Anyone want to visit a TV museum? Julian Clover has inadvertently build one at home.
Much of the time my house can take on the appearance of a technology museum, not that anyone would want to pay to visit a house where the loft plays host to a collection of cardboard boxes belonging to products that have long been superseded. At some point I really should get out of the philosophy of hanging onto things in the hope that they will at some point come in useful.
The way it has worked out I have three televisions, in the living room, bedroom and office, each of which have a different choice of television service. The catch with all of this is the ever-decreasing lack of time in which I get to watch any television, but at least I can usually find something to watch when unwinding at the end of the day.
It has come about through a mix of practicality bordering necessity. Given that I spend some time writing about the various TV services available, it kind of made sense that I was able to watch them all. Some astute financial planning means I’m not paying a complete fortune, though I do have a telephone line that goes unused, save for the occasional call from India offering to fix my PC. I have an Apple.
So there’s the Sky room, the Virgin TiVo room, and the Freesat room. Two of the sets also get Freeview, so that’s DTT covered, though I sort of miss the YouView box that was forcibly removed within a fortnight of the press box being delivered.
Anything else can of course be mopped up on the tablet.
What is striking here of course is the similarities between all of the services. In terms of channels the core offering is largely the same. There are some noticeable absences, some through choice, others like the absence of Sky Atlantic on Virgin need a discussion elsewhere.
TiVo is clearly on a roll. It’s interface is sharp and contemporary and clever advertising has made a product that has effectively been around for a decade seem very much of the moment.
It is strange to feel that Sky+ is on the backfoot, but only just, the connection of the box to the internet (in my case provided by Virgin) gives the majority of catch-up services and between the two of them Sky and Virgin are about even; Freeview and Freesat also offer the basics of catch-up.
But I wonder what at play here is generational, the boxes, not the viewers. Right now Sky is hostage to the generation of boxes it has deployed. Not the newer ones, the older ones.
Right now Virgin too should be proud of the 40% penetration enjoyed by TiVo.
The irony is for me at least the main TV is about seven years old and arguably due for replacement, something that may take a while.
