There are times when television rules our house.   There are certain shows we watch with an intense level of concentration and involvement that even prohibits exchanging opinions until the credits roll.  At other times, television functions as background, or ‘white’ noise, much as radio once did, and perhaps still does, while other activities are taking place in the home.

Sadly the 18 ^th January 2013 marked the end of *Fringe *– the little – much loved — telefantasy show that managed to hold out for five seasons against the odds at Fox, a channel notorious for cancelling cult SF shows in their infancy (see Firefly, Wonderfalls, Dollhouse ).

One of the strange things about the people in soaps is that they don’t appear to watch television. Recently in EastEnders we have had several sights of a character slumped on the sofa with a faint sound of a soundtrack on the soundtrack. But the television soon gets switched off without comment and the story resumes.

Walton Goggins.  What a name.  Worthy of Dickens, everything about it just fits when you know his work: the Depression-era mountain-boy Sunday morning re-run buzz of the Christian name and the boggle-eyed hillbilly, gin n’ grog stutter of his family name.

This Monday, at 6 am, a much-trumpeted ITV rebrand was revealed. The ITV logo has been re-designed and the 1 has been dropped to make their flagship channel ITV once more.

There’s no picture of Jimmy Savile attached to this blog. Press and TV coverage has repeated images of him, seemingly to demonstrate what an unsavoury person he was (shell suit, cigar, endless gurning). Such images encourage the speculation “why didn’t anyone object?” or “why didn’t anyone find him out?” The answer lies, unfortunately, with television more than any other institution.

It’s the time of year for predictions. Five-page research reports into what consumers want, or what capital will give them, become available for $4500. Advertising semioticians set out their stalls at conventions. Academics shill for sovereign consumers’ boundless—not even relative—autonomy, shrieking with self-confidence as new technologies once again are announced to be overhauling TV. Ah, January.

Television readily and regularly produces moments of disgust, where revulsion and the fear of contamination rises up and takes one’s body over. One pushes away, or at, the techno-organic contagion as if its magical material presence must be held at bay. Or else one withdraws, withers from within, when faced with something wretched to the senses, and the cognitive and physiological processes.

I cannot count the number of times that I have said that I never want to talk about reality television ever again after having thought and written about it for so many years. Of course the genre never fails to surprise me, and move me in ways that I’m not quite prepared for, and just recently it really did get personal.

Being asked to write a blog so close to Christmas my thoughts, perhaps inevitably, turned to Christmas telly, one of the primary pleasures that I associate with this time of year. My Christmas telly excitement always begins when the broadcasters launch their Christmas idents and promos. But unfortunately this year BBC One’s Christmas promos and idents were a bit of a disappointment.

I envy David Chase doing only thirteen episodes a season. I won’t insult him to suggest that’s a luxury because I know how hard he must work, but I think I would do very different episodes of Touched by an Angel if I had the same amount to do thirteen episodes instead of twenty six.