Worry for BBC and ITV as TV habits ‘change towards streaming’ - Yorkshire Post Letters

CORONAVIRUS is likely to see a huge change in TV habits. As well as praise for the NHS frontline hospital staff, thank heavens we have the technology of streaming television that has played as vital a role in maintaining the country’s sanity through all the emotional turmoil and lockdowns.

The big loser is terrestrial television which must concern the BBC and ITV.

Virtually none of it has matched my mental mood over many months hibernating – apart from ITV’s Good Morning Britain or BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, Call The Midwife, a documentary of the Royal Christmas Broadcasts – Cue The Queen (BBC2) – and commemorative programmes at the Albert Hall and Buckingham Palace. We particularly enjoyed C5’s All Creatures Great and Small – and the Christmas edition.

My wife and I have passed hours and hours of bingeing on streaming high production value drama series – the majority on Netflix and a little on Prime, as well as All 4 and live Leeds United games on Now.

As we have hardly been out (we are in an age risk category and I did suffer a heart attack), we decided to buy a top of the range 55” 4K LG OLED television which is absolutely superb (I’m not being paid for this plug) on picture and sound quality.

Top of my Netflix series list is Homeland, Designated Survivor, The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit, Emily In Paris and, for pure escapism, three Spanish series with sub-titles with wonderful 1930s fashions; The Grand Hotel, Cable Girls, High Seas and a Danish political drama Borgen.

All 4 has two good French thriller productions – The Announcer and The Red Shadows. Looking in the mirror I wonder why I have wide-screen eyes!

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