Jayne Dowle: The strange, slow death of family viewing

New research by Tesco reports that two thirds of homes now have three televisions, and one in six owns at least five sets. Quite how you fit

that number of TVs into your average three-bed semi defeats

me, but there you go. Some people don't actually have a dining table to take up space, for instance, but that's another story.

The point is that with so many televisions plugged in at once,

no-one gathers round the only set in the house to watch a show

together. Ergo, the demise of family life, end of civilisation as we know it, etc, etc.

Tesco has got very excited about this research, but of course, they sell televisions, along with everything else. I've got news for them though. Family viewing has been dead a long time. "Event television" has been on the wane since the last of the Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials.

If your house is anything like ours, one child hogs the laptop, preciously scanning her "favourites" for holiday destinations, the other bags the big living room television for his slightly-too-violent video games, while we parents are left with the kitchen TV, scrapping it out over the news (me) and some panel game involving men of a certain age trying to be funny (husband).

Blame the rise of multi-channel satellite television, or blame the

rise of children wanting their "own space", but it has been years since the average family huddled round the box like they did in those old BBC broadcasts.

Personally, I also blame the absolute and total amount of rubbish on television. Name me one regular programme, except Doctor Who – and that can be just that little bit disturbing for the under-threes – which you can actually all sit down and watch together without squirming over sexual innuendo or falling asleep? Even Strictly Come Dancing trips over itself with jokes about sausages. And unless you

count the news, Spooks and certain football matches, there

simply isn't anything much on that entertains your averagely intelligent adult for much longer than 20 minutes at a stretch.

I wonder if we have lost the ability to actually concentrate on one thing at a time because our lives are so busy. I'd heard good things about that new costume drama on Sunday nights so I thought I'd give it a go. The frocks were nice enough, but my main conclusion was that life is too

short to sit down, sit quiet and watch parlour-maids and butlers bitching about them upstairs. By the end I didn't care who inherited what, and started catching up on all the newspapers I hadn't had time to read on Saturday.

In fact, actually admitting to having the time to watch television is beginning to be considered something of a weakness. I'm not sure whether the Government has considered "the Jeremy Kyle factor" in its war on benefit scroungers, but Ministers should set up a working party right away.

Certain working mothers of my acquaintance, naming no names here, look askance at the stay-at-home mums who toddle off

home from the school gate straight back to the sofa and the welcoming arms of Mr Kyle. If these sofa-loafers were to actually

get a job, how would they cope without their daily fix of infidelity

and incest?

I remember one sports day overhearing two mothers, with a multitude of offspring between them, discussing how one of the babies knew it was time for his morning nap when he heard the theme tune to that particular chat show come on. You can only wonder what kind of world-view these children are growing up with, populated as it is by ugly people in inappropriate hooded sportswear who think it is funny to show how ignorant they are.

Only last week the presenter was hit over the head by a distinguished guest brandishing an envelope containing the results of a paternity test. And then we talk of the importance of good role models for our children… but at least it's family viewing, of a kind.

Meanwhile, the rest of us tot up the cost of Sky Multiroom and wonder whether it would be worth the investment, just for the sake of

family harmony. Until we take out the second mortgage to pay for that, and for a television each, I've decided to stop worrying about it. Family viewing might be dead, and that might mean the end of cosy

chats in front of the soaps and exciting discussions about Ena Sharples' hairnet.

But the skills in negotiation, peace- keeping and bargaining which my children learn every time there is a scrap between Sponge Bob SquarePants and Peppa Pig will teach them more than Blue Peter ever taught us.