Why I Watch Free-To-Air TV While On Holiday

When I’m on holiday this strange thing always happens. After we’ve check in to whatever hotel, b&b or bloody serviced apartment we’re staying in, as we’re unpacking our suitcases I hear this sound in background, go to investigate and find out the TV is on. What’s weird is that I’m the one who put it on and weirder yet I quite enjoy having it on in background and here’s why:

You Can Get To Know A Place

Thanks to movies and streaming services we can learn certain aspects of cultures foreign to us, their diets, events that shaped them, what their values are and how they have changed over time. Anime has gotten countless people invested in Japan while Squid Game put many in the mood for Korean BBQ and a game of ddakji. While these polished productions can influence a profound understanding of a culture, it is being presented through a certain lense created to reflect a specific angle, stance or argument. Free to air TV doesn’t have time for any of that arty crap and as a result can show a more honest picture of a destination.

The broadcast TV audience is dying (literally of old age) and thus budgets are getting smaller each year. Tiny budgets result in lower production quality which end up reeking of authenticity. For instance, Italy produces so many low budget TV shows for free to air because they are the only people speaking Italian and thus can only rely on themselves to create something for all the people who can’t be bothered with subtitles. I learnt that by watching free to air TV in Italy just as I learnt that they broadcast a pesto making competition in Genoa every year, there’s one presenter that seems to host half of their shows and a that they really made some weird movies in the ‘70s with a baddy that looks like NRL referee Ashley Klein. Small broadcast budgets mean the honest bare-bone daggyness of the culture is on full display, ready for you to learn about in the simplest of hard ways.

Well I thought so at the time.

To give an example closer to home I love regional Australian TV channels like Prime and WIN for the same reasons and also because…

It’s Nostalgic

Out of all the places I’ve travelled to in my life, my number one most visited destination is the NSW South Coast. I holidayed there as a kid, I holidayed there as an adult and I holidayed there as the host of my very own travel series. Far out, I’m writing this while literally chilling in a caravan park in Bulli and if it didn’t mess with my ability to write I’d have some local broadcast telly on in the background right now with it’s b-grade news anchors getting sternly concerned about a non-story broken up by small businesses making cheeky ads that flaunt their lack of fear of the ACCC. To me, that background noise is as comforting and tied to the area as the sound of the sea rocking me to sleep beneath a starry sky.

With those seemingly unchanged TV channels on I’m not just connected to the coast in a camp and daggy kind of way but I’m travelling back to those first formative vacations. I’m returning home after breaking in a new pair of Mango boardies and learning an important lesson about chaffing. I’m being asked to change the TV back to the cricket even though no one was in the room watching it at the time. I’m eating fish cocktails with chicken salt and standing up when Judge Judy enters the courtroom which my dad actually made us do every day at midday (and ate one of my cocktails when I once refused). I’m hopefully remembering a few things that actually sound fun too but looking back on mediocre things like they were the good old days is a cornerstone of nostalgia and a fundamental reason why I’m flicking on Prime while I’m on holiday.

This is my life, culture and God.

Because I’m On Bloody Holiday

I could have titled this article ‘Why I Watch Free-To-Air TV While Travelling’ but I didn’t. That’s because I’m specifically on holiday and unlike ‘travelling’ the term ‘on holiday’ gives emphasis and priority to relaxation. Travelling makes me think of early starts, late nights and going the extra mile, which is also hopefully the road less travelled, all in the name of returning home with a fresh perspective and a funny story. Meanwhile, when I’m on holiday I couldn’t give a Kerouac cupa soup about any of that. I don’t want to be like Kerouac when he did the things in On The Road, I want to be like him when he was writing it; glued to a chair with a good book in front of me while someone brings me food and drinks.

In a world full of people not dressed as pesto, dress as pesto.

Due to the aforementioned cultural and nostalgic benefits, I find free-to-air TV provides that little bit of lived-in ambience that you might experience when you put on your favourite album, artist or playlist. Only difference is that it’s happening now, it’s one-off, you can’t pause it or skip the ads which is no big deal because who really cares if you miss any of it. You’re not invested in it after all, it’s sort of like an indoor plant, there to add a bit of colour and life to a space, you don’t need to keep an eye on it every second. It is turning the silence into a meaningless muck that reminds you it’s OK to waste time while you’re on holidays as long as you’re doing something you enjoy whether it’s a sudoko, crossword or just watching the cricket.

So I no longer question it when I realise I’ve put the TV on while I’m on holiday. To me it is a unique and underrated form of white noise which reminds me to crack open a beer because now is not the time to be reading emails. (Plus, if nothing else, sometimes it’s so bad it reminds me not to get up and go for a walk.)

Lead photo by Photo by Joshua Rawson-Harris on Unsplash.