To that it's almost inconceivable now that telly used to go off-air every night

[fishdishwish]

Even though I grew up in an age before 24 hour TV (I'm 38), it seems like a million years ago!

FurryDog we all rented for two reasons:
Firstly, television sets were beyond many families' budgets. I remember them costing about £300 back in the late '70s, when the average wage was about £1,500 a year. They were unaffordable for many.
Secondly, they were notoriously unreliable! They were always going wrong and needing repairs.
If you rented, you were on a contract, so repairs were included. When the damned thing went wrong, you just called Radio Rentals and an engineer would come to your house to fix it.

We always rented - and continued to do so until 2004, when we finally bought our own tele, which we still have.

I grew up in NZ and we had the I think there was one earlier in the evening to signal bedtime for kids too

We had a black and white TV rented from rumbelows. We lived in the South East, so think that was a national thing. You could tell the difference between the colours of the snooker balls somehow. :)

Like another poster, I was the remote control in our house as I was the youngest, but there were only three channels so probably much less switching.

I used to think the girl in the test card was my big sister. She looked a bit like her.

I remember the daily schedule exactly as 80smum has described it. There was so much comfort in the familiar routine of the children's hour.

My dd seems to think I lived in the dark ages because we only had three channels, no recording facility and no internet. How times have changed!!

Someone mentioned the Phoenix and the Carpet. I used to love that programme!!

I used to love the games on the ceefax pages - "You've been Bamboozled" - agggghhhhhh

FishDishWish Mum just thought Blankety Blank was rubbish hence banning it. She also banned The Generation Game and tried to stop us watching Scooby Doo but we rebelled against the Scooby Doo thing and she relented (v unlike her!)

As an insomniac i'm SO GLAD i have pretty much only ever known 24/7 television. I'm old enough to remember the girl and clown/chalkboard thing though, weird.

I remember the sophistication of getting a TV where you could have a preset button for each channel, instead of having to turn the dial.

I'm 22 and when I was finally allowed a tv in my room it had 4 channels but only 3 buttons so I had to press 2 in together to watch channel 4. It had a coat hanger ariel.

Then when the digital switchover came my parents panicked and bought sky +

Precious,

You reminded me about paying in the shop, for the TV, in advance .
I remember that I had just left home and had inherited an old black and white no remote control no pre sets etc etc. This was the early 80s. It was balanced on a piece of wood atop a pile of bricks.

It was Saturday afternoon in the local shopping Centre and I walked past the radio rentals shop. I desperately wanted to rent a new colour tv with a remote.
There can't have been any credit checks but I do remember they wanted cash up front and I didn't have enough. I had a cash in hand Saturday evening job( in addition to my 9 - 5 )! as I couldn't survive just on salary. So, I went to the restaurant and convinced the owner to advance me the cash for my shift that evening and returned to the radio rentals shop with cash in sticky hand feeling really pleased with myself !
I did turn up for my restaurant shift that evening !
This whole scenario just doesn't exist today. I was fiercely independent and would never have thought, or even wanted, to ask my parents. I somehow think my DCs won't have the same ethic.

Where did it all change....,,./go wrong....
Or is it better now ? I can't decide.....

I remember 4 channels, and having to feed the meter on the back which the 'Telly Man' would come and empty.

I never rented myself, but I did buy an ex-rental TV at Uni (around 1999/2000).

I just realised that I am personally responsible for the consumer and credit boom of the last 30 years. I clearly wanted a consumer good beyond my means and went and obtained credit.
Hangs head in shame

We left our old house a few days after my fourth birthday. I remember being at the old house and watching Pebble Mill with my mother and sometimes just playing with my Duplo around the metal legs of the old black and white TV which was on, just showing the test card, because I liked the music. I also remember sitting with my mum and sharing a Twix with her and watching Lord Mountbatten's funeral (5 September 1979 apparently from Google).

Shortly after we moved the old black and white tv broke down. My mum and I went to the phonebox to call my dad at work and he left work and bought a new colour tv and brought it home for me to watch Blue Peter's 21st birthday party that afternoon. In colour. (I was trying to explain to DD the other day that in a world without Cbeebies, we all watched Blue Peter a lot earlier because there was nothing else on.)

Ah, those were the days....

Telly is off a lot of time here though - too much rubbish on!

We rented from a Radio Rentals. No point in buying a telly, it would only blow up. And if you rented you got a (usually remarkable) upgrade when your telly broke. I only started buying embarrassingly recently :)

And yes the youngest child (me) was the remote control and the aerial booster.

We got remotes from the 1980s but I think they had them in the US decades earlier.

I think we were the last people in Britain to get a colour TV . I think it was in the 80s, but only just. Probably 1988, but could have been 1989.
Rather strangely, when we did have a b/w you could tell the colours. Just about. Although I remember dp falling about laughing the the snooker commentator who said "For those of you with black and white TVs the pink one is next to the brown".
And Blue Peter said almost every programme "Look at those wonderful colours" or something similar. We used to get as irritated with that as their everlasting using a matchbox-dp used to get the double sized matchboxes which didn't do, and they lasted about 2 years.

Our lovely b/w needed tuning by turning the knob round while it fizzed, needed banging on the side about every 10 minutes on a good day and the attached aerial turning to get the best reception (none of this fixed to the chimney lark!) It also only had 3 volumes: Very loud (not allowed to use) intermittent and off. This probably accounts for the fact I'm really unbothered by the TV, and we now don't have one.

The first remote control TV we had was after I left home-in 2001, they got it with the DVD player. They got a video player in 1996.
My dp didn't believe in new technology.

Tiredmum, Bamber Boozler :) Loved him.

We had black and white for ages because the colour reception was horrible - I remember a neighbour bought a colour TV and it kept flicking in and out of colour, so much that he used to keep it slightly not quite tuned in so it was always b&w and less distracting to watch. We also always had a tiny screen for the same reason. And there was no ITV reception at all until I was a teenager and they built a new transmitter on the local hill.

Not sure when we finally bought a colour TV (it was a 12"), but I remember that our last (10") b&w was bought for the 1976 Olympics.

My Mum always unplugs the aerial now. When she was pregnant with me the house around the corner was struck, the current travelled along the run to the last house on the circuit and blew up the TV. The explosion was that loud half the street came rushing out. Surprisingly early labour didn't ensue

We had a rediffusion box in the window by the TV. I can still remember the satisfying click it made as you turned it.

Me too flipflops, I wonder if I have actually seen it as an app now

Yup, just checked. They have made Bamboozle into an app

I remember still adverts from the eighties, ie just one picture with a voice over.

'would you credit it?
Morrison's would!'

Tv Quick was ace. Agony aunt Molly Larkin in a mad turban, advising everybody to go on a cruise round the world and to ignore their husbands flirting with their daughters friends as he was just like an old lion asserting seniority and totally harmless.

When I babysat for neighbours I used to find that last hour before they came home interminable because the telly had finished for the night and I was just sitting around someone else's house with absolutely nothing to do.

When I was growing up in Ireland a lot of people only had one station. Because we lived in Dublin we were able to get 'piped' tv and so had the three British channels as well. I think programmes used to start at about 4pm and finish around 11.30. Children were only catered for in the late afternoon. It wouldn't have made much difference anyway because nobody had more than one set and as soon as your Dad got in from work that was it - the News went straight on.