/iplayer. I have an expensive PVR recorder that can record any possible combination of movies and shows without any hassle.  Yet...

TV doesn't attract me to it much anymore. 

Downton Abbey is the ONLY program that is a must see for Mrs Q and I. One hour a week out of a possible 168 is unmissable. Mrs Q might add Strictly, and I try and watch Match of the Day,but that's still pretty  poor. Poor enough that I could quite easily now dump my expensive TV and media centre and just use the kids portable DVD player and buy that one must have boxset  a year.

Which is what Mrs Q's best friend does. No TV, just a laptop. She won't let her young kids watch TV at all {bit weird} and he's doing an art degree {unusual for a forklift driver,} which consumes all his time. And they also run their own business by night. And they haven't had a TV for 8 years.

And now I get it..They aren't {that} odd. Its just that with modern  pick and mix style entertainment choices they don't need the TV. Its not their go to device. The laptop is.

 Miss Quango {age 9} could watch the iplayer CbbC on the big TV. She doesn't. She watches it on her small screen ipad.

 {I say hers, Its mine. Not that I can ever find it. Its in one of the juniors bedrooms or schoolbags or under their bed. And when I do find it there's 1% battery left as it plays out the last of a cartoon about a musical rainbow pony or an advert for Spiderman real action web shooter guns.} 

When Miss Q decides to have her own place in the next decade or so I can now quite easily imagine she wouldn't even consider buying a TV. It will seem as old fashioned as a record player.