Interesting conversations with various at work at the moment, around the notion of background media consumption, with reference to radio and television. Radio has always been a supreme background medium, now it appears television is the same (recent research indicates that as much as half of all viewing at prime time is now ‘background’ i.e not main focus.) I’ve asked about this aspect of information density before, around background noise and in terms of combining with internet.
So this quote forwarded to me by Jem Stone was very timely indeed. This is from the BBC Yearbook of 1946:
"Viewing television is a very different activity from listening to sound broadcasts. The radio set can remain on for hours at a time; you can enjoy it as background to reading, writing, homework, housework (some people can even enjoy it as background to conversation, darts, or bridge). Viewing television is a very different activity from listening to sound broadcasts. The radio set can remain on for hours at a time; you can enjoy it as background to reading, writing, homework, housework (some people can even enjoy it as background to conversation, darts, or bridge). The television set demands your attention; you cannot enjoy television from the next room. You must sit facing the set, with the lights down or shaded, and if you are a normal viewer you will find yourself very reluctant to be disturbed during a programme that you enjoy. This puts a limit on the hours that the ordinary viewer can give to his viewing. Broadcasting must go on from morning till midnight, but television is quite another matter, as most viewers will soon find."
City of Sound 
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