You may have read that YouTube gets more views than all traditional broadcast networks, except the BBC, in the UK. It appeals to younger viewers but do not be dismayed.
Maybe like you, I find little to watch except the news and ceremonial occasions on TV. OK, coverage of sport is excellent if you like that; I usually don’t; not even the Grand National and the Boat Race, childhood staples, any more. I am sorry I cannot get into shows like Race Around the World and Traitors but they are too long and have too many episodes for my attention span – strange because younger viewers lap them up and they are s’posed to have shorter a. s.
YouTube, make no mistake, is filled with clickbait that’s easily ignored but there’s gold if you pan for it and watch once then clever old Youers, like a dealer at the school gate, recommends more of the same. It’s addictive too but it’s free.
I’m crazy for What’s My Line? It started on CBS in 1950 and ran until 1967. As far as I know all the BBC versions have been destroyed. It is perfect on demand TV. I have just seen a late episode from January 1965. The male panellists and the host wear dinner jackets, the two ladies are in long evening gowns, and all address each other formally. Usually the ads are cut reducing the shows to twenty-five minutes but with commercials stretch to as much as half an hour. It is formulaic and swift. Three guests “sign in” with chalk on a blackboard, meet the panel briefly, and their jobs come up on the screen at home, also visible to the studio audience. You know the rules. In turn they ask the guest questions about their work. Every time a question elicits a No the guest gets five dollars. It’s Game Over if the tally gets to fifty bucks. The jobs are varied. I remember a fireman who had put out a fire in, regular panelist, Mrs Kilgallan’s apartment and a nightclub pickpocket.
Then the panel put on masks and a celebrity guest comes on, usually recognised by the audience. They disguise their voices but the panellists, if not already tipped off by CBS, sometimes think of celebs who have been on chat shows that day. It is Comfort TV and often funnier than I expect. Try it.
On the same lines “Call my Bluff” and “Face the Music”; both amusing series recently revived on BBC4.
I’m a YouTube addict & subscribe to the ad-free premium service, rather expensive at about £20 a month but worth it. I mostly watch classical music (very little of it is not there), cookery podcasts, & old films & TV & radio programmes of every description. It’s my desert island luxury, one would never be bored.