This site uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising.
By continuing to browse, you agree to the use of cookies described in our Cookies Policy.
You may change your settings at any time but this may impact on the functionality of the site.
To learn more see our Cookies Policy.
IMAGINE, FOR A moment, a time before TV on demand.
It’s not really worth thinking about, is it? Well, we’re going to anyway.
We’re not talking about the stories parents tell us, the screen being in black and white, getting up to change the channel or climbing 10 miles in snow to fix the signal. No, we’re talking about these true horrors.
1. Not having ‘the channels’ was the most shameful of school yard confessions
You’d have to wait for the repeat. It could be weeks, months, years. You may as well just drop out of school because you’ll have nothing to talk about any more.
3. Looking up Teletext to see what’s on
God forbid mam didn’t get the RTÉ guide. You’d have to painstakingly wait for the right page to appear in the TV guide then speed read your way through it before it changed again. You’d always miss it though, or get fed up and switch over to Bamboozle instead.
You mean you expect us to WAIT a week for a new episode of a show that was broadcast in the states two years ago? No.
You could never know the joy of binge watching unless it was an omnibus on a Sunday. Now you have so much options you spend more time finding something to watch than actually watching anything.
You’d only talk on the phone to discuss an episode AFTER it aired, and there were no spoilers floating around. The only way you could feel superior was if you read a book a certain show was based on. But when did that happen in the 90s?
Not only did someone call you, your phone was attached to the wall so you had to leave the room to get it. Everything was out to get you. Don’t get us started on someone calling for you just as My So Called Life came on.
9. Taping something required more planning and co-ordination than you were ever prepared for
Forget on-demand or scheduling, this TV called for a manual record. You needed a VHS to tape something, and a dad that would tape over it with golf. ALWAYS.
That’s if you even remembered to set it to the right station…
Thursday 7 November, 2024
Thursday 7 November, 2024
Download our app
9 television-based horrors kids today will never have to face
IMAGINE, FOR A moment, a time before TV on demand.
It’s not really worth thinking about, is it? Well, we’re going to anyway.
We’re not talking about the stories parents tell us, the screen being in black and white, getting up to change the channel or climbing 10 miles in snow to fix the signal. No, we’re talking about these true horrors.
1. Not having ‘the channels’ was the most shameful of school yard confessions
Oh to have a look at the Children’s Channel.
Instead, you messed around with the rabbit ear aerial to get The Den as clear as possible, only to have to end up sellotaping them to the wall.
Good enough.
2. If you missed a show that was IT
You’d have to wait for the repeat. It could be weeks, months, years. You may as well just drop out of school because you’ll have nothing to talk about any more.
3. Looking up Teletext to see what’s on
God forbid mam didn’t get the RTÉ guide. You’d have to painstakingly wait for the right page to appear in the TV guide then speed read your way through it before it changed again. You’d always miss it though, or get fed up and switch over to Bamboozle instead.
4. Ads actually had to be watched
There was no fast-forwarding or skipping here.
5. The week-on-week wait
You mean you expect us to WAIT a week for a new episode of a show that was broadcast in the states two years ago? No.
You could never know the joy of binge watching unless it was an omnibus on a Sunday. Now you have so much options you spend more time finding something to watch than actually watching anything.
6. Everyone was on the same page
You’d only talk on the phone to discuss an episode AFTER it aired, and there were no spoilers floating around. The only way you could feel superior was if you read a book a certain show was based on. But when did that happen in the 90s?
7. An interruption ruined everything
Not only did someone call you, your phone was attached to the wall so you had to leave the room to get it. Everything was out to get you. Don’t get us started on someone calling for you just as My So Called Life came on.
8. The dreaded family clash
Two things on at once or an older sibling that has sat on the remote?
9. Taping something required more planning and co-ordination than you were ever prepared for
Forget on-demand or scheduling, this TV called for a manual record. You needed a VHS to tape something, and a dad that would tape over it with golf. ALWAYS.
That’s if you even remembered to set it to the right station…
11 things that made you posh in 1980s Ireland>
How to identify someone who grew up without ‘The Channels’>
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Aertel binge watch Netflix Teletext Television the channels the children's chaanel TV vhs