Now, with that in mind, how many people are going to come home from another unsatisfying day at work and slump down in front of 30 Movie Monsters With Pat Sharp on Now 80s? How many people are going to gently kick their partner at 8.15pm, telling them to turn off Bridgerton because Joyce’s Ulcer, the third episode of the 1989 ITV sitcom Surgical Spirit, just started on Forces TV? And, sure, maybe some people would tune in for Sky Nature HD’s Dogs With Extraordinary Jobs, but my gut feeling is that they would all tune out again after 15 minutes, annoyed by the dogs boasting about their wonderful careers.
And these shows don’t have the luxury of being heavily advertised by a powerful multinational media corporation, as talkTV does. My four-year-old has never seen a picture of Surgical Spirit on the side of a bus and told me that he wants to watch it, as he did with
Piers Morgan Uncensored yesterday morning. It’s fine, by the way. I’ve sold him now.
But if people aren’t watching talkTV, they also aren’t watching hundreds of other shows. We find ourselves in a landscape of televisual orphans, floating around in the ether, forgotten and unwatched. So, to reiterate, Morgan might have a point. People aren’t watching television, and his show certainly isn’t the least watched on television at the moment. But, having watched some of it on YouTube, I can tell you it is probably the most insufferable. Hope that helps.
www.independent.co.uk
