What Has Happened To Weekend Tv?

[anotheoldgit]

Once Saturday and Sunday nights were the two nights when most of the family gathered around the TV, with their sweets and chocolate to watch a good game show, a variety show and perhaps a good film, not any longer I'm afraid.

[Smowball]

Bruges?? Should have said refuse lol

[Buenchico]

BTW, modern technology would now render The Golden Shot (in its original format) difficult to make. The show relied upon someone on the end of a phone line seeing the position of a crossbow in real time. Digital broadcasting methods now mean that a viewer sees a picture on his/her screen a second or two after they actually take place. So, by the time a contestant issued the instruction to fire the bolt, the crossbow would have traversed well beyond the path which he/she had seen on their screen.

[Caribeing]

More entertaining reading threads like this on Answerbank.

[Dodger666]

UK terrestrial TV as a whole is pretty poor and not just at weekends.

The BBC screens so many repeats daily as they can't afford too many new programmes due to the money they pay out to their so called "stars". ITV, 4 & 5 all show too many adverts that intereupts your interest.

Most of the Freeview channels also show repeats over and over again. 5USA must be one of the worst. They screen the same episodes of some programmes at least twice a week. NCIS is just one example.

[NellieMay]

Well Inspector Montalbano is back on Saturdays on BBC4, so at long last I can say there is something good to watch for a couple of hours on Saturday evenings!

[Smowball]

I've never watched that. What's it about roughly?

[andy-hughes]

As Zacs has pointed out comprehensively in the first response on this thread - there are many and various factors that influence the culture and art that are made today, from what went before.

The simple fact is, audiences evolve as original audiences age, and younger people come through. What entertained us about Morecombe and Wise would leave the average under-twenty-five viewer cold, and wondering what all the fuss was about.

If we always had to enjoy what our parents liked, I would have sat through Max Miller and Jimmy Handley, not Monty Python and Fawlty Towers.

Times - and culture - move on, and amen to that.

[Peter Pedant]

// mikey4444
When I was a boy Mikey there was no telly.//

not strictly true - but hey this is AB so often the very opposite of what happened is taken as Gospel - and the truth ridiculed as a teesoo of lies

high Deg teevee - 1936 to 1939 - high def with cathode ray tubes
and Baird's mechanical system ( nipkow disc etc tiddy ponk tiddly ponk) before that

resumed broadcasts in 1946 were re opened with
'now what was I saying when I was so rudely interrupted'

but yeah I agree there were only a few telly receivers in the London area at that time

[BAKERS DOZEN]

Always smile when I see the ad for the new SKY Q box which you can record six shows at once while watching a seventh. They're having a laugh surely. When has there ever been that many shows on at the same time that you really couldn't miss.

[Old_Geezer]

Took me ages to work out who the heck A+D might be.

[Peter Pedant]

// What entertained us about Morecombe and Wise would leave the average young viewer cold, wondering what all the fuss was about. //

yeah I tried reading ITMA sketches ( tommy handley) with a view to rewriting a pastiche for a sketch show - the world war one songs were a great hit (!)
Funf: Funf here - I will kill you dead !
TH - Mind my bike !
s/o = can I do you now sir ?
Mona Lott - it is only being so happy as keeps me going

as s/o said - how we laughed when there wasnt that much to laugh about !

[Peter Pedant]

// Took me ages to work out who the heck A+D might be.//

oh, well ITMA (pronounced itmar) is It's that Man Again
with Tommy Handley
and was a smash (ha pun intended) during the war

hmm I can see itis going to be one of those evenings

[zebo]

Smowball, Montalbano is a detective programme set in Sicily, if I were to describe him, Montalbano, he wouldn't sound at all attractive, but he is! The best part though is Sicily itself, we've had a couple of trips there having seen it on this programme.

[Cloverjo]

I don't remember a time when the whole family gathered round the box with sweets. I had my nose in a book, mum was knitting, sister was being annoying in some way and dad would have been either rolling on the floor laughing or moaning about what a load of carp it all was.

[Mamyalynne]

My Dad used to watch telly with the newspaper over his head (I know), you could hear a gentle snore - but woe betide you if you dared change channel.

[sapelesam]

When the nights draw in and we can't work in the garden, Mrs Sam and I treat ourselves to a box set from BTTV, we promise ourselves one episode per night then binge watch half a dozen a night. Works out less than the price of a half decent bottle of wine. We also drink that half decent bottle of wine.

[Cloverjo]

I do love a box set. OH and I have different tastes in tv, so I can't watch anything with him. Used to binge-watch Dexter and Big Bang Theory with my son. He's married now, so can't do it any more.

[sapelesam]

Hi Cloverjo, I couldn't get into Dexter but love TBBT. Have you ever tried The West Wing. It's American politics and although I have a pretty good understanding, my wife had been less interested so we put subtitles on so as not to miss the nuances. This really helped us to enjoy it together.

[Cloverjo]

My OH is like that now, mamya. He can be snoring away when I decide to turn off his boring old stuff, and suddenly he's extremely alert.

[goodgoalie]

Did he ever learn to ski, jo? :)