A number of patronising leaflets have been thrust through my letterbox recently, relating to the Great Digital Switchover. Some of my three regular readers may already have Digital TV but for the rest of us it’s still a novelty.
The Boredom TV region is going to be the first in the UK to have analogue switched off. That’s despite the fact that we’re among the last to receive digital. The govenment probably figures that we’re farthest away, so it matters less if we complain. And they’ve got Virgin Trains to stop us turning up on their doorstep to make a fuss.
When digital TV comes in, we’ll get a load more extra channels. Oh be still my beating heart! It’s not like there’s unalloyed riches on the existing four. The other weekend, Channel 4 devoted two hours to Come Dine With Me. That’s 120 minutes of people you don’t know eating food you wouldn't and complaining about it. Cutting edge stuff.
I was surprised to discover from the Digital Switchover leaflet that we’ll be able to get four ITV channels. What on earth is on the other three? Ant and Dec plus 1? Ant and Dec Gold? Parliament Channel with Ant and Dec? (Incidentally, have you noticed that when ITV trails its other channels, it only does two at a time? Is that because they assume their viewers can’t manage big numbers?)
Last January I was geeky enough to plot how many hours of broadcast TV I watched in the month. It came to 8.5 hours. Averaging it over the year, that means the license fee works out at £1.40 an hour. Now, maybe January 2009 was a particularly rubbish month but I do find myself regularly getting up in the middle of programmes and wandering off to the computer instead. Or, in the case of Yellowstone, slumping into a coma due to the v….e….r….r….y d….u….l….l narration. So the digital switchover doesn’t fill me with eager anticipation.
In fact, I’m not sure I can be bothered.
Ditching the TV license, saves £139 a year, plus the cost of a digital box. I can still get all the radio I want. Anything decent on the BBC appears on their iPlayer (no license needed as the programmes are available more than two hours after broadcast). The money I save can go towards hiring DVDs of stuff I want to watch. And that helps keep the library service funded.
I’m not convinced that I have the willpower to pull the plug but it would be rather droll to celebrate the switchover with a blank screen. Watch this space and find out what space I’m watching in four months.
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