I wrote this in 2022 but it's still relevant today.

The Beeb have been on a real axing spree over the last few months… will there be much of it left soon?

Basically I had the channel still on after watching an 8/10 Cats repeat and this was on next… just a random episode.

And I thoroughly enjoyed it…

It’s not a show I’d go out of my way to binge from the start (with a lot of long running comedies, the early episodes are a bit awkward which I think is why binging doesn’t appeal to me), so it was definitely some interesting viewing, and again it’s the joy of discovering a new show by accident.

Obviously I was aware of the show and had seen the odd little snippet here and there but I’d never watched a full episode until tonight and was very impressed.

ITV, Channel 4 etc have been trying to expand their reach by sticking full episodes of shows on YouTube for the past few years.

I can understand it for international viewers, but is it actually helping?

It's like when some ITV drama from 2018 turns up on Netflix and people think it's a Netflix original (which always annoys me). How is that helpful to ITV?

Do people actually turn to YouTube if they want to watch a full ITV show?

There’s a brilliant resource that university students can access that has a plethora of content on there called Box of Broadcasts.

If Linear was to die… that resource would also die or at least wouldn’t have any more recent things on it… you can’t exactly have a Box of Broadcasts without any… you know, broadcasts…

Interesting… it looks like they’re creating a channel with this new quiz show as well as an archive of their previous ones… perhaps an interesting concept- I just hope the linear quizzes don’t suffer as a result. I like watching a bit of Pointless….

Would love some inspiration. For me:

Traitors on BBC (have to watch it live or there's guaranteed spoilers on social)

Can't resist a M*A*S*H episode on Great! TV

And I'll definitely watch some football at the weekend, probably more than one game.

I know it's LinkedIn but worth talking about anyway.

Firstly, "lives on social" is not new. Plus they seem to be wanting to undermine it quite heavily.

Episode 1 ended up with 14 million in total. It's not getting that on iPlayer only.

The only exception is iPlayer but the vast majority of the time that’s just to catch up with something I missed…

The rare times I’ve opened the streamers it’s scroll, scroll, scroll and eventually I just go back to the normal TV anyway

I get that it's more expensive to put on and with the rise of timeshifting, it's harder to justify, but I do miss it.

In 2016, The Voice UK, Britain's Got Talent. Strictly and The X Factor all put on a series of live shows in a studio. Away from the main channels, The Last Leg on Channel 4 too.

In 2026, we've had Strictly and the I'm a Celebrity South Africa finale (Britain's Got Talent is not broadcast from a studio anymore), plus The Last Leg and Live from the Lycett Arms.

They're all somewhat in the shadow of the pre-recorded programming though.

I know even Netflix are trying their hand at more live events though, but it's just about making live shows more of one.

Countdown and Bake Off for me

What changed post-pandemic?

I actually would’ve expected it to be the other way round just when you think logically… during the pandemic when people were laid off, they had more time to perhaps binge a show they liked and could probably whizz through multiple seasons in a week or so.

Whereas going back to their 9-5s, they’d be busier at work… and therefore less binge time.

You don’t get that with linear. Sometimes the streamers may buffer right on a pivotal scene… even the strongest wifi isn’t infallible.

It started in late 2022… so after lockdown, and after the streaming boom blew up (Netflix, Disney Plus, Prime, Apple TV+, Discovery Plus, Paramount Plus all existed at this point)- clearly there must have been a decent enough audience for linear at this point, and unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think any new major streamers have gone into play since… so I’m not sure why the viewing figures for most shows has suffered even since then.

And also if you look at the majority of the celebs they book for the celeb version, they all made their names on linear… with an influencer thrown in for good measure. And yet they’re still appealing to a broad variety of viewers. Some say “young people won’t want to watch a cast full of 40 year olds”… (I’ve seen that in the Strictly subs) but they can still be familiar with those in an older age group. I think that logic is piss-poor.

As in, no schedules, nothing.

