One