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Hello again and welcome back to
Hello everybody.
So what kind of new topic are we going to talk about today?
Well, I thought today that we could talk about something that British people do every single day. They actually spend almost ten years of their life doing it.
I don't know, sleeping?
No, watching TV.
TV it sounds so old-fashioned now and the people, generally younger generation, just watch stuff on their computer on the internet.
They do, but still among British families it's quite common that a parent, mom or dad or a child would ask what's on the box tonight.
What's on the box? A box here is TV set, isn't it?
Yeah.
You also call it tele.
Yeah. So we'll say what's on the tele tonight or what's on the box tonight?
Tele is just short for television and so perhaps today we're going to dive into the history of TV and some of the TV channels in the UK and also some of the types of TV shows.
Sounds great.
All right. So first of all TV was invented in 1920s, right?
Yeah. It was invented actually in the UK. It was invented in 1926, but they didn't actually have regular TV broadcasts until 1936.
1936. But then after that, a few years after that, that was the Second World War.
Yeah.
How did that affect… I would imagine that really affected the TV industry.
It did. They just simply closed it. They closed it down. Television broadcast actually stopped from 1939 to 1946 for the second world war.
二戰期間，整個的電視播放都停了。And then after the war?
Well, there's a famous story. Uh some people say it's not true, but I like to think it's that when the television came back on air after the war, so he came back on air in 1946 after seven years. The first words were ‘as I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted'.
‘As I was saying when we were so rudely interrupted.' 就是說，basically the broadcaster is saying the war, the second world war, has interrupted their broadcasting.這也算是典型的英式的一種比較冷的笑話了。
And what they did was they continued to show the same cartoon that they started the show in 1936. They just carried it on in 1946.
As if nothing happened. I like that kind of spirit of people--cannot be defeated.
It was all part of the stiff upper lip which we talked about in the previous episode.
英式的精神—處變不驚，喜怒不行于色的精神。Not showing that much emotion, not getting affected by emotion. OK. So when did most of the British families buy their first TV set.
That was in 1953. It was the year of the Queen's Coronation and the first time they showed it on television.
Queen's Coronation, 這個是女王的加冕禮，is the day that she officially became the Queen.
Yeah. So my mom, for example, she was very very small then but she still remembered when my grandparents bought their first TV set and she watched the coronation with her whole family.
Just to watch the ceremony. That was one of the first ever big events that was broadcasted live on TV. I know there are many channels but how many main channels are there in the UK?
Well, there were five terrestrial channels. So that means they're not satellite or cable. They are five mins channels.
就是非有線非衛星的五個主要的臺。Guess there's BBC?
BBC 1, BBC 2 those are public. BBC is paid for by the government and it's paid by a TV licenses.
So essentially these BBC 1 and BBC 2 you can watch it even if you don't pay any extra?
NO. And they don't show any advertising.
Oh, no advertising!
NO.
Okay.
So they are paid for by a TV license that everyone with a TV must pay once a year.
Which is a reminder, if you are in the UK, if you live in the UK, and you buy a TV set, you have to pay for the TV license.
Yeah. If you don't, then you'll be fined.
如果不買這個TV license是會罰款的。
Yeah. So apart from BBC, you also have iTV.
iTV? And then channel 4, isn't it?
Channel 4 and channel 5.
I guess these are a little bit like our CCTV series.有點像中國的中央電視臺這些。But nowadays with digital TV, with cable TV, there are so many other choices.
Oh yeah. The five main TV channels have their own sub channels. So you do have BBC 3, BBC 4 and you have iTV 2 as well, they are all via digital.
And this you have to pay extra?
You don't have to pay extra for some of them, others you do.
It's same here. And so now let's move on to different types of shows. You see, I guess it's pretty much the same as in china but let's see some of these genres. 看一下電視節目的類型。First you have a lot of comedy.
Yeah, comedies or sitcoms are very popular in the UK.
Sitcom, this is situation comedy. 情景喜劇，the one you can hear laughers. I think this is one thing. In China, I guess when people watch English speaking shows, a lot more people watch American shows but there are so many good English comedy.
Oh yeah. There are lots of very famous English comedies. Many of our listeners probably know Mr. Bean.
《憨豆先生》，Rowan Atkinson.
Yeah, but he's actually, Mr. Bean is not actually that popular in the UK. More people know him for his other sitcom, Blackadder.
Yeah Blackadder, this we would highly recommend this show. This has four series, 有四季，and this is like a jokey version of British history. 是一個惡搞英國歷史的一個劇。《憨豆先生》的扮演者Rowan Atkinson, he's an amazing comedian especially when he actually speaks.
