Wagon Wheels have got smaller, say the idiots, and so have Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. But the idiots are wrong. They didn’t get smaller, your hands got bigger.

The same people always moan on about the ‘golden age’ of television. TV was so much better in the past. No, again: your brains were tiny in the past, so you enjoyed things more.

Seriously, you think Dogtanian And The Three Muskehounds (DVDs) was the best show ever? Watch it again. It was rubbish.

If there was ever solid proof that the golden age never existed, it was last night’s Britain’s Most Watched TV on Channel 4.

The show listed the 90 highest-rated television shows in this country. And, if anything, it shows that TV has actually got better.

In years gone by, programmes got huge rating. That’s not because they were good, it’s because there was nothing else to do. Let’s look at current events first.

Number one was the 1966 World Cup final (DVDs), which 32.3 million people watched. Arguably, if this happened again (even though it clearly won’t), it would get a similar amount of people watching, maybe more. These kind of scheduled events usually do very well.

When JFK died, 24.15 million people watched the news. But now people would turn to the internet, Sky News, News 24, ITV News, BBC1, and so on. We wouldn’t be less interested – we’d all just look for information in different places.

Now, entertainment. Can people really suggest that if everyone had today’s TV choices, 22.66 million people would still watch Michael Crawford (DVDs) in the Royal Variety Performance, like they did in 1975?

Or To The Manor Born (DVDs). To The Manor Born! The most ‘Oh Vicar, did you see the unpleasantries at the regatta?’ sitcom the world has ever seen managed to get 23.95m viewers. Why? What huge event could get such a massive amount of people watching?

Penelope Keith held hands with Peter Bowles in an episode. And that’s it!

Isn’t it better that people have the choice now? If they have their own tastes, they can watch things that suit them more. Some people can watch Babestation, and others can watch Alan And Barry’s Craft Choice on Ideal World.

OK, so maybe TV hasn’t actually got better…

[story by Stuart Heritage]