Who makes you switch off TV - current Top 5!

The ubiquitous Fry is definitely a reason to turn off or over.

Also: Russell Brand, Miranda (Sawyer and Hart), Dermot O'Leary, Jo Whiley, Alan Shearer and, most of all, Vernon Kay. I mean, Vernon Kaye. Why?

Being an avid reader of the Radio Times, I generally only switch the telly on when there's something i know I want to see.

but it is incredibly difficult to avoid Stephen Fry - on TV, on radio, in the newspaper, on the web...

Alex Jones (One Show), Carole Kirkwood (BBC weather am), Adrian Chiles, Jonathan Ross and Richard Hammond. Can't even watch any of that lot on Breakfast ITV..Aled Jones,

Richard Arnold and that Scottish women whose name escapes me!

Just had to switch off Room 101 cos of that ..... Cilla. Oh and Russel Howard,Phil Jupiter...

can I make it a current top 100!

> The ubiquitous Fry is definitely a reason to turn off or over.

+1 ... he must have a great agent .../ Blackadder is only thing I can tolerate him in. 

And Jonathan Woss .. switch off instantly

I also dislike soap operas, most dramas, BBC 3 type comedies, Channel 4, wildlife programmes, game shows, party pollitical broadcasts, news programmes, opinionated weather forecasters telling me it's going to be a miserable day / Miserable to who? I quite like a bit of drizzle, so stick to the facts/ I also dislike all those CSI things, endless police dramas, shows set in hospitals or schools or farms or pubs. 

Apart from that I watch most things ... whatever happened to the test-card, I used to love watching that. 

A couple of +1's from me.

Prof Brian Cox

Jonathan Ross

Russel Brand

Piers Morgan

and

CLARKSON.

Not DrBri..?!?!? Esteemed one time contibutor to this 'ere forum.

Ross ,Brand, Morgan yes, an instant turn off, Dr Bri and S  Fry we like.

Miranda or whatever her name is. The rest I just change the channel.

When I'm over in England I look forward to seeing and hearing Carol Kirkwood in the morning!!

Over here we get such crap on the TV, especially the American channels, oh and the adverts. Quite a lot of channels run adverts on the lower third of the screen, plus previews - so annoying... turn off and go listen to music.

Tim

My wife likes to sometimes watch those entertainment round-up/celebrity-news shows. Like nails on a chalk-board to me. The show is cut into seemingly random 5-10 second shrill "bites". The show spends 75% of the time telling you what's coming up later. When it finally does "come up later" it is perhaps 2 or 3 seconds longer than the 3 second preview you've just seen six times in the past 10 minutes. The self-important hosts add absolutely nothing to the already meaningless content.

It is just un-watchable.

Good advice.

Who annoys me on TV ? No one.

I read the Radio Times, highlight the TV I want to watch and watch it. And thanks to PVR's I haven't seen an ad for years.

Paul O'Grady, John Bishop, Cilla Black......yech? G

I think Kevin-W has the right idea.

This thread should be called - "who makes you switch the television on?"

Being a keen hifi listener and reader of books, the switching on of the television these days is seen very much as a last resort, and an admission of boredom.  And then usually to BBC four.

As a result most of the hate-list above is unknown to me.  Except of course Fry and Clarkson.  I suspect there are undiscovered tribes in the Pacific who are saturated by Fry and Clarkson.

Don, sunny downtown York.

Agree very much with Donuk,most TV is just dross,or repeats of dross. I watch the odd programme but otherwise prefer to play some music and read. Other half can watch what she wants in another room.

Mista h

Television is so good that I last turned off my own 11 years ago. I gave the set away, and have not missed it since.

So I hardly know any of the pet dislikes here.

Occasionally I peer at the iPlayer for a delayed relay ... for selected potentially interesting things.

Having not seen an advert on TV for many years I am much happier!

ATB from George

PS: The TV Licensing Authority are used to me by now! I could wish that there was a Radio License, so that I could contribute to preserving the brilliance of BBC Radios Three and Four 

Even the Aussie's are getting too much Fry.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertai...-20130201-2dq1a.html

Fry, Cox & Dawkins -  pseudo intellectual - pseudo scientists

Aled Jones and that dreadful Titmarsh chap.

Anything with celebrity in the title

Tv is generally a big waste of earning and listening time. I only watch the news at 6 and then sit with the wife at 9 for an hour watching something I/we've selected to record. 

I agree with all of the above, especially Miranda, although my wife likes her character in Midwives.

1, Mirand (not very funny) Hart

2, Piers Morgan

2, Everyone on that skating show

3, Christine Bleakely

4, Will ( so far up my own arse end) Self, any time

5, Was going to be Danny Baker, but he has a reprieve due to his excellent show on Vinyl.

i no particular order ,

1 , inane football commentry when watching a game usually failed ex england managers or worse thugs like roy keane. 

2,  best of programmes allegedly voted by the public..no one has ever asked me nor have i met anyone who has been asked what there favourite jelly was in the 80's

3 you have been caught falling over framed

4 alex ferguson

5 abba

I have to say I really like telly, and there is some excellent stuff on at the moment - in fact there is always something worth watching on during the week (most of it on the BBC).

The secret is to treat TV as an "appointment" - that is, get the Radio Times or similar publication, and decide what you want to watch in advance and make sure you record it or watch it. If you just switch on a flit between channels you'll probably be disappointed. There is a lot of shit out there but lots of gold if you are prepared to look - and know where, and when, to look.

Over the past couple of years there have been some absolutely brilliant one-offs and series on:

Borgen

The Bridge

Mad Men

Spiral

The Thick of It

Howard Goodall's The Story of Music

Africa

Frozen Planet

Twenty Twelve

Veep

Fresh Meat

Parade's End

The Killing

Masterchef: The Professionals

The BBC's Shakespeare season

Modern Family

Appropriate Adult

All the music stuff on BBC4

For enjoyable fluff there's always stuff like Come Dine with Me, Four in a Bed, The Apprentice, the old TOTP repeats and The Hour.

And I've only got Freeview!

When I looked through this list I realised I had never seen any of them. and I'm not overly bothered either. I'm in the "watch the (handful of) programmes we've sought out and then recorded and ignore the rest" group.

Just gimme the music!

steve

"the switching on of the television these days is seen very much as a last resort, and an admission of boredom."

+1 - perfectly stated.  And that's when I even have TV programming available, which I currently do not.  Most of it is pure rubbish designed to turn your brain into porridge, and mete out lies.  (At least in the USA - I cannot speak for other places.)

Steve, I can tell you that both Borgen and Man Men are dramas of such high quality that they are well worth making time for.