SWITCHING OVER

I did most of my ranting about the Digital switchover at the time it was all happening, but to no-one in particular, because I was generally quite happy with the three and a half channels we used to get, and I did feel that the switch was rather foisted on us all and we had to get new kit whether we liked it or not.

I mean, it’s kind of odd that the decision to “go digital” seemed to sneak under all our radars as if it was kind of assumed we all would think it was a “good thing” without bothering to actually ask us whether we minded going out and buying all those little boxes to attach to pieces of equipment that were already working perfectly well before the mysterious “powers that be” decided to switch off the signal.

More choice by giving us no choice.

I guess that it was buried in some manifesto somewhere and so the assumption was made that, because we voted them in, we were all in favour of it. Although I always thought that a manifesto was supposed to be the start of a debate, not an end to it, but then I’m kind of old-fashioned about things like that. Manifestos are funny like that. You can’t put on your election voting slip that you broadly agree on most of what the party you are choosing to support stand for, but you disagree on certain small matters, as you tend to spoil your paper if you try that.

Oh well, maybe that’s a thought for another day.

One year on and our little relay transmitter still doesn’t carry half the signals that the big city ones do, but then I don’t suppose we ever really expected it to. Nobody made much effort in the analogue days to push Channel 5 in our direction and, according to one aerial installer back in the day, we were pretty lucky to even be getting Channel 4.

I guess that depends on how you define “lucky”…

Out here beyond the back of beyond, ITV stops at 2, there’s one news channel and no film channels and Dave is just a bloke in the pub. Our few dalliances with sets that have a wider range of choices, when visiting other people’s homes or on holiday, hasn’t convinced us that we’re missing much (although I do have a slight sneaking craving for ITV3 just because of all those old detective shows they have… It passes).

There seems to be a sort of “understanding” out here that if we want more of such things then we’ll go out and buy ourselves a dustbin lid and attach it to the front of the house, and so I can’t ever envision a time when the upgrades to the basic transmitter will ever be considered viable. I could get myself a Freeview dish of course, and I suspect that one day I might have to, but I really don’t want a bin lid attached to our home.

Nowadays every third phone call I get seems to be BT trying to persuade me to sign up for their latest TV providing package and the sales-folk always seem completely dumbstruck when I tell them that I really don’t want any more telly. How could I possibly not want more telly? Why would I not want to park my bottom on my sofa and whittle away my precious few remaining years watching the endless stream of garbage that they wish to pump out of it? The truth is, though, that I don’t watch the soaps, or the game shows or the “talent” shows or the dance contests that they seem to think I should and which are are spewed out in the arrogant assumption that we as a nation don’t deserve to get, or care that we don’t have, anything better.

The funny thing is of the dozen or so new channels we only seem to actually watch Channel 5 and BBC4, and occasionally at weekends More4 and that’s about it. Channel 4+1 sometimes comes in handy to dodge those awkward recording clashes, I suppose, and there are one or two things on BBC3 that come to mind. E4 has been handy on Sunday mornings for watching old reruns of “Scrapheap Challenge” from the days when it was good, and I’ve found it reassuring that the cricket is available on a digital radio channel every now and again. FiveLiveSX is actually the only additional radio station that we do bother with so even the additional radio opportunities offered to us have not made that huge an impact. Now, of course, analogue radio is under the same threat from the digital bully boys, and will no doubt also be consigned to history without any of my protests being heard no matter what I might have to say about it.

Apart from those additional gems (and I’m constantly hearing that BBC4 is under threat which would disappoint this household at least) I genuinely believe that we watched more TV when we only had three and a half channels to choose from. I hesitate to say something so mundane as maybe we used to have quality rather than quantity because it’s television we’re talking about here, but I think the point is made.

More importantly, I wonder whether anyone ever considered the massive environmental impact of the manufacture, importing and retailing of those millions of extra little boxes that then have to sit there on permanent standby in order to retain the necessary programming data. All those millions of extra bits of manufacturing going on creating all those carbon footprints. All those billions of tiny components being constructed and put together and then being shipped across the world. All those car journeys to the supermarkets and electrical outlets to buy the things to attach to all those millions of sets in all those houses, and hotels and hospitals. Not to mention all the old sets that did get thrown away. It must have been a massive, stonking great boot of a footprint, all to give us a replacement for something that was working perfectly well in the first place.

The next time someone on TV, or even a Government Minister tells you that you need to be more environmentally conscious, it might be worth reminding them of that little nugget.