Today, television is spreading centrifugally: it no longer requires a broadcasting schedule nor the furniture traditionally associated with it (the ‘box’ in the corner of the front room). In this age of Television-after-TV one phenomenon that is particularly important is the increasing access and ease of access to the televisual past. This article investigates (sometimes in a speculative manner) how these changes are forming and transforming popular historical consciousness: the ordinary sense that we have of living at a particular moment that is connected with and disconnected from what came before
