Anyone Remember When There Were Only 3...

[sandyRoe]

... television channels and the highlights of the viewing week included, The Rockford Files, Petrocelli, and Cannon?

A golden age of television.

[david small]

Two black and white channels. The Army Game, Wagon Train. Sunday night at the London Palladium with Dave King. Torchy the battery boy.

[Peter Pedant]

pubs would have it switched on with only the test card being transmitted. - oh, the  medium and not the message ( Marshall McLuhan)

and now we have AB quipsters quipping " you mean Marshall Muck-foo-an !" that is progress for you 

[Peter Pedant]

Tarchy as an intellect

Torchy Torchy the battery boy - hes a walking talking toy!

we have a few them here

and Fireball XL5 - I was fascinated by Zooly the lazy lazoon !

( zooly half wakes and screeches sleepily)

[david small]

ITV started 1955. Not 1959.

[douglas9401]

Zoony, Peter. Remain in free float.

[Peter Pedant]

ITV started 1955. Not 1959.

must have been - TWW Television wales and the west !

1955 I was fwee -= we were visiting and the lady of the house said - ITV starts - and I am sure it was '59

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_Wales_and_the_West

erm 1958 then

yup I will keep floating

[Peter Pedant]

zoony - hi Doug

el - luh sounds exist in two forms in English - linguo dental is the easy one, - luh-luh luh luh etc

but - if /l/ occurs in the middle of a word it may be much more velar....( these are allophones to the anglos)  and can be confused with an 'n'

I hadnt realised until this very moment I started the confusion in my self as early as the late fifties

even more unclearly expressed here

 For instance: English has only one /l/ phoneme, but it has >> two variants - the "dark" velarized [l-with-a-bar-through-it] >> where the back of the tongue is raised toward the soft palate >> (which English speakers produce automatically after vowels), >> and the "clear" non-velarized [l], where the back of the ...

 

[Peter Pedant]

oh and the oirish only have one ( linguo dental) which gives their speech that lilt

foo a bit cerebral for midnight

[Ken4155]

Khandro @ 22.19; "Television!! You were lucky. Our dad used to give us a shell which we used to hold to our ears and we coud listen to the sea."

A shell, Khandro, a shell?!! You were lucky. Our dad had us stand by the sea and imagine we had a shell to our ears!

[jno]

I can remember when there were none.  Not here, of course. Legend has it that when war was declared the BBC closed down in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and when it began again they showed the end of the cartoon.

[jno]

wasn't Circus Boy Mickey Dolenz (under another name) later of the Monkees? He's still "later", whereas the other three are just "the late".

[andres]

Today's television brings to mind the saying that ' we can be spoilt for choice'.

[mushroom25]

// wasn't Circus Boy Mickey Dolenz //

yes, it was he who was Circus Boy. Noah Beery jr, who later featured as Jim Rocford's dad (Rocky), was in Circus Boy as Joey the Clown.

[curlyfries81]

I do agree with Auntypoll to a certain extent but I do miss the programmes from the '80s. I wish there was a "Nostalgia Channel" where I could watch those programmes and take myself back. 

[nicebloke1]

Theres more than likely still only 3, channels just repeating the same old rubbish year after year. You don't even get a funny or clever add any longer. The fairy liquid bottle never becomes empty even after years of use.

[gingejbee]

...and bringing TV news right up-to-date - from tomorrow, Coronation Street and Emmerdale fans can watch the current day's episode at any time from 7 am on ITVX.

[MargoTester]

I remember there being only 1 channel and you were a pretty well off family to have a TV at all. We travelled to my uncle's house to watch the Queen's Coronation on a tiny screen. We did eventually get our own TV which was fairly temperamental and my Dad seemed to spend a lot of time adjusting the horizontal and vertical hold. The man ploughing the field during the Interval and the Potter, everything was a novelty and we had no choice but to wait patiently for the next episode. No such thing as a cliffhanger now

[barry1010]

Curlyfries, there are several nostalgia channels and some older programmes are on BBC iPlayer and YouTube

[douglas9401]

Apart from the bloke who missed his footing at Beachy Head this morning.

[Arksided]

I was ten and excited about a new channel coming on... wait for it... Invitingly called Channel 4 and I do believe it were Countdown.

I remember Petrocelli without looking it up did he ever finish building his house?