While some of us treat our televisions as a modern luxury item, unable to consider any other way of living, there are those out there who don’t necessarily share that point of view. Take, for instance, all of the people on this planet who still get their couch potato on by watching a black and white TV. That number is probably higher than you think, and in the U.K. alone, there are still around 10,000 black and white televisions in use. I had to type that out twice to make sure my fingers weren’t just experiencing spasms.
Because U.K. countries are still holding onto the concept of charging licensing fees for televisions, it’s the perfect place to keep a tally of how many color-free sets there are in the region, and there are currently almost 10,000 of them that are still active. It’s not clear where all of these TVs are, but TV Licensing Scotland stated that there are over 550 sets in that particular country, with around 200 Glasgow residents and 55 Edinburgh residents topping the list, according to the BBC.
The reasoning behind so many black and whites TVs still being in use is twofold at least, although there are probably more factors at play. For one, the B&W license is cheaper, as it’ll set a customer back £49, while the color license will run £145.50. That difference equals around $144, so customers are saving over $1,700 a year through a willingness to not watch their favorite programs in color. (I, for one, couldn’t bring myself to do that, unless I’d only watched things in black and white for my entire life.)
As well, some people choose to keep their black and white sets around as collector’s items. Granted, they could do that without actually paying to watch programming on it, but maybe there’s a mental gratification in calling back to the appliance’s earliest days. Britain was the first European region to broadcast color programs in 1967, though black and white TVs were definitely still being produced after that point.
Even TV Licensing Scotland spokesman Jason Hill is shocked by how many black and white models are still in use, saying that over half of the homes in the country are getting access to TV shows through smart TVs and online venues like Netflix. Considering how much larger the U.S. is, I have to wonder how many Americans still use the older sets, and whether or not they could tell the difference between the present and flashbacks in the Walking Dead Season 6 premiere.
So while we’re always talking about how cord cutters are leaving TV programming behind for streaming, there are still some out there adamantly keeping some very old cords intact. When’s the last time you watched something on a black and white TV?
