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Family viewing from the 1950s.
Family viewing from the 1950s. Photograph: Alamy
Family viewing from the 1950s. Photograph: Alamy

Armchair Nation review – cultural nuggets from the history of British TV viewing

This article is more than 9 years old
Joe Moran has written a fascinating study of the public’s love/hate relationship with television

Earlier this month, emboldened by tabloid headlines that shrieked “63% of Xmas TV Will Be Repeats”, Conservative MP Alec Shelbrooke sought a Commons debate about the number of reruns on Christmas television. He even had a neat line of his own, accusing the BBC “of lazily repeating more often than a hearty Christmas dinner”.

One imagines Joe Moran permitted himself a wry smile at that one. Even as far back as November 1936, as he reveals in this fascinating study of our love/hate relationship with television over the years, the dullness of the winter TV schedules was a cause for lament among newspaper critics.

Their dismay was a little uncharitable – the BBC television service had officially begun only three weeks earlier, broadcasting to an estimated 400 TV sets for two hours a day. Most people’s experience of television was via crowding around the box in a department store rather than in their living rooms – a state of affairs that would continue for decades. But perhaps the Daily Telegraph had a point when it bemoaned that the next Saturday’s programming would be devoted to demonstrating how to repair a broken window.

One would expect a book from a professor of English and cultural history to be immaculately researched, but the real joy of Armchair Nation is that it’s crammed full of such wry, perceptive cultural nuggets. The temptation is naturally to skip to the decade of television that brings back the most nostalgic feelings for the reader – and Moran’s unpicking of why the 1985 World Snooker Final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor was watched by a staggering 18.5 million people at 12.23am is wonderful. But the earlier chapters exploring the pioneer spirit of those who believed in a near-mystical medium that would cut out when a bus went past is genuinely enthralling.

In those opening chapters, Moran finds that early viewers had to be reassured that this new technology didn’t mean they could be spied upon in their own living rooms. Nearly 80 years later, one of the most popular shows is Gogglebox, which makes entertainment out of filming families watching TV from their sofas. The hit Channel 4 show is a notable omission from this book, but with our television tastes - and channels - ever expanding, there’s surely scope for a second Armchair Nation.

Armchair Nation is published by Profile (£9.99) Click here to order it for £7.99

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