English Entertainment
It’s time to go ‘Back To The Future’ and meet your favourite Shel-Bot as Zee Café airs The Big Bang Theory Season 11 and Season 12
MUMBAI: A white board filled cryptic algorithms, a couch with a reserved spot and a bunch of math geeks with a gorgeous neighbour next door – The Big Bang Theory is one show that has truly had us hooked for twelve straight seasons! Still coming to terms with the end of an era as the series reached its happy end? BAZINGA! Not just yet. It’s time to reunite with your favourite bunch of socially awkward physicists and relive the crazy with residents of 4B as Zee Café brings the rerun of the last two seasons of the longest running sitcom The Big Bang Theory Season 11 and Season 12 starting July, 24 weeknights at 7PM.
A show that has truly stood the test of time and gifted the world with bouts of laughter and truckloads of memories can never escape our hearts. Remember when Sheldon went on a prank spree? And when the squad dressed up in their Star Trek best? Or even when Leonard and Penny finally tied the knot? The geek-squad has never failed in inspiring us, making us emotional and at the same time driving us crazy with their hilarious banter. Be it their improvised version of rock, paper, scissors, the iconic ‘soft kitty’ or simply just the atom symbol; the series has truly redefined the way we look at math, science history by slowly unravelling the mysteries with a big bang!
The penultimate Season 11 opens with the man himself – Sheldon Cooper going down on his knees as he finally gathers the courage to pop the big question to Amy. The season traces the lives of the bunch of geeks as they go about planning for the big day. From picking the wedding date to choosing the best-man, the free-spirited Penny along with the borderline lunatic bunch of friends including Leonard, Howard, Raj, Stuart, Bernadette go all out to prepare for the much-anticipated ‘ShAmy’ wedding.
Ending on a high with a glorious wedding celebration, Season 12 opens with ‘ShAmy’ off to their honeymoon. Meanwhile, things escalate in the lives of Leonard and Penny as they consider starting a family together. If that’s not all, there’s also Raj who explores an arranged marriage that has its share of roadblocks. What’s the big secret that Penny and Leonard are hiding? Why does Amy have a meltdown? And who’s Koothrappali’s new-found friend? The finale season puts an end to all these questions as the gang travels into an uncharted future.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
