Seriously thinking of ditching the TV ?

[johnnyb47]

Hi and hope you're all well,
Ever since I can remember there's always been a TV stuck in the corner of the room.
I don't no whether I'm just being nostalgic and seeing things through rose tinted glasses, but I feel TV was so much better back in the 70s/80s than what it is today.
We also only had three channels to watch too!!!
A Saturday morning being a kid was great if the weather was rubbish outside.
BBC and ITV both provided live kids shows.You were posh and more reserved if you watched Swap Shop.
I was more into the unpredictable Tizwas.
When Christmas draw closer I would get excited when my mum would come home from the shops with the Christmas Radio times and she would sit there circling the programmes /films off over the coming holiday season in it.
After she had done that I would then get the chance to scan through it.
TV back then also to me felt it was live.
You would actually have someone at the start of the evening talking you through the tv line up.
Watching all the newly imported TV shows from the US or Australia as a kid was exciting as everything was so vibrant and of course always sunny.
The soaps were something you could really get into and were often light hearted and funny.
Over the last few years though I'm finding myself watching less and less TV.
Granted Freeview has more channels but the quality of content is to me unwatchable.
Everything is repeated daily, the soaps are just truly depressing and full of political correctness.
The channels all seem to have there adverts on at the same time and last anything from 10 minutes followed by the irritating plug for who's sponsoring the TV show.
I also find the adverts of today depressing.
Animal cruelty, Death and funeral plans, Homeless and mobility ads ( the list goes on)
What happened to the funny ads of the past like the old Carling black label ads ect.
To me, Freeview is supposed to be a TV platform that shows free TV but I have 45 tv channels that are unaccessible.
The news channels again seem to be very politically driven by what they want you to see.
I'm finding myself listening to the good old radio more and more often nowadays with the telly sitting in the corner laying redundant gathering dust.
YouTube seems to get more use or just simply reading with the radio on low in the background seems to be the norm.
I'm now seriously considering breaking the life long tradition I've had over the many years and dumping the TV and saving my cash by cancelling the TV licence.
It just seems a total waste of time and money nowadays.
All the best and hope you're enjoying the sunny weather today,
Johnny

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Hi and hope you're all well,
Ever since I can remember there's always been a TV stuck in the corner of the room.
I don't no whether I'm just being nostalgic and seeing things through rose tinted glasses, but I feel TV was so much better back in the 70s/80s than what it is today.
We also only had three channels to watch too!!!
A Saturday morning being a kid was great if the weather was rubbish outside.
BBC and ITV both provided live kids shows.You were posh and more reserved if you watched Swap Shop.
I was more into the unpredictable Tizwas.
When Christmas draw closer I would get excited when my mum would come home from the shops with the Christmas Radio times and she would sit there circling the programmes /films off over the coming holiday season in it.
After she had done that I would then get the chance to scan through it.
TV back then also to me felt it was live.
You would actually have someone at the start of the evening talking you through the tv line up.
Watching all the newly imported TV shows from the US or Australia as a kid was exciting as everything was so vibrant and of course always sunny.
The soaps were something you could really get into and were often light hearted and funny.
Over the last few years though I'm finding myself watching less and less TV.
Granted Freeview has more channels but the quality of content is to me unwatchable.
Everything is repeated daily, the soaps are just truly depressing and full of political correctness.
The channels all seem to have there adverts on at the same time and last anything from 10 minutes followed by the irritating plug for who's sponsoring the TV show.
I also find the adverts of today depressing.
Animal cruelty, Death and funeral plans, Homeless and mobility ads ( the list goes on)
What happened to the funny ads of the past like the old Carling black label ads ect.
To me, Freeview is supposed to be a TV platform that shows free TV but I have 45 tv channels that are unaccessible.
The news channels again seem to be very politically driven by what they want you to see.
I'm finding myself listening to the good old radio more and more often nowadays with the telly sitting in the corner laying redundant gathering dust.
YouTube seems to get more use or just simply reading with the radio on low in the background seems to be the norm.
I'm now seriously considering breaking the life long tradition I've had over the many years and dumping the TV and saving my cash by cancelling the TV licence.
It just seems a total waste of time and money nowadays.
All the best and hope you're enjoying the sunny weather today,
Johnny

Ditch the licence. Grab a couple of streaming platforms (Netflix, Prime, etc) and just turn your tv on to watch selected content.

Works like a charm for us and has done for a good number of years.

Much better than turning your tv on by default at a specific time, then leaving it on and dumbly watching any content that appears until you turn your tv off and go to bed. Which seems to be the MO of many viewers.

 

[Drago]

I ditched the licence a few years ago. When its on now it's only streaming services, and only when I want to actually watch something in particular.

The main reason is because there was many crap on, and little of that which I watched was on the Beeb anyway, so why carry on paying?

A lesser reason was ideological, in that I resent paying what is effectively a tax and I also dont like directly funding the Beebs continuing stream of perverts - I state that purely for information purposes, and wont delve further in to that as it can get political.

I had my first visit from a goon this week after 2 years and 5 days with no licence. I told them to get off my property and closed the door on them, and the doorbell camera shows they toddled straight off.

I am a radio junkie though, and planet rock goes on at 6am and stays on until my head hits the pillow at the other end of the day.

 

[wafter]

Good work.

I've not owned a TV for decades and don't miss it.

I find much of the content available unappealing (either just uninteresting or offensively poor), despise the ads and refuse to pay for a license.

