The Rise of Television

Thirty or forty years ago there weren’t many channels on television to choose from. Now there are countless channels and even more choices if you have an internet connection. Television or the “telly”, as it’s lovingly known in Britain, is becoming more and more popular. Below are some interesting facts and statistics about television.

The rise of TV as a leisure time activity is partly because of cost. In the 1940’s a TV cost nearly $1,000. That is about $10,000 in today’s money. As a result, TV in the early years was for the very rich. Nowadays, most people can afford to have several televisions in their home.

The average person in the United States spends almost 15 years of their whole life watching TV programmes and 17 days watching advertisements. The internet is beginning to affect TV usage, but Americans still spend an average of 5 hours watching TV every day.

In Europe, the UK watches the most TV. The average British person watches TV for 4 hours a day. Studies also show that 81% of British people use online services such as Netflix to watch TV programmes.

The UK holds a few other records too. ‘Coronation Street’, which began in 1960, is the longest running soap opera in the world. It has been on TV for so long that there are approximately 10,000 episodes. Another British programme, ‘Top Gear’, is the most watched series in the world. Over 350 million people in 170 countries watch the show every week.