Life with the Box

A. Television belongs to the twentieth century. John Baird from Scotland was one of the first men to send pictures of moving things by electric waves. His friends who lived a few miles away could receive these pictures at he same time. In 1928 he showed that color TV was possible. Although he discovered all this, there were other people who also wanted to make television systems and later in 1936 a system from America was first used in Britain.

B. Today in Britain and the USA television is very popular. Ninety-nine per cent of all households have at least one TV set and over half of these also own videorecorders. Television has a very large effect on Americans. Politicians know all about this. They try to make their big public speeches at times when they can get the largest audiences on the evening news

programmes. Advertisers, too, understand the power of television. They want to spend billions of dollars a year on television.

C. In Britain the average adult watches twenty-six hours of television a week and children watch about twenty hours. Some Americans watch twice as much. People say too much television is bad for children because they just watch the pictures and don’t think – but they can also learn a lot from TV.

D. At present there are four television channels in operation: BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV and Channel 4. BBC 1 concentrates more on programmes of general interest, such as light entertainment, comedy, sport or children’s programmes. BBC 2 provides serious programmes: drama, documentaries, classical music, including full-length operas. If we watch the news programmes, we can see what happens all over the world.

E. The news about American television is not all bad. For one thing, Americans themselves are turning off the more violent shows and watching more comedy and news programmes. For another, the news programmes themselves become more interesting. The most popular is “60 minutes”. If you didn’t watch it on Sunday, you wouldn’t know what your friends are talking about on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

Exercise 1. Match the headings to the paragraph. There is one paragraph extra.

1. The most popular leisure activity.

2. The invention of television.

3. British television channels.

4. Television and children.

Exercise 2. Make the questions and ask your partner.

1. how \ TV \ operate

2. when \ colour TV \ start

3. when \ first \ use \ in Britain

4. how many \ a week \ adult \ watch

5. how many \ a week \ children \ watch

6. what \ BBC 1 \ show

7. what \ BBC 2 \ provide

8. good or bad \ for children

9. why \ good

10. why \ bad

Exercise 3. Look at the list of TV programmes and tick that you usually watch. Discuss them with your partner. Ask, what programmes he (she) likes (prefers, is interested, etc) and why.

News broadcast, soap operas, drama, game shows, talk shows, current affairs, quizzes, sport, variety shows, documentaries, music programmes, weather forecast, commercials.

Exercise 4. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of TV watching. Fill in the chart below.

Advantages	Disadvantages
1. A medium to inform	1. People spend many hours in front of TV
2.	2.
3.	3.