Progress?

In 1936, the BBC Television Service came on the air. It broadcast from 3 till 4 in the afternoon, and then from 9 till 10 in the evening.

By 1952, many were rushing out to buy a very big box with a very little screen on which to watch the Coronation. I was 5, and a large number gathered at my aunt and uncle's house to watch.

Terrestial channels followed: ITV (1955), BBC2 (1964), Channel 4 (1982), Channel 5 (1997).

Today there are more than 25 million households with television. And there are more than 500 television channels existing in the UK.

I don't watch much - but I do enjoy quite a few programmes. It is easy, I guess, to see it as the ruination of us all. But if my old mother didn't have it....