Yeah, he's very famous for comedy.
And Blackadder is definitely a comedy classic. I think every British person knows that.
Yeah, and there're quite a few more. But I think that might be full of episode.
Exactly. When people think of British TV show, they also think of things like Downton Abbey.
Oh yeah. The period drama.
Period drama, 有點像古裝劇時代劇。So period drama is usually set in what, eighteenth, nineteenth century?
Yeah. Or sometimes the early of twentieth century. They're very very popular because you can see lots of them on BBC and also iTV as well. So as you say Downton Abbey is a very famous example of that.
And most of the period dramas are about people who are aristocrats, very well dressed very well-mannered and the stories about their family.
Yeah, and also just other dramas as well. So for example, adaptations of famous books are very popular.
Exactly, because you have a lot of classic literature. So things like Jane Austen, like Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes, 很多名著改編的drama.
Yeah, and also some from foreign authors as well, like Les Miserables.
《悲慘世界》，which was quite new.
Oh, very very new, yeah.
So those are some of the dramas, period drama, dramas, comedy, but you also have soap operas.
Oh yeah, they're very different though from Chinese soap operas.
肥皂劇，I don't think we really have soap operas by that definition.
Not in the same way. In China, they last maybe about 40 episodes or so. But British soap operas has last for years, and they have different stories, and also different actors and actresses in them.
Soap operas, they're just not very serious TV shows, they go on forever. And I think they're called soap operas is because in the very beginning, they were mainly targeting female audiences especially housewives, so when they're doing housework, cooking, cleaning, they will be watching this.
So yeah, they're all about everyday life. So you have EastEnders.
《倫敦東區人》EastEnders, and then Coronation Street《加冕街》. That's another I remember watching Coronation Street.
It is one of the most famous partly because it's one of the longest. It started in 1960.
Well, half a century, over half a century long.
And still going on.
And is still going on. Wow, I remember trying to watch Coronation Street, I can't keep up because there's simply too many people, have to keep asking my friends and saying what happened to this person? what happened to this person?
I said you have to watch every single one.
So those are stories. You also have a lot of reality show or quiz shows 有很多真人秀或者答題競技的節目。
Yeah. Reality shows are things like Big Brother and very famous one that became quite popular around the world was The Great British Bake Off.
Bake off is that just baking competition? 就是烘焙大賽。And people watch that?
Uh, it became very very popular. It became very popular in America, became very popular in Europe. I think it's because it's quite slow. And it's nothing really happens very much.
Well, it is about baking but it's a baking competition.
So a lot of people like it because it's quite relaxing.
And also dancing shows. Singing, dancing, these type of shows.
Oh yeah. Uh for example, Strictly Come Dancing who's quite popular.
Strictly Come Dancing, this is a dancing show that invites celebrities-- famous people to dance with professional dancers. Another thing that British TV producers are very good at making is documentaries 紀錄片。
Especially nature documentaries. So for example, some of you might have heard or some of you might have seen his documentaries, a man called Sir David Attenborough.
You do see David Attenborough in many documentaries.
Yeah, and the thing is he's over ninety years old but he's been on British television now for over sixty years.
I would say that is a career.
Yeah. He started in the 1950s.
BBC documentaries. No matter it's history or nature because it's such high production value. Once in lulu's TV picks, I recommended Big Cats, that's a documentary by BBC, and it's very, always very good quality language.
Very very good quality and also just beautiful to watch as well. Lots of these documentaries take about two or three years to make.
Just three episodes. But in the end let's talk about the current situation of TV. Like I said in the very beginning, younger generation don't really watch TV that much anymore. Everyone watches things on the internet, on their devices.
Well yeah, many people now stream from providers such as Netflix or they watch TV shows on iPlayer like BBC iPlayer.
Stream是在線觀看watch online directly. I think the days are gone where you had to wait for the next episode.
Yeah nowadays you can just binge watch TV series.
The one thing I have to say about British TV production is that even though a lot of the British TV series they're really good, but each season is so short.
Well, actually series not season.
They're not called season,不叫一季的嗎？
Season is American English. We call them series.
For American TV shows, usually a season is like at least thirteen to sometimes twenty four, twenty five episodes. But for British TV shows, one series is only three or perhaps five or six episodes.
Yeah, they're normally very very short.
Hopefully they can make them longer.
So hopefully today we've given you some ideas about TV in the UK. If there are any British TV shows that you particularly like or that you have watched and would like to recommend, please let us know in the comments section.
Yeah. We can't wait to see all of your recommendations. Remember you're also helping your fellow learners to find good resources.
So until next time.
See you next time. Bye.
Bye.
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