So average Brit spent 6 and a half hours watching TV in lockdown. 40% of waking hours glued in front of the screen.
An I alone in finding this incredible? I guess I watch 2-3 hrs a day on average.
What about others here?
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by dai 61 Comments
So average Brit spent 6 and a half hours watching TV in lockdown. 40% of waking hours glued in front of the screen.
An I alone in finding this incredible? I guess I watch 2-3 hrs a day on average.
What about others here?
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Feedback_File says
Even allowing for the mindless gogglebox mentality of the great unwashed I find this number literally quite unbelievable. Assuming we sleep for a 1/3rd of each day then spend another 1/3rd watching TV ??
Im probably just jealous as spent most of the day decorating.
Vulpes Vulpes says
We sometimes have the BBC News channel on with the sound off for an hour or so in the afternoon; catch ‘Click’ and ‘The Travel Show’ (ha!) from time to time that way.
I’m not sure it counts as watching though, as most of the time it’s just there and we might spot something out of the corner of an eye and only turn the sound up momentarily (e.g. Trustafarian Riots in Bristol) , but we aren’t glued to it.
We average no more than 1 hour in the evening, either live broadcast or streamed, between 8 and 9, when we turn in.
Moose the Mooche says
The Travel Show has been renamed “Well I’ll Go To The Foot Of Our Stairs”
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Cos we are old we watch a box-set hour every day after lunch (currently on Series 4 of “Scandal”, preposterous nonsense but as addictive as cheese & onion crisps). At tea- time we catch up on UK TV news for 30 minutes and then have our supper.
After that it’s a film or some catch up telly courtesy of Amazon or The Eel Market. Around nine o’clock we spend twenty five minutes with a comedy series like Schitts Creek or Parks & Rec.
So, in Time of Covid us deeply intellectual intellectuals are watching a minimum of four hours of TV virtually every single day.
We feel so guilty – actually we don’t. Get over yourselves….
dai says
Well 4 hours is still well below average. In winter I can understand it, but on glorious spring days like we have here today I feel guilt from just switching it on. Guess I remember my dad telling me to go outside and play when I was about 6 years old. Still with me more than 50 years later.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
16 hours awake. 25% watching telly. 15% walking through the vineyards. 20% writing and/or listening to music. 20% cooking/eating. 20% odd jobs, gardening, watching the clouds, farting around on here and the rest of the internet
Still not feeling guilty
Gary says
How “odd” exactly?
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Well, today I buttered a hamster
Moose the Mooche says
You monster!
Had you run out of olive oil?
bobness says
I think I find it more unbelievable that the number was nearly 5 hours a day in April 2019…
Lemonhope says
I don’t have a TV and so is my wife.
We only entertain ourselves with our own interpretation of Aeschylus’ historical tragedy The Persians.
Each night is the same and quite boring now, after 12,045 performances, but it’s better than the rubbish that passes for so called ‘entertainment’ these days
Moose the Mooche says
Euripedes trousers? Eumenides trousers!
That’s one in the eye for old Oedipus!
etc
paulwright says
In the original Greek I assume?
thecheshirecat says
Likewise, my response is ‘What is this “TV” of which you speak?’ 20 years since there’s been one in the house. And when I am elsewhere .e.g. hotel or staying with family, it never crosses my mind to watch it.
Sewer Robot says
Timed almost exactly to coincide with when tv started to get good – not that you give a flying fox, I’m sure.
It puts me in mind of (a tv reference, of course) that old Kit Kat ad where the photographer turns away from the Panda enclosure and the bamboo munching bastards pick that moment to start performing elaborate dance routines behind him..
thecheshirecat says
Timed to the moment when the decent Tour de France coverage switched to subscription. The only thing I was watching consistently in 2000 was the cycling and, what with working shifts, I couldn’t always watch that as it was transmitted (oh the quaintness of such limitations). In order to get my fix of the Tour, I was faced with buying the licence, subscription to something or other, and a video to play it back for when I missed transmission when I was on lates. That would have made for extraordinarily expensive viewing.
