Kennedy and Nixon were the first candidates to have a televised debate. Over seventy-seven million people, two-thirds of the adult American population, tuned in. Ultimate Guide to the Presidents: Hail to the Chief 1945-1964, History 2013
Television – yeah I saw that back at Johnson’s place years ago. Yeah that’s what I saw [I Love Lucy]. Crocodile Dundee 1986 starring Paul Hogan & Linda Kozlowski & Mark Blum & David Gulpilil & Michael Lombard & John Meillon & Alan Dunlea & Terry Gill & Steve Rackman & Gerry Skilton et al, director Peter Faiman, him to her
Viv, eat the tele. The Young Ones s1e4: Bomb ***** Mike, BBC 1982
TV’s raising their children. TV is their Mum and Dads. Charles Manson
I find myself talking to the television. George H W Bush
Television? The word is half-Greek and half-Latin. No good can come of it. C P Scott, 1985
Television has brought back murder into the home – where it belongs. Alfred Hitchcock, cited Observer 19th December 1965
Let’s face it, there are no plain women on television. Anna Ford, Observer 23rd September 1979
It is Stupidvision – where most of the presenters look like they have to pretend to be stupid because they think their audience is ... It patronises. It talks to the vacuum cleaner and the washing machine and the microwave without much contact with the human brain. Polly Toynbee, re daytime television
Malcolm Muggeridge: This particular accent somehow identified the BBC as the organ of as it were the genteel and respectable elements in society.
John Reith: Anything wrong with that? televised interview
I didn’t know what broadcasting was. John Reith, founder BBC
I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts. Orson Welles, New York Herald Tribune 12th October 1956
Television contracts the imagination and radio expands it. Terry Wogan
It’s television, you see. If you are not on the thing every week, the public think you are either dead or deported. Frankie Howerd, attributed
Television: an invention that would eventually enslave and hypnotise the entire world was inspired in part by research into the spirit world. Chris Everard, Spirit World I
Television is a massive, massive mass hypnotist to the global mind. David Icke
I knew I’d really licked it one morning when I couldn’t stand television any more. When I was high and wanted to stay that way, I could watch TV by the hour and loved it. Who can tell what detours are ahead? Another trial? Sure. Another jail? Maybe. But if you’ve beat the habit again and kicked TV no jail on earth can worry you too much. Billie Holiday, God Bless the Child
There is an illusion of choice that’s maintained when you can have a hundred channels on your cabal system. Aurora Wallace, Communications
Television is actually closer to reality than anything in books. The madness of TV is the madness of human life. Camille Paglia, Harper’s Magazine March 1991
When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships. Andy Warhol
In California they don’t throw their garbage away, they make it into TV shows. Woody Allen
Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television. Woody Allen
NPR and PBS at a national level tend to provide a bland variant of mainstream and conventional journalism, comparable to what’s on the commercial networks, especially on highly sensitive matters such as the economy and the US role in the world. Public broadcasting is so obsessed with conservative criticism, even more than commercial news media journalists are, that it bends over backwards to appease the Right and appear ‘balanced’. Robert McChesney
Susie’s got a job … Susie’s on her way now and nothing’s going to stop her. To Die For 1995 starring Nicole Kidman & Matt Dillon & Joaquin Phoenix & Casey Affleck & Illeana Douglas & Alison Folland& Dan Hedaya & Wayne Knight & Kurtwood Smith & Hollad Taylor et al, director Gus van Sant, husband
You’re not anybody in America unless you’re on TV. ibid. Kidman
Television is altering the meaning of ‘being informed’ by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation ... Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information – misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information – information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing. Neil Postman
Friend and Neighbour: What time you coming round then? Good. We’ll watch the tele together – you choose.
Kenneth Williams: They’ll be nothing on. There never is. Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! BBC 2006
Kenneth William’s mum: Oh, look at that!
TV repair man: That’s our new seventeen-inch console, Madam.
Kenneth William’s mum: I should think seventeen inches is enough to console anyone. ibid.
Television thrives on unreason and unreason thrives on television. It strikes at the emotions rather than the intellect. Robin Day, Grand Inquisitor, 1989
Television gives us the gift to see ourselves as we’d like to be seen. A A Gill, ‘The London Times’
It is fashionable to scoff at Americans, but they routinely produce most of the important and ground-breaking entertainment in the world. ‘Popular culture’ is still culture – Shakespeare was once as popular as any of today’s icons with the common people. Ian O’Doherty, Ireland’s the Evening Herald
Today, watching television often means fighting, violence and foul language – and that’s just deciding who gets to hold the remote control. Donna Gephart
Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your home. David Frost
Over the last half century the television interview has given us some of TV’s most heart-stopping and memorable moments. On the surface it is a simple format – two people sitting across from one another having a conversation. But underneath it is often a power struggle – a battle for the psychological advantage. David Frost
Some television is so much chewing gum for the eyes. John Mason Brown
There is a report that says that kids who watch violent TV programs tend to be more violent when they grow up. But did the TV cause the violence, or do violent children preferentially enjoy watching violent programs? Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World p203
If Mr Vincent Price were to be co-starred with Miss Bette Davis in a story by Mr Edgar Allan Poe directed by Mr Roger Corman, it could not fully express the pent-up violence and depravity of a single day in the life of the average family. Quentin Crisp
When some future cultural commentator comes to write the definitive history of television, one of the many problems they will have to face is how to treat the phenomenon of David Hasselhoff. On the one hand, the American actor and singer is a deadly serious entity, the star and producer of the world’s most watched television programme, Baywatch, which in 1996 had a weekly audience estimated at more than a billion around the world. But on the other hand ‘the Hoff’, as he is known, has become an icon of deranged naffness, an ironic hero for a post-pub audience. How will any future historian reconcile this contradiction? How does the great Hoff himself reconcile it? Toby Clements, The Telegraph reviewing Making Waves
The good television of today is probably better than the best television of the old days. The bad television of today is worse. It is not only bad, it is damaging, meretricious, seedy and cynical. John Humphrys