TVs are disappearing – but we’re still telly addicts

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/30/television-telly-addicts-home

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Television ownership is at its lowest level since 1972, with 1 in 20 households now claiming not to have one. That’s 1.72m living rooms in Britain without a gogglebox in the corner.

As a former TV editor and sometime TV reviewer for the Guardian, I’m used to readers exerting me to “go for a walk”, “read a book” or “get a life” when an article about a programme is published, so I imagine these commenters might be pleased to hear that it sounds as if people are doing just that.

Anecdotally, it comes as little surprise to me that ownership numbers are falling. Whereas my parents have televisions dotted throughout their houses – front room, kitchen, bedrooms – my friends, particularly the ones under 25, don’t seem to bother any more. But that’s not to say they’re smug “I don’t own a television, I spend my time more meaningfully” types. They are still watching TV, because TV shows are everywhere – just not necessarily on that 52” flatscreen.

In 1972, and for a good while after that, Britain’s viewing consisted of three channels which, I’m told, exclusively aired racist sitcoms. Now, with a decent Wi-Fi connection, the range of choice is overwhelming: instead of an evening’s viewing consisting of episode of EastEnders, a familiar-format panel show heavy on male guests, and a programme about someone selling their house for lots of money so they can buy an even more expensive house, we can curate what we want. I almost only ever turn my own TV on to use it as a glorified projector for my laptop, which becomes my dream channel: an episode of an American cable drama that people compare to novels on intense fan forums, a reality competition about drag queens, John Oliver taking on the Fifa scandal, a classic British comedy from the early 1990s …

I know that my fantasy schedule would not be the same as that of the rest of my family, however, so perhaps this is what the decline in TV ownership is about: the rise of personalised viewing, the increase in choice. It is easy to split off into different rooms, or stick a set of headphones on, and ignore not just what the schedulers are providing but what another person is watching in the same room as you. And if you still want to discuss the latest plot twist in Game of Thrones, you don’t need to turn to the person on the sofa next to you – you can just do it online, as millions of people did, judging by the increasingly frenzied exhortations not to spoil the season finale a couple of weeks ago. (Definitely not dead, in my opinion.)

Related: I can't stand to binge watch television shows. I know what you think of me | Jaya Saxena

The New York Times published a fascinating op-ed this week on how television – a “tired, postwar technology” – is thriving financially, despite ratings becoming less and less significant. (Nobody knows how many people are streaming Netflix’s original commissions such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, yet this does not matter, as it is dependent on a subscription model for revenue.) It is a booming industry. News, comedy and chat shows are being chopped up and served as appetisers on YouTube. We have easy access to the archives of TV history, rather than waiting for a channel to decide to air a repeat. The golden age of television has been running for the last 20 years. It regularly surpasses cinema in terms of quality and scope.

Unfortunately for those commenters who like to suggest it, I don’t think people are going for more walks or reading more books or getting a life. We just don’t have to watch TV on a TV, when schedulers tell us to, anymore. But music did not die when people stopped listening to 78s on a gramophone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got last week’s Celebrity Masterchef and two episodes of True Detective lined up and ready to stream.