The one thing I missed was comedy and the physical benefits of having a good belly laugh.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
TdF been on “free” Channel Four for many a year now including Live-All-Day coverage. We usually switch that on to “watch the start, then we’ll get on with things and watch the finish”. Yeah, right….
fentonsteve says
What a waste, when they could be on here discussing music trivia and making crap jokes.
Moose the Mooche says
I can confirm that you can do both. And they say men can’t multitask.
davebigpicture says
I prefer to think of multitasking as failure to prioritise.
Moose the Mooche says
You’re right. I’m turning this stupid telly off.
Jaygee says
@moose-the-mooche
Hopefully not until you’ve kept your regular appointment with the ROFLathon that is Good Morning with Phil and Holly (“and coming up after the break the Chorley man who’s built a scale model or the London eye from leftover bits of orange peel and bacon rind!”)
Moose the Mooche says
Wait… When was this on? *Fires up ITVplayer*
Fifer says
At the outset – a year ago!!! – I realised that I was very likely to sit in front of the TV from breakfast through to the test card (or whatever passes for closedown these days) and that this was not a good idea. So I don’t switch on until the evening and then search out reruns of old shows I used to like. Old fart. me???
So daily TV time is about 3 hours. I am spending much more time with the radio and the joys of speech broadcasting in all its forms. I have even developed more of a taste for classical music – which was unexpected.
What with eschewing booze (largely), losing weight (honestly) and broadening my mind (sometimes), for me, lockdown has been a solitary but largely positive experience.
Baron Harkonnen says
Myself and the Baroness rarely watch the same films/box sets.
Me? I reckon I average no more than 2 hours a day.
This average is worked out by the fact I may not watch anything in a period of 24 hours.
However I may get hooked on a box set and watch up to 5 episodes in one sitting. This is rare.
I`m sure I could have answered this in a smaller amount of bollocks. I could have been watching…..
SteveT says
Since Covid and the endless gloom of the news in the morning we do not watch tv before work.
Breakfast is much more social.
We dont get home from work until around 6.30. We have usually finished dinner by around 7.30. We then watch tv until about 10.30. So about 3 hours per day – a little more at the weekend in the winter and a little less at the weekend in the summer.
mikethep says
Now that I’m retired I’ve made an iron rule not to turn the tv on during the day. I watch YouTube videos on my computer instead.
Leedsboy says
*applauds*
Leedsboy says
Nowt wrong with watching lots of telly when you are legally obliged to stay in your home and only shop for essentials.
My life has pretty much been work, walking the dog (not a euphemism – I have a dog), watching telly, reading books, scanning the internet for news, cleaning, exercising, listening to music, listening to podcasts, cooking, doing my Lego faces jigsaw puzzle, ordering things from Amazon and Sainsbury’s and tidying up after teenage children. The telly watching is certainly in the top half of things in that list – certainly higher than the bastard jigsaw puzzle. Is that a bad thing?
davebigpicture says
I find there’s very little on at the moment. Tonight I turned the tv on at 8pm, checked the guide then turned it off although my wife is watching something on Netflix. Pre Covid, I’d have any old crap on in the background if I was at home, working on quotes etc but now I find it intrusive unless there’s something worth watching. Hopefully, now productions are filming again, there will be some content to hold my attention. I was thinking today that Amazon and even Netflix probably don’t have enough on them any more to justify the subscription.
hubert rawlinson says
Whereas tonight is my main television watch night, Mastermind, Only Connect and Universally Challenged.
