1968: except for Wednesday afternoons there was no daytime television in The Netherlands. Broadcasting of the two state owned channels started at 19.30 and at midnight the transmitters shut down. My parents bought the television set off our downstairs neighbour and because it was an older set, it could only receive one of the two channels: Netherlands One. In black and white on a tiny screen an no remote control of course. But with one available channel you didn't need one. The Wednesday afternoons were filled with the earliest beginnings of children's television shows as all primary schools closed at 12.00 (they still do). When there had been a heavy storm my father had to get up on the roof to re-adjust the antenna with the help of my mother who had to shout out of the window when the picture was bearable again. Programming consisted mainly of the highly respected NPS/NOS news presented by posh speaking, impeccably dressed, men and women, some cultural and religious orientated topics (one of them presented by an actual catholic priest) and imported foreign shows but we are talking 35 hour of television per week here! It was the time when Ministers and State Secretaries were still addressed as 'your excellency'. And people still smoked heavily on TV . As the VCR or any other means of recording programmes was not yet introduced in the living room (and even many of the Dutch TV shows were aired live), it was watch or miss forever. No commercials.
2019: the number of semi state owned channels has risen to three but besides that and because of the omni present cable in Dutch homes the access to commercial and foreign channels is a mind boggling 140 now, depending on your plan. The TV set is an ultra flat, ultra high resolution (4K) screen with at least 42" diagonal dimensions. No antennas of course and they were mandatory removed from all rooftops over a decade ago. You may have a satellite dish as long as it isn't to conspicuously visible from street level.
I have two small set-top boxes (living room and master bedroom) and the remote has voice control which to my surprise works actually very well. The VCR is a thing of the past as I can store 400 hours worth of programmes in 'the cloud', meaning I can watch those recordings on my iPad as well. Anywhere and any time.
My provider offers only two 4K channels to date, both experimental but you will have to have high speed internet access to watch those as these are not piped through cable but over internet.
So by now y'all must think I'm a happy camper with that 140-channel, hires, Dolby Atmos surround TV avalanche!
Well........ Firstly, those commercials every 20 minutes or so are really, really getting a pain in the behind (that's why I mostly watch recorded TV so I can fast forward), all Dutch commercial channels are infested with mind numbing game shows that only require an IQ of 60 and the programmes that are truly interesting to me are threatened by their existence because they are not 'commercial' enough. And 140 channels sounds a lot but 80% is not my cup of tea and are cleverly thrown in with plans containing channels I do want to watch. They mainly consist of native foreign language channels without subtitles. German is no problem but Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic are. Useless to me. As are all those baby- and toddler programmes. Rats!
So that is progress for you! I long for simpler times
2019: the number of semi state owned channels has risen to three but besides that and because of the omni present cable in Dutch homes the access to commercial and foreign channels is a mind boggling 140 now, depending on your plan. The TV set is an ultra flat, ultra high resolution (4K) screen with at least 42" diagonal dimensions. No antennas of course and they were mandatory removed from all rooftops over a decade ago. You may have a satellite dish as long as it isn't to conspicuously visible from street level.
I have two small set-top boxes (living room and master bedroom) and the remote has voice control which to my surprise works actually very well. The VCR is a thing of the past as I can store 400 hours worth of programmes in 'the cloud', meaning I can watch those recordings on my iPad as well. Anywhere and any time.
My provider offers only two 4K channels to date, both experimental but you will have to have high speed internet access to watch those as these are not piped through cable but over internet.
So by now y'all must think I'm a happy camper with that 140-channel, hires, Dolby Atmos surround TV avalanche!
Well........ Firstly, those commercials every 20 minutes or so are really, really getting a pain in the behind (that's why I mostly watch recorded TV so I can fast forward), all Dutch commercial channels are infested with mind numbing game shows that only require an IQ of 60 and the programmes that are truly interesting to me are threatened by their existence because they are not 'commercial' enough. And 140 channels sounds a lot but 80% is not my cup of tea and are cleverly thrown in with plans containing channels I do want to watch. They mainly consist of native foreign language channels without subtitles. German is no problem but Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic are. Useless to me. As are all those baby- and toddler programmes. Rats!
So that is progress for you! I long for simpler times