BBC 4 to step back in AV time for new TV series

A new three-part series on BBC 4 will explore a technological world before hi-def, DVD and next generation gaming consoles – the 1970s, in other words.
Called Electric Dreams, the show will see the world of one ordinary British family turned upside-down as their home is "renovated" to the standard of a typical house in 1970 – the dawn of the digital age – and then fast-forwarded at the rate of a day per year through the technological revolution of the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties.

'It remains to be seen how the children will cope when they swap Facebook and Wii for black-and-white telly and vinyl records,' said a BBC 4 spokesperson. HCC wonders whether they'll prefer Betamax to VHS.

Added BBC commissioning editor Mark Bell: "Many of us remember what 1970 was like, yet today's technology makes yesterday almost unrecognisable.

"It will be much more than a technology show however – it is contemporary social history and asks big moral questions about life in the modern world."

Electric Dreams will form part of the season IT And Us, to be aired later this year on BBC Four.