However I was ‘out’ tonight at the British Library watching a talk with Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell so I shall have to catch up tomorrow.
davebigpicture says
There’s no point in trying to watch those three shows if my wife’s in the room. She loathes any kind of quiz and talks through them.
bang em in bingham says
My status: Retired, Locked down in Toronto, Ontario….So today…Got up at nine, 2 Coffees, toast…, read the usual, this place, The Guardian, Stockport County Yellowboard. Fell asleep at noon, napped went to local bakery at One pm, Came back with coffee and Tuna thingy, sat on front deck in very pleasant sunshine. 2pm-ish: An hour fixing, tightening frigging chainsaw…3pm-5.15 pm: back garden cutting, trimming pruning long neglected back garden. Just turned TV on to watch CBC toronto news…Will go for a walk around 6.30pm after which will return home to watch some streaming or other until 2am usually and carry on re-reading “On Chesil Beach”….Then toss and turn falling asleep around 3am. Worra life!
dai says
Spring appears to have come early, hope I can put the snow shovel away now. I used to do something similar in Toronto (apart from the Stockport County bit) when faced with an enforced mid career retirement for about 18 months a decade ago.
Mike_H says
About 3 hours a week, currently. If that.
I just can’t find anything interesting enough to watch.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
I honestly find it hard to believe you “can’t find anything”. There is so much excellent stuff out there we simply can’t keep up with it. Everything from serious storytelling to frivolous bonkbusters. Everything.
Mike_H says
No denying there are loads and loads of programmes to choose from.
It’s the “interesting enough” part that I have a problem with, currently.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
But it’s not so much the quantity overall but the quality of the quantity. Of course there are piles and piles of poo scattered everywhere but the sheer amount of gold nuggets sitting beside those steaming turds is, quite frankly, mind-boggling.
Tastes change of course and there were indeed many fine programmes made back in the day but to deny that this is the Golden Age of Television is just plain silly.
Gary says
I’m saying Lodes is Right for once. So many fantastic series over the last few years. Too many to name. The number of top notch telly serieses is way above anything it was last millenium. (So is the number of shite telly programmes, I’d imagine.)
retropath2 says
It is fair to say the wife has TV on 24/24, even if seldom actually watching. BBC and Sky vie with each other for rolling news, interspersed with binges of Home In The Country, Homes Under the Hammer and Repair Workshop. When I get in it’s tea and C4 news then into whatever boxset we are splurging. Sometimes a film. Sometimes the needs must of a week by week, which offends her instant gratification genotype, as the plot is forgot by the next week. I toddle off to bed between 9 and 10 and she watches deep into the night, sleep being a seldom companion for her.
Arthur Cowslip says
Surely this must take into account “just having the telly on in the background”? People don’t actively watch TV for hours on end, do they?
This morning, for example, I switched on BBC news at about 7am and it was on in the background while the normal morning hubbub was going on around the house until about 9am. But I wouldn’t say I that counts as two hours watching, does it?
Even at night, the TV will frequently be on, but I’m usually doing something else at the same time.
rotherhithe hack says
I wonder how much of that ‘average’ comes from people who just leave the TV on all the time, often not paying attention. It was the norm in my family and most others I knew when growing up, managed to throw off the habit in my teens, but sense it still applies to a lot of households.
As for me and the Mrs, most days TV only gets turned on between 9.00-9.30 pm for a couple of hours.
Twang says
If I manage 2 hours in the evening it’s a miracle but that’s more due to work driven knackeredness. It’s never on in the day at the weekend though the boy endlessly has YouTube wittering away in the background. I think it’s rather like people might have the radio on.
dai says
My 14 yr old watches pretty much 0 hrs of television a day. Does not mean she isn’t looking at screens for well over 6 hrs a day though 🙁
Twang says
Yes, is watching crap on YouTube on the smart TV “watching telly”? He’d just as happily watch it on his phone, tablet or laptop.
Lemonhope says
I applaud anyone who can watch daytime TV for more than 2 hours and not kill themselves
Lemonhope says
I won’t put the telly on during the day, not because it’s shite, which it is, but because I’m too busy pottering. But in the evening I will happily sit for 3 hours on average during the week, but very little at the weekend due to work.
