6 x 60′ C4

The TV isn’t just a box in the corner of the room. For fifty years it has dominated the way we live our lives. In this six part series, and for the very first time, we’ll examine the profound, unexpected and sometimes downright bizarre effect Television has on our lives.
This series will look at how the royal family and the upper class went from revered rulers to entertainment fodder, and how the working class went from something to be examined under a microscope to TV’s special people: cheered on reality shows, slugging it out with their neurotic middle class counterparts on Wife Swap; and even re-enacting the Cinderella myth to the delight of the nation through the canonisation of Pete and Jade Goody.
Laying bare the underlying political agenda of Television we’ll show how property programmes encouraged the Blairite house-buying explosion (and how, when it all went wrong, we suddenly had formats about debt); how police dramas shifted from neatly solving crime to extended therapy sessions involving psychologically flawed detectives and how children have gone from Blue Peter badge to Brat Camp.
For better or worse, the programmes we’ve watched have influenced the way we behave, the way we think, even the way we talk. In this series we’ll show that even if we don’t realise it – the power of television has a profound effect on us all.

Series Producer
Victoria Watson

Executive Producer
Daisy Goodwin