I’d put the telly on, but I doubt it would fit
A look at the medium that is Television


Hello friends, I would like to take a few moments if I may to talk to you about television…
1986 was a good year, not only was I bought into this world but also the ‘VHS’. I was born into the golden age of entertainment. My generation have never had any experience of a time without a TV in every home if not several. When I was small my Father would sit me on his knee and tell me tales of his own youth. He’d tell of the dark ages with only two channels to choose from and not only that dear reader. Transmission would end at eleven o’ clock and resume tea time (that’d be the working classes’ dinner, cor blimey guv’nor) the following day. He may as well have told me that he was made to sweep chimneys and live on a diet of gruel.
Is it possible now to imagine a world where the TV just stopped? You’ve made the tea, biscuits to hand you settle down and switch on. But your not greeted by that comforting barrage of sound and colour, it’s that slightly sinister girl with the clown and chalk board and oh, how she mocks you.
Television is probably one of the only given constant in our lives. It’s the nation’s favourite pastime (67% in a recent survey). The living room, the family room where we spend most of our time is arranged around it, you may have one in your bedroom, your child’s bedroom and the more decadent among us may have one in the kitchen. We love it, screens are getting bigger, we’re adding more pixels to improve clarity, but why this infatuation, what do we ‘love’ about telly?

Kindly indulge me while I paint a scene. Let’s say it takes place in a pub of your choice. Anyways our eyes meet at the bar and there’s obvious chemistry between us and we start chatting. After talk of favourite bands/films/places etc and a lot of shameless flirting on both our parts the conversation turns to TV. You ask me what I like “Oh, ‘Have I Got News For You’, ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’, ‘University Challenge’ and ‘Mock the Week’”. Well the night goes on and all I can say is that a good time was had by all, but I digress…
So from my above statement I have chosen four programmes from god knows how many are shown in a week, and to be honest I don’t like ‘University Challenge’ I was just trying to impress you. If you take it at face value I have said I have chosen three half hour programmes shown in a week. That should mean I only watched an hour and a half of TV. Did I?
Did I fuck. I watched all manners of rubbish, ‘Hollyoaks’, ‘Trisha’, ‘Quizmania’, ‘Big Brother’, episodes of ‘the Simpsons’ I’d seen so many times I could lipsynch them. The list is long and I’m not proud. So why? I’d always thought I made positive informed choices about everything, perhaps even considered myself a bit of a closet intellectual. So why was I getting ready to go to work to the tune of repeat of ‘friends’?
Well it’s not big, and it’s not clever and I dare say it wouldn’t hold up in court but, “because it was there, Your Honour”. There was always something I could watch. I mean there’s lots of things I could do. I could go to the pictures and see the latest Hollywood offering, I could pop into HMV and buy Abba’s entire back catalogue and hell while I’m there pick up an ‘allo ‘allo’ boxset. I don’t of course because I like to think I have taste. But why doesn’t that taste extend to TV?

There is no active participation in watching television. You do not have to seek it or make any kind of effort. The only real choice you make is between finding something you can watch or switching it off and be damned to the purgatory that is making decisions regarding you own leisure time. Sadly not many choose the latter. When the telly’s on you need not spend anytime agonising the question ‘what should I do with the evening’?
Perhaps you are scoffing at me. ‘Oh course I make informed decisions, I am an individual etc etc’. Well if so I’d like you to think of this green and pleasant land we live in for a minute, well more specifically the people that sail within her (incidentally if you aren’t scoffing at me, may I say you look gorgeous this evening). Think of all the cultural diversity, different ages, sexes, races, religions, social economic backgrounds. Think about the people you know, your Nan, Father, best friend, lover, the guy at the post office, who you work with, play with etc etc. It’s quite a mixed bag I’m sure you would agree.
So why is it when they all settle down on a Friday they all fit into one of the five options available? I’m sure it’s safe to say that your Nan and your lover have very little in common, but think how often their televisual paths cross. Can you imagine this working on any other medium? You go to put a CD on and there are only five on the shelf? And what’s more everyone else in the country only have these five as well. Would you still stick on ‘Simply Red’ because it’s there, the best out of a bad lot?
Perhaps you are still scoffing ‘What about cable, over a 1,000 channels, could there be any more choice?’ (and if you still aren’t scoffing…er have any plans for the evening?). Well, lets say you walk into a sweet shop, in there is are four bars of chocolate on the shelf, for the sake of conversation, a ‘topic’, ‘twix’, ‘kitkat’ and ‘flake’. “Do you have anything else”, you ask the guy behind the counter. With a knowing glint in his eye as he shows you the stockroom. The room is filled with crates and crates of ‘topics’, ‘twixs’, ‘kitkats’ and ‘flake’s. You haven’t got any more options just a fuck of a lot of chocolate, and as we all know kids chocolate is bad for you.

Last week Eastenders pulled in 14.38 million viewers. Does that mean it’s good? Or does it mean that it is so watered down it can appeal to everyone be it Mum or your best mate or your least favourite teacher from school. This is and always has been the nature of television. It will always have to appeal to lowest common denominator. It cannot alienate or challenge its audience. Its purpose is to entertain, not educate and it wants to entertain as many people as it can. Television is not an evil force trying to brainwash the nation, it just sets out to do what it was made for and we all bought into it.
TV is a one-way street. You want what you get. But what do we really want from it? We want to escape, relax, someone to mother you, lead you to the sofa and say in a sickly sweet voice “now don’t you worry pet, it’s all sorted out, now you just put your feet up”. Sociologists often like television to drug addiction, but I think that is an unfair comment to make. At least it takes some kind of effort being addicted to drugs, making phone calls and hanging around seedy pubs.

George Orwell spoke of a distopian view of the future where ‘Big Brother is watching you’. But the future’s here and it’s worse than he could of imagined, we are watching Big Brother and we can’t get enough of it. Television doesn’t hold a mirror to society, society will follow TV, it’s the pied piper, but everyone thinks they’re the ones playing the flute.
So what am I suggesting? That we take to the streets tomorrow, make mountains o our televisions and burn them with effigies of Jonathon Ross or Ant and Dec and only read books that can be described as classics? Well no actually, though it does sound like fun and a great way to meet the neighbours. This not an argument between mass and high culture. This is about choices. Cut the umbilical chord that is the aerial, and start making choices.
If you want an audiovisual extravaganza, go to the pictures or rent out a film. If you want a cracking story read a book, if you want the news read a paper, if you fancy some comedy stick on the radio. If it you want to watch the football go to the pub and experience it with you fellow man. And if you here of a series that’s on that really takes your fancy gatecrash a mates house or get it on DVD, you can be the master of TV and not you of it. These are your choices brothers and sisters and you are free to make them.
The Revolution will not be televised, I’ll just look it up on youtube.