I’ll add my vote to the golden age suggestion
Diddley Farquar says
We have the telly on a lot but not that much live ordinary tv. A lot of streaming. Either stuff on player services or Netflix, HBO. I agree with the golden age viewpoint. Good stuff keeps on coming. Also I watch the latest episodes of Would I Lie To You?, Mock The Week and others which some kind souls upload to youtube. We have a smart tv so youtube is readily available. Then there’s Seinfeld episodes on C-more which is another pay service, though not a very good one. Word In Your Attic again on youtube. There’s also What’s In Your/My? Bag where stars who go into Amoeba Records in the US and show us what they are buying. A fun series. It’s all telly isn’t it? I wonder what non-telly watchers do of an evening. Re-arrange MP3 files on their laptops? Trawl through their collections of music product? Give the old warhorses of prog a spin? Make lists in readiness for Afterword posting? Do some vinyl filing? I do read books too and listen to music and browse online. Sometimes we even wash ourselves when our googley eyes become too sore. I think sometimes I have reacted to growing up in a household where TV was rationed and controlled. Mother would worry the box was overheating. The News At Ten would be turned on just as it started, ads would be muted. Off again right after, The uncomfortable silence in the living room, with just the occasional rustle of copies of The Telegraph. I am like Neil in The Young Ones who observed the white dot on the TV in horror because it meant no more telly, only now there is more., much more. What a time to be alive. There is a lot of crap of course. Ads I hate, especially here where it’s the same half dozen in every break. We like the cross country skiiing and biathlon too. That fills many a winter weekend daytime, which is welcome when it’s cold and dark out.
Black Celebration says
We watch telly and look at our phones at the same time. I get enjoyment from trashy things like Storage Wars and Come Dine With Me. Current favourite is Paranornal – caught on Camera! Much of it absolute bollocks but sometimes you think hmmm… what WAS that…?
Jaygee says
@Black-Celebration
Come Dine with Me can be enormous fun; and never more so than when two or more of the competitors obviously loathe each other.
When it comes to sheer, unbridled pettiness (checking under the rim of the toilet, lifting up mattresses to find, um, stains), Its sister show, Four in A Bed is even more toe-curlingly brilliant.
I’d post more, but I’m in danger of dropping below my 6.25 hour daily average
Arthur Cowslip says
Trashy TV that is actually good… that’s a whole other thread isn’t it?
Come Dine With Me is great. I quite like some stupid gameshows like The Chaser. American Pickers. Location Location Location. Gogglebox.
Sheesh, maybe I actually DO watch six hours a day…..
Moose the Mooche says
American Pickers turns out not to be a scholarly history of bluegrass musicians…
fortuneight says
There’s a lot to be said for trashy TV. Some I love – Bidding Room, Repair Shop, Wheeler Dealers, and some I have to turn off immediately – Love Island, Made In Chelsea, Ru Paul’s whatever. Sometimes all I need is someting lightweight and undemanding to pass an hour or so.
count jim moriarty says
Nothing trashy about The Repair Shop. The backstories don’t interest me at all, but I find the experts at work fascinating. When you have as little of that sort of technical ability and as little patience as me, it can be riveting to watch people who know what they’re doing.
Leedsboy says
Forged In Fire is absolutely the pinnacle of brilliant trash tv.
fentonsteve says
Pedant alert: 6.25 hours would be 6 hours 15 minutes.
I am very dull.
Jaygee says
Fuck! That means I’ll have to stay up and watch an extra 20 minutes tonight to avoid falling behind
dai says
10 minutes
fentonsteve says
Dai’s correct. Perhaps spend that extra 10 minutes watching an OU calculus module?
Moose the Mooche says
Probably presented by a feller with what my Dad would call “a face like a burst sofa”
Jaygee says
@dai
@fentonsteve
10 mins under yesterday when Dai revealed the figure and another 10 mins today when fentonsteve pointed out my faulty use of the decimal point
Do the “Math” as our North American cousins are so fond of saying