‘Television, the drug of the nation,” the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy sang, accurately, in their trenchant 1991 anthem of the same name. “Apathetic, therapeutic and extremely addictive.” However, 30 years on, things have changed. We now watch even more television.
Ofcom’s report of TV habits, released today, has revealed that over the past year adults have been glued to their plasma screens for a third of their waking hours — an average of five hours and 40 minutes a day, up by 47 minutes on 2019. You want to be shocked? This TV addiction adds up to more than 2,000 hours of viewing per person in a year. Are we turning into a nation of indolent slugs?
Well, of course we’ve been watching more TV. While you might reasonably say that life under lockdown would have been better served learning Mandarin or how to rewire your home, desperate times have clearly called for more comforting measures. And while the terrestrial channels have had huge figures for national events (Euro 2020; BoJo statements; Line of Duty), the biggest pandemic winner of all has been, somehow inevitably, Netflix. By infiltrating 52 per cent of UK households in 2020, for the first time it has overtaken all the pay-TV providers (Sky, Virgin and the like) combined.
So is this Netflix epidemic a bad thing? Culturally speaking, it’s hard to argue that it is enriching our collective intellect. Ofcom’s report also reveals the ten most watched Netflix shows in the UK in the first three months of 2021. At No 1? Bridgerton. With all the nutrition of a glass of prosecco, the Regency romp titillated half of all households up till March, with nearly 7.5 million views an episode.
The rest of the list is similarly fast-food — the loopy psycho-thriller Behind Her Eyes is at No 3; the French crime drama Lupin is at No 7; while Cobra Kai, the likeable but corny Karate Kid reboot, is at No 10.
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While Bridgerton is a hit among older viewers (aged 50-64), younger viewers prefer things sleazier. Most watched among 18 to 29-year-olds were Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel and Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, at No 2 and No 4 on the list respectively. When it comes to true crime, apparently the more sinister, the hotter the ratings.
Does it feel a touch dispiriting that nearly all these series feel so disposable? As someone who watches hours of TV a day (albeit paid to do so), I can attest that there’s an endless pipeline of such well-made but ultimately mediocre TV, but that there is excellence around too (recently Mare of Easttown on Sky’s Now service).
Tellingly, the one film in Ofcom’s Netflix list is the Sutton Hoo drama The Dig, which arrived in January just when we were craving some substance after bingeing on so many comfort shows and comedies. One certainty is that, with lockdown over, the streamers will simply intensify their efforts to keep us glued to their “next episode” buttons. Yet if there’s one thing to take away from Ofcom’s report, it’s this: shall we try to get out a bit more?