I also dislike the cost and inevitable electrical waste that comes with owning / running a TV, and the fact they've become so offensively large as to dominate the space they're in. There's also the question of privacy with "smart" devices; which I also refuse to have in my home.

I watch a fair bit of stuff on Youtube on my PC and in the past have dabbled with torrents; and hope eventually to be able to view these using a projector onto an otherwise bare wall.

 

[AndyRM]

Ditch the licence. Grab a couple of streaming platforms (Netflix, Prime, etc) and just turn your tv on to watch selected content.

Works like a charm for us and has done for a good number of years.

Much better than turning your tv on by default at a specific time, then leaving it on and dumbly watching any content that appears until you turn your tv off and go to bed. Which seems to be the MO of many viewers.

This.

It's easy to watch what you want and just as simple to avoid things you don't.

I hate having the TV on for the sake of it and don't understand why people do.

 

[wafter]

This.

It's easy to watch what you want and just as simple to avoid things you don't.

I hate having the TV on for the sake of it and don't understand why people do.

Yeah, my dad used to do this - home from work, straight into the chair, telly on. This would be de rigueur for the rest of the night before he fell asleep in front of it and dragged himself to bed at 2am.

That said I can identify to a point and I think such behaviour can be driven by attention deficit / the need to have some constant level of stimulation. Personally I'd prefer it to be some actually interesting content / nice music... all of which I can find on the internet for nowt.

 

[oxoman]

Both my eldest lad and middle daughter have both ditched normal TV and the licence and just use streaming services for the odd time they use the TV. The only thing that has annoyed them is the constant bombardment from the licencing people. Still get letters and the odd call even after 2yrs.

 

[johnnyb47]

That's all I regularly watch on TV is Classic Corrie ,and put up with the depressing adverts in-between that make me feel like I'm on deaths door by the nature of them.
Everything else on it is just back gound noise.
Just as Wafter says it's a waste of electricity.
Paying my licence to watch just 1 hour a night of reheated episodes of a soap opera really isn't worth the money.
I get more enjoyment watching you tube content where I can decide what content I can engage in.
Looking at the recent news it looks like terrestrial TV is slowly dieing a death.
I wonder if it will still exist in another 10/20 year's from now

 

[Electric_Andy]

We watch a lot but always through choice and never live TV. Mostly because I hate adverts. Secondly because doing much else involves sunny weather or money. Thirdly because the child, or young adult, or pets, need tending to or driving somewhere. For a bit of money each month is good value for the amount we use it. However, if we lived alone and I had a big shed, I'd probably do more hobby stuff. Then again, we're often too tired after work to do anything else. The trouble is, once various TV shows and film are in your life, you feel like you're missing out. Whereas if you don't really watch much, it's easier to cut the cord. YT is also my escape (watched on the TV not phone) where I watch people doing the stuff that I can't do myself

 

[presta]

I don't no whether I'm just being nostalgic and seeing things through rose tinted glasses, but I feel TV was so much better back in the 70s/80s than what it is today.

I think how people watch TV now has a lot to do with that. In the past everyone sat down to watch the same programme at the same time, then went into work the following day and started the "Did you see......on the telly last night" conversation. Now in the days of catch-up TV, scores of channels, and PVRs that's all gone. Either nobody's seen it, or you'll get shut up by someone who hasn't watched it yet.

There's also the gilding the lily in retrospect that makes programmes seem better than they really were. I learnt that from watching the re-runs of old 1970s shows: it just spoils the memories because they never were as good as you remember them. Now I deliberately avoid most of them, particularly anything associated with the best memories.

Then there's the Paradox of Choice: the more choice you're given the more likely it is to make you mentally ill, and the less likely you are to choose anything at all. Less is more. With a PVR that records up to four channels at once I find I end up deleting a lot of what I record unwatched because I can't be bothered watching it, even though I have just a small fraction of the Freeview channels on my Favourites list.

I don't see ditching the TV licence and getting Netflix as any solution, just more of the same problem: which provider to choose, which package to buy etc. Occasionally I've seen a TV listings page from an old newspaper pop up somewhere or other, and it's surprisingly uninspiring, I think it's just that expectations were different in those days.

Be a satisficer, not an optimiser.

 

[Dirk]

Ditched our TV on Christmas Day 28 years ago.
Not missed it.
Never had a visit from the licence goons.

 

[Mo1959]

Love my tv. Honestly couldn’t live without it. Maybe it’s partly for company being on my own?

The vast majority of stuff I watch is crime dramas and certain sports.

 

[fossyant]

Change those glasses, TV was rubbish in the 70's, especially the resolution, which makes a huge difference watching nature documentaries.

 

[albion]

Yeh go on.

Send all your money to the US.
Herr Trump will be very happy.

 

[presta]

I'm a lot closer to ditching the internet and computer than I am to getting rid of the telly. I didn't get my first computer until I was 54, and I wonder whether I ever would if I hadn't had to give up the things like walking & cycling etc. that I used to do before.

Change those glasses, TV was rubbish in the 70's, especially the resolution, which makes a huge difference watching nature documentaries.

It's the programme quality that needs improving, picture quality never was a problem, the compression artefacts on digital TV are far more annoying and intrusive than the lower resolution of analogue ever was. The biggest failure of digital however, is that it expanded the number of channels and broadcasting capacity far beyond the ability to fund enough programmes to fill them all, hence the dumbing down, repeats, and overwhelming proliferation of cheap, fatuous drivel.

Even now, the majority of what I watch is still from the five old analogue stations, but sadly, I think the impending takeover of ITV is the thin end of a wedge that'll see the demise of those legacy terrestrial broadcasters.