I am sitting in a house dominated by tradition, it has been my mother’s place since the late 1950s and is still lived in by her and her children. My early memories of family life were us gathering around the TV for certain key programs, many of which were at Christmas. This year will be different. No one can decide on anything to watch.

The TV now streams from a variety of places, mostly Sky and Netflix and fights for attention with phones and laptops for the attention of us all – this Christmas we are all over 60. To say that kids are breaking the monopoly of TV stations with subscriptions is not held out in Shaftesbury.

Where the BBC and ITV hold on is in the production of news programmes but drama and shows are falling away. There has been no dancing in this house and its occupants dislike the soaps, turning to the web to stream what matters to them when they want to watch it.

There simply isn’t a desire to organise meals around set pieces, there isn’t a Queen’s Speech for my Mum and nothing to replace the Morecambe and Wise show, these past 25 years. This is not to say that the screen isn’t used, but nowadays it is booked for what the family regularly stream and a second “study” is available for those who opt out and want to watch what would have been a mainstream program but recently.

I know tonight I will be gently laughed at as I slip into this study to watch (as I do) Emmerdale. They say I am addicted, they know the sport slots for them , they know the dramas and the programmes on archaeology and history but they are not fed them, they are selected from searches.

I am not sorry that what is happening is happening. The BBC will spend most of the next three years fighting with the American Government a lawsuit about an injudicious act of editing, ITV and Sky will become one , delivering a web based service for everyone and those households that can’t access programmes via the web will download old fashionably by dishes or (dare I say it) by aerials.

This Christmas I returned to a house that has stood in this place over 250 years , a quarter of which in the possession of its current owners. Easily the most remarkable person in it is the mother who is demanding change of her sons who live with her. I no longer live here but I see at Christmas a congregation of minds that have turned from being served information to demanding it. Our Television is no longer a place to watch the TV channels that appear at the top of this blog but a means to deliver information about what the occupants discuss at the table, on walks or driving around Dorset.

A tribute to my mother who still finds new ways to find things out!

It is not just youngsters who are driving change, though the grandchildren show us how , it is the oldies in this house who have taken control in a way that is bad news for TV.