They don't make TV like they used to ...

[Discordant Resonance]

... and mostly for good reason!

https://twitter.com/Johnnypapa64/status/1726940875907907588

[tee rex]

A bit unfair though. There would have been worse months in the 3-channel 1970s.

Let me just hop in the time machine and ask my teenage self what he watched:

"Hello, you still alive? Anyway, I watch and like numbers 2,4,5, 6, 9, 19. Occasionally I see 1,3, 7, 8, 12, 17. They're better than homework or having a Serious Talk with parents, but not bothered if I miss any of them. Drawing a blank on 10, 11. Don't watch the ITV soaps, the BBC don't have any and hopefully won't in future."

Thanks, lad. Now go and wash, girls will like that if you ever talk to one.

[Kowalski]

I used to like Monday evenings on ITV, Krypton Factor, Coronation Street, World in Action, sprouts for tea.

[elguapo4]

Loved Shoestring and still watch old TOTP on Friday night. Secret Army was a drama about the Belgian resistance in WW2, that Allo Allo took the piss out of. We watched the BBC stuff, my mother disliked ITV for some reason, which was why I was one of the only ones in my class that never watched the Professionals, don't think I missed much.

[Hot Pepsi]

IMG_0789.png

[Stumpy Pepys]

I think I enjoyed all of those, with the exceptions of #10 and #11.

Anyroad, what are people watching these days on network TV in the UK? I'm a Celebrity … and Stricly Come Dancing?

[3 Colours Red]

I assume those USian Nielsen ratings have been made slightly incomprehensible by dodgy OCR - it took me far too long to work out that there should be a space between the numbers 1-15 and the percentage figures.

[Snake Plissken]

Looking at that list and seeing 1979 my immediate reaction was it could have been much worse. Only When I Laugh and Are You Being Served? are the main clunkers, aren't they?

[Hot Pepsi]

I assume those USian Nielsen ratings have been made slightly incomprehensible by dodgy OCR - it took me far too long to work out that there should be a space between the numbers 1-15 and the percentage figures.

Yeah, sorry about that. I just did a screenshot of the NYTimes archive entry.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Looking at that list and seeing 1979 my immediate reaction was it could have been much worse. Only When I Laugh and Are You Being Served? are the main clunkers, aren't they?

I can't bring myself to dislike either of them (even if I wouldn't choose to watch them again). And we musn't forget how popular AYBS was in the US.

I see Peter Bowles gets two appearances in the Top 14.

[Gangster Octopus]

And we musn't forget how popular AYBS was in the US.

Having seen HB's US list, I think that we can discount any assumption that the US telly viewers had any taste whatsoever...

[Discordant Resonance]

Curious as to what The "fuming Point" was, Stateside?

[ursus arctos]

Another OCR issue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tu...m)?wprov=sfti1

[Discordant Resonance]

Most famous now for holding the record for most unsuccessful Oscar nominations until joined on that mark by The Colour Purple.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Having seen HB's US list, I think that we can discount any assumption that the US telly viewers had any taste whatsoever...

There are some things in AYBS that I just can't resist laughing at though.



"You've all done very well!"

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

And we musn't forget how popular AYBS was in the US

I think the popularity of AYBS needs to be put in context, unless I've got this completely wrong I remember it had its niche as a curio on PBS but it didn't get any bigger than that - so it was big in the US in the same way that The Smiths were big, but not in the way that U2 were big.

[Gangster Octopus]

I'll accept that an old bloke saying "You've all done very well!" has been an amusing meme. I say it myself, now that I'm an old bloke...

[ursus arctos]

Walt is correct

It would have been very unlikely to trouble the Top 100 nationwide in any given year

[Stumpy Pepys]

I think the popularity of AYBS needs to be put in context, unless I've got this completely wrong I remember it had its niche as a curio on PBS but it didn't get any bigger than that - so it was big in the US in the same way that The Smiths were big, but not in the way that U2 were big.

You're right, but I've met several people from the US whose knowledge of British comedy is basically AYBS, Monty Python, Benny Hill and Keeping up Appearances.

[Jah Womble]

Recalling that era very well, I have to say that I struggle with some of those figures.

Go With Noakes, for example, went out at 5pm or so on a week night - would more than thirteen million households really be watching one channel at that time?

[Discordant Resonance]

Even in the modern era, Pointless and The Chase tend to get 6-7m between them for that time slot, so certainly plausible for a time with only two major channels.

[ursus arctos]

You're right, but I've met several people from the US whose knowledge of British comedy is basically AYBS, Monty Python, Benny Hill and Keeping up Appearances.

Because those (and Fawlty Towers) were a significant majority of the British comedies that were on on US television (all but Benny Hill being PBS only).

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Recalling that era very well, I have to say that I struggle with some of those figures.

Go With Noakes, for example, went out at 5pm or so on a week night - would more than thirteen million households really be watching one channel at that time?

According to Genome, the autumn 1979 run went out at around 5pm on a Sunday, which makes it more feasible.

[Gangster Octopus]

Ah yes, the dead hours of late Sunday afternoon...

[Levin]

The long dark tea time of the soul. That probably doesn't make much sense to young people today reading Life, the Universe and Everything. If there are young people still reading it.

"In the end, it was the Sunday afternoons he couldn't cope with, and that terrible listlessness which starts to set in at about 2:55, when you know that you've had all the baths you can usefully have that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the papers you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o'clock, and you will enter the long dark teatime of the soul."

I've never completely understood if AYBS is meant to be contemporary or a period piece. It is awful, I can completely understand why my parents refused to have it on.