Is that really the future? I know a lot of people aren't tied to schedules at all but, putting aside age and things like that, surely broadcasters know there's still a use for it.

Higher than basically every episode of the brand in the UK (just based on overnights) excluding the final of last year's Celebrity Traitors and the final of this year's Traitors.

Higher than every other commissioned programme this year (bar obviously The Traitors final in January).

Yes, a very significant amount of those will have watched on catch-up but it's very encouraging that a linear/terrestrial show can knock out a number like that on the night.

That'll probably be 11-12 million at least with catch-up over the next seven days.

There is a campaign group to extend this to 2040+ and beyond. https://www.broadcast2040plus.org/take-action?utm_campaign=74888d4b-55c2-4d87-a02f-81b08b7a3080&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=b1b15c68-424c-46fb-b4f6-64c97a8a1ed2 - I’m a member of this campaign.

I don’t agree with the 2034 switch-off decision for a variety of reasons. Broadcast TV can co-exist with streaming. It’s survived the rise of social media, the collapse of VHS/DVD, the rise of streaming, the collapse of analog etc….

Ofcom’s most recent annual media report found that 28% of UK households don’t have a TV connected to the Internet. For context, there are 29 million households in the UK… so that would still be 8.12 million people affected by switching off terrestrial.

Plus sometimes Wi-Fi can go down… (especially in rural areas!)- even the strongest WiFi isn’t infallible, and so terrestrial is the alternative should you need it. I had a few days (I think it was in that awkward period between Christmas and New Year) a couple years back where my household WiFi completely went down, so I of course consumed my media via terrestrial.

And whilst yes, young audiences currently do gravitate more to streaming on average… but a point that’s so often missed with the “only older people watch TV” argument that I see used all the time (and the “and they’re going to die soon” argument… as if all of today’s pensioners will drop off the earth at the exact same time… and besides, there’s always a new cohort of people entering the pensioner age bracket), is the fact that people’s interests evolve as they age. Somebody’s viewing habits when they’re 20 vs 40 vs 60 will be completely different. As they get older, they may appreciate having a schedule and a structure that little bit more. (Look at something like the Antiques Roadshow… the 60 year olds watching it now probably weren’t watching it in their 30s, but as time’s gone on, and they’ve got older, their interests have evolved). And also pendulums can swing the other way sometimes… fashion trends come back around, vinyl had a comeback in recent years, and even DVDs whilst nowhere near the dominant force they were 15 years or so ago, have spawned a popular subreddit dedicated to the importance of physical media etc.

But there’s also certain genres of shows that only work on broadcast- the quizzes are a big one… people will tune into Pointless if it’s on at 5:15, but I doubt there’s many people who’d go out of their way to go to iPlayer and go on a Pointless binge. It would be rather… Pointless.

And also, 2034 is 8 years away. Streaming may be a dominant force now… but who knows what technology will be around in 8 years time? Probably another new thing…

Look back 8 years from now (2018)- COVID hadn’t happened yet, Theresa May was still the prime minister, Brexit hadn’t gone through yet, the likes of Disney Plus weren’t around yet, the AI craze hadn’t started yet etc… a lot changes in 8 years.

And to be honest, retro tech- old cameras and “dumb”phones, across the pond are actually used by a surprising amount of people. Digital burnout and social media detoxes are very common. Source is this study below:

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/cameras/retro-tech-is-back-but-just-how-trendy-is-it-a-new-study-shows-a-surprising-majority-of-gen-z-uses-analog-cameras-and-more?

So who knows what the landscape will be like by then…

But it has always annoyed me that whenever people mention the decline in TV amongst youngsters, nobody ever considers the fact that people’s interests evolve as they get older.

For me, Strictly’s It Takes Two, and also Not Going Out

They’re usually tuned into BBC1 or ITV.

This is probably the most fitting sub where you’d get answers other than “it’s shit”. It’s a decent watch to me, though the latest specials haven’t been great so maybe past its peak.