There’s nothing on telly

Some of you are too young to remember that there was a time when there were only three TV channels. BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. They didn’t broadcast all the time, there was no such thing as Breakfast TV, for example, and they would close down at the end of an evening. There would be ‘test cards’ broadcast at different times when there were no programmes being broadcast. In our house we didn’t have a colour telly until I was in Secondary School! And you had to watch the programme at the time it was broadcast or you missed it. There was no way of recording a programme, and certainly nothing like an ‘on demand’ streaming service.

Nowadays we have an abundance of channels – free and subscription – many of which broadcast 24/7. We have the facility to record the programmes we want to watch, and in some cases to record multiple programmes at the same time while watching something else. We also have subscription services that enable us to access vast libraries of films (movies if you’re in US) and TV shows to watch when we want.

I’m not telling you this so you think how old I am (even though I know some of you are) but to name a problem that has been caused by progress. We can get overwhelmed by choice. Many is the time that we’ve sat down to watch TV together and have scrolled through the options for what seems like hours until we find something we both fancy watching (or one of us gives up hope of finding something we want to watch and go with the other’s choice). The choice is a wonderful thing, but is there such a thing as too much choice?

Surely not? We like choice. Choice is a key element of living in a consumer-led society. The TV watching experience of my childhood was not based on demand but supply. Viewing figures were measured in the tens of millions. The supply of programmes was very limited so we watched what we were offered, or we didn’t watch anything. We might say, “There’s nothing on telly,” and we’d be right.

Today there is so much choice that we decide to watch TV and then spend ages finding something to watch. It’s rare that we give up and go and do something else because we’re sure there must be something we want to watch, if we can just find it. The supply of programmes seems almost endless. Viewing figures seem to be measured in the hundreds of thousands. And somehow we still end up thinking that there’s nothing on telly, but we’d be very wrong.

Recently we were researching different restaurants we might go to – pizza, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, English. I took for granted that there would be lots of choice, and that in whichever restaurant we chose (pizza) there would be lots of choice on the menu.

“So what’s your point, Nick?” I hear you thinking. (Yes, I can hear your thoughts, mwah ha ha ha ha!)

My point is this: choice is a privilege, not a right. It’s something offered to the wealthier in consumer cultures: the more you have, the more choice you have. The poorer you are the more limited your choice (you can’t afford some of the higher priced options). In some parts of the world there is just one very stark choice – you eat what you can find, or you die. So rather than bemoaning the abundance of choice let’s recognise that it’s a privilege that many don’t have and perhaps make the choice in a more considered way – make it wisely, make it count.

Be blessed, be a blessing