Endless choices but little to choose from

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

When Bruce Springsteen sang about having 57 channels and nothing on, those of us living in RTE land were wondering just how that could be possible – now with double that number, we know.

There are nights when you’ll search high and low for diversion on the box and there is absolutely nothing – either you’ve seen it already or you’d never want to see it in the first place.

But the face of television – and how we watch it – is changing faster than we could ever have imagined.

You only have to think back to the hullaballoo that greeted the arrival of RTE Two in 1978 – so that we doubled our available channels overnight – to realise how far we have travelled so fast.

We marvelled at our sophisticated relatives on the east coast or near the border who had a choice of four channels, BBC 1 and 2 and whichever ITV channel could be bounced your way most easily – and we wondered would we be stuck in a land of one channel forever.

Now we’re spoiled for choice – even if that choice often camouflages the fact that you could safely live without three-quarters of your viewing options and never even notice they’ve gone.

And yet the biggest changes in viewing habits still lie ahead – because television is moving from stations telling you when you can watch something to an era when you decide this for yourself.

Netflix is the most obvious example of this; if you want to gorge yourself on two series of House of Cards in one sitting, feel free to pull the curtains, load the popcorn bowl and stay glued until your eyes turn square.

You decide what you want to watch and when you want to watch it – and apart from those with an interest in news, current affairs and sport, there is nothing missing from your viewing options if you make this your only option.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.