How much is too much?
More than one person (yes, OK, it was two people) has asked me why I watch so much crap TV. I know, media people, it’s incredible to you and me to comprehend but some folk out there in the “real world” with “real jobs” and “real lives” don’t appreciate your efforts at churning out expensive, time-consuming hours of drama and documentary programming.
So I bring you this little piece of good news which plopped into my inbox yesterday from Thinkbox, an organisation calling itself the marketing body for the main UK commercial TV broadcasters, namely ITV, Channel 4, Five, Sky, Turner (CNN, Cartoon Network) and Viacom (MTV and Comedy Central).
According to Thinkbox, the average person watched 17 hours 24 minutes a week of commercial TV between January and March this year. If you factor in viewing of non-commercial TV, that is the BBC channels, the average person must be watching a hell of a lot more again. Even at 17 hours 24 minutes a week, that’s about 2 hours 29 minutes a day.
This is desperately important to commercial broadcasters because they’re desperately competing for advertising with the internet and other media (newspapers - remember them?) so if broadcasters tell us lots of people are watching their channels, advertisers are more likely to keep advertising with them.
But it’s also one-in-the-eye for those who still peddle the clapped out line that TV is for saddos. There may be a lot of crap on TV, but there’s a lot of good stuff too. Your crap is my foie gras, etc etc. And with catch-up services on the internet it’s easier than ever to find something you want to watch, when you want to watch it.
So, media people: as you were. Panic abated, for now.