19th April - Is TV already obsolete?



This has been a subject which has churned through my mind for a number of years now, but with every passing day, my point seems to prove itself with increasingly thorough vigour. I believe we have now reached a point where terrestrial/freeview TV has become obsolete. There are a number of factors in this. The first - and arguably the the most poignant - is a real dwindling of overall quality. Whilst ITV continues to churn out the drivel of endless cheesey, loud, cheap, and tacky gameshows, hosted by equally smarmy fake-smiling hosts, the BBC insists of remaining stuck in the past via this stiff-collared formal approach to sofa-chat Breakfast viewing, or post-work offerings 'The One Show'. 

The daytime is filled with repeats of old trash from 40 years ago ('Murder She Wrote' etc), the afternoon is clogged up by nonsense such as 'Loose Women', and the evenings are numbed by the brain-sapping stupidity of 'reality' shows such as Love Island. Channel 5 is only useful for one solitary week per year ('World's Strongest Man'), and isn't watched by anyone under the age of 60. Channel 4 & E4's crown of comedy thanks to programmes like Peep Show, The IT Crowd, and The Inbetweeners, has well and truly slipped over the past decade or so via their absence, and 'Dave' is only useful if you're the world's biggest 'QI' fan. There's the occasional chance that ITV2 might throw up a half-decent movie you first saw 15 years ago, from time-to-time, whilst QVC will waste hours of your life attempting to persuade you that you need an electric whisk. 




Comparing this with the original programming now being served up by streaming platforms, and it's easy to see why TV has lagged so far behind. Amazon Prime have nailed down the hugely successful 'All or Nothing' series (In Tottenham's case, it was 'Nothing'), Disney+ have snaffled the rights to the full Marvel & Star Wars universe(s) - in addition to groundbreaking spin-off originals such as 'The Mandalorian' and 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' - whilst Netflix are serving up huge titles such as Stranger Things, You, Money Heist, Squid Game, Sex Education, The Last Dance, and Emily in Paris. Even for sports fanatics such as myself, the days of staying up for the 10.30pm showing of Match of the Day are long gone. Now replaced by 5-minute match highlights bundles, served straight up to YouTube within half hour of each game ending. 

For fans of the live sports broadcast, Sky & BT have taken the monopoly, though once again, streaming services like Now TV are able to offer users competitively priced non-contract structures based on individual events or month-long 'passes' to catch all the drama without being tied in to the old-skool format of an 18 month TV, phone and broadband contract. Think of all your favourite shows, and how you usually watch them. Do you tune in live to catch the latest offering of Eastenders? Or do you live your life by your own freedom, your own schedule, and sit down in bed late at night and quickly serve up a piping hot re-run on the iPlayer? You may have just answered your on question. TV is dead, long live TV...





... Streaming services are now the Master.

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