Читать книгу The Dodo Collection - Steve Stack - Страница 34

Black and White Television

You could be forgiven for thinking that black and white televisions were well and truly extinct, but you would be very wrong indeed.

OK, so there aren’t that many of them around, but there are still over 25,000 people in the UK who own a black and white TV licence. It costs about a third of a colour licence, which may explain the attraction.

A fair proportion of black and white owners are elderly people who own an old set and haven’t upgraded, but the old monochrome idiot’s lantern remains popular with cheapskate students and for use on boats and caravans.

Colour television didn’t really take hold in the UK until the late 1960s. Up till then, black and white held sway – it was the only option, and millions of homes had a set sitting in the corner of the living room. And despite the domination of colour in the 1970s, it was still fairly common to find black and white tellies in use, especially if you were visiting your grandparents, until a fair way into the 1980s.

Of course, by then it was a proper disadvantage to be devoid of colour, as this classic line from Ted Lowe during a snooker commentary proves:

‘And for those of you watching in black and white, the blue ball is just behind the pink.’

The number of people owning a black and white licence is dropping by almost 10,000 every year, so we are very soon to see the eradication of this historic piece of technology. I trust we will all stage a minute’s silence when that happens.

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