This is the first post tracking some ideas towards a new piece of work that I hope to develop, coinciding with the analogue TV transmitters being switched off across London on the 18th (?)April 2012. 

I’ve always found TV interesting as a medium.  Until widespread internet access in developed countries (because of course there are plenty of places on earth that don’t have easy access to reliable, high-speed internet) became the norm it seemed that TV had a monopoly on its capacity to diseminate information to a huge number of people.  It is constantly maligned as creating apathy or perpetuating ethnic, gender and class stereotypes, it is also seen as generating feelings of hysteria amongst its more credulous viewers. 

On the other hand there are plenty of instances where TV has been challenging or downright radical, I’m thinking here of a few very disparate examples such as Our Friends In The North or early Channel 4 programming (some of the best of which can be found on UBUweb or most university film libraries) and also recent series such as HBO’s The Wire.

Right..here are a few things I’ve had in mind at the start, some songs that have come to mind in relation to TV

Maybe it’s an obvious thing to start with but it was the first that came to mind, I remember hearing this at school and thinking how well it captured that sense of idleness that watching TV can incite - “you will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out”.

I listened to Nation of Millions again recently and this was a song that used to stand out from earlier listens.  I’ve always been really frustrated with the severely mysogynistic tone of it but also interested in how it talks of TV as a distraction from far more important issues.