MORE than a million British homes do not have a television and more of us are watching shows online.

Four business owners and professionals, from Cumbria, have given their views on the notion that television could becoming obsolete in favour of tablet and smartphone apps.

Peter Sidwell, best known for his TV work on ITV’s Britain's Best Bakery, set up his own app, Simply Good Food TV, which he describes as ‘the Netflix for foodies’.

Peter said: “Having been on telly several times now, I have experienced a lot and understood how much work goes into TV programmes.But because of the internet and growth of online services, and use of phones and tablets, televisions aren’t used as much - we don’t watch broadcast TV at home very often now.

“If we do watch something live, the kids want to know why we can’t fast-forward the adverts. Nowadays we can create our own content and decide what we watch, when we want to watch it.

“The internet is allowing more people to make their own TV and put it online. It is exciting; you are going to see a lot of new talent coming through.”

Phil McKay, who works at Lakeside Casting Agency, has worked in television for over 30 years and says the golden days of television in the 1980’s and 90’s are a thing of the past and it’s all down to quality.

Phil said: “TV has declined big-time, and so people are switching off and moving to Netflix and the like. That’s also why the TV programmes are struggling to get ratings. Coronation Street used to get 16 million viewers and now it’s lucky to get half that, because the quality has declined.

“They are putting on people who can’t act. Who wants to see Les Dennis on Coronation Street, or Shane Ward?”

Phil added that reality tv programmes are one of the reason for the decline in television.

He said: “Because of all the cutbacks they’re making cheap stuff. Reality TV is very cheap television, taking up prime time when they could be putting on proper programmes. And there are so many reality TV shows now that they’ve destroyed television. I think a lot of people have given up on TV because they’re fed up with the quality.”

Nick Kittoe is the managing director of Solway Communications, a Carlisle based company which provides broadband services.

Nick said: “We see it in our figures all the time. We see the volume of downloads and we know where they are coming from – Amazon, or Netflix, or iPlayer, or YouTube. People don’t want the telly companies telling them what to watch. The growth has been like a hockey stick.

“It started growing slowly about five years ago but in the last two years it’s risen very sharply. It’s true that people who are used to being told what to watch get into that habit. It takes a little bit of nerve to break that cord - but if you are used to the world of choice you exercise that choice.”

Nick explained, in his opinion, the future of television and programme viewing is a ‘modern battleground’.

He said: “One of the fundamental conflicts of our time is between the half of the world that want iron rules, the “strong man” approach, and the other half that want as few rules as possible and greater choice - in a tiny way this represents that.”