Television in North Dorset

In a way, for northdorset.net to have a TV section at all could be seen as contradicting our do-it-local ethos. If you shut your front door, turn on the TV and veg out then, lets face it, you could be anywhere. So if you spend most of your life watching TV then the honourable thing to do is to p*** off somewhere unpleasant and free up your North Dorset living space for someone who appreciates the area.

But it seems to be a human weakness - probably the other side of the coin to being highly adaptable - that we quickly take things (and people) around us for granted. Many of us only get out and about when we have visitors and want to show off the area we live in.

So NDN's basic editorial line is to count your blessings, get out more and bring more of your friends and relatives down to share the pleasures on your doorstep.

Now back to the real world.

If TV is the new opium of the masses then a sensible objective for NDN would be to help you to find good quality, locally relevant drugs.

Unfortunately, even though the digital revolution has created ether-space for essential programming like Bid TV, Price-Drop TV, Quiz Call and Red Hot, North Dorset TV remains a gleam in Trilith's eye.

BBC and ITV make a limited attempt to regionalise their programming but here we hit an enduring issue for North Dorset - the fact that the area is some way away from the epicentre of Dorset - Bournemouth/ Poole - and closer to West Wiltshire and South Somerset. So take the BBC web site's 'Where I live' option and you will find mainly content about the south coast. And regional BBC/ITV news programmes focus on Bristol.

The best online TV listings are OnTheBox and Radio Times. The Radio Times' site personalisation options are particularly good for couch potatoes.

But don't veg out, get out.
 

northdorset.net aims to encourage residents and visitors to North Dorset to do more locally - find good food and drink locally, source services locally, support local enterprises, make like-minded contacts locally, be entertained locally.