Technology has progressed massively over the past 20 years. One of the biggest changes has been our television watching habits.
It wasn’t that long ago that British viewers had a choice of three channels. A fourth was introduced in the 1980s before analogue TV was introduced in the early 1990s. Still, for the best part of a century, viewers had two options. You either watched a programme at the designated broadcast time, or you missed out.
Taping programmes through a VHS became the one alternative for a while, but TV is big business and was always going to be one of the main beneficiaries. The state of the current climate is vastly different,
One of the biggest changes has been the increase in the sheer volume of channels available. Digital satellite packages mean that we can now access hundreds of channels at the click of a few buttons. Compared to the four channels available just 30 years ago, the exponential growth is mind-blowing.
There are other ways to catch your favourite shows, but watching live TV broadcasts is still the market leader. Watching television is one of our greatest forms of relaxation and family bonding, getting Sky or another package can bring vast improvements to your home life. If you live in a block of flats, though, your best bet is to contact a specialist service like Community Vision.
A satellite package provides a much greater level of flexibility. Many channels now run +1 services that broadcast the shows an hour later than the original run. Moreover, certain satellite boxes can record programmes for you to watch later and can even be set to record an entire series of your favourite shows.
Additionally, On Demand services like BBC iPlayer allow you to catch up on the latest shows. Watching on TV isn’t the only option, though, as these resources can be viewed on laptops, iPads and various other devices. The ability to access television programmes through the internet is a major breakthrough. It has completely changed the way we interact with programmes.
The fact we don’t have to watch programmes at the time of original broadcast does bring some negatives, but they are easily outweighed by the positives.
As well as these fantastic facilities, we can also stream movies and television box sets through paid subscription services like Netflix. The days of renting out the latest flicks from the video store are long gone; we can now rent or stream the programmes and films through the internet. There are thousands of movies at our disposal, and we don’t even need to leave our homes to access them.
Quite frankly, it’s a little scary to think about just how far the world of television has progressed in the last 30 years. Once upon a time, you’d watch one of the available three shows and discuss it the following day with four friends that also happened to catch it. Nowadays, you watch one of thousands and can discuss it instantly with millions of people through social media platforms like Twitter.
The game has changed, but TV is as important to society as ever. It’s a wonderful time to be alive. If you aren’t making the most of the available resources, it’s about time you did.