Do you remember the days when there were just the two TV channels to choose from? Unless you are a doddery old pensioner, like me, you probably don’t. Indeed, you may well have been brought up in the modern world of literally hundreds of channels, yet one aspect remains. People still say things like, “there’s nothing decent on television” and I have to say I agree with them. We certainly said it when there was just the BBC and ITV. Now, we have the opportunity to watch from a myriad of channels, many of which charge additional money to watch them, and should we choose to do so, we can just watch the crystal bucket 24/7. What a time to be alive, isn’t it?
I feel I am being constantly bombarded by TV companies offering me the golden opportunity to watch their shows. In addition to Sky, there’s Apple, Netflix, Prime, HBO, Paramount, Disney and God knows what else and that’s without the many sports channels. Not only could I spend all my time watching TV these days, I could spend all my money. If I do happen to reach old age, won’t I have all the time in the world to watch telly? After all, I won’t be to do much more?
I became concerned about what I felt to be my excessive TV viewing when aspects of my work saw me visiting people’s houses, and later on care homes like the one my mother and stepfather lived in until they shuffled off their respective mortal coils. It was not just something that people were doing: it was all they were doing. At a time in life when I still have control of my mental and, to some extent, my physical faculties, it is hard to avoid the simple fact that television can wait for another time of my life.
One way I have cut down on my televisual consumption has been to stop buying listings magazines. I am down to one a year these days, that one being the Christmas Radio Times, and I can’t say I regret the decision. As soon as I got home with my copy, it would be out with the highlighter pen as I planned my week ahead. The rest of the week would, to an extent, be planned out in advance, around what I’d be watching, sometimes it has to be admitted brainlessly. Because that’s what television can do to you if you let it.
Ironically, now that we have more choice, although not as much as we think (I’ll come to this in a sec), I have found I am able to be more selective, to only watch the things I want to watch and the things I might watch, which just happened to be on, go by the wayside.
Yes, we have more choice, but for much of the time it’s a wider choice of the same genres. For example, it’s not just the terrestrial companies that show police procedural shows, the streamers do the same thing; variations on the same thing. Rather than watch the lot, as I may have done in the past, I actually do a little research to decide whether I’d gain anything from watching. In so doing, I am pretty sure I have not bothered with things I would have watched in the past. That’s quite a healthy thing.
I was certainly caught up in a world where TV was king, a sedentary world where people live and eventually die to the sounds of their favourite shows, perhaps in some cases by sitting, dementia-filled, propped up in an armchair watching something you are no longer able to understand. That, I suggest, can wait until tomorrow, better still the day after.
Less, in terms of TV, is definitely more. It’s something I like, not something I want to spend the remainder of my days doing. Too much music to listen to, to many books to read, too many places to visit, too many putts on the golf course to fluff, too much else to do. Now I excuse me while I watch Bargain Hunt! (Joke. Never seen it, hopefully never will, at least until I don’t know what day it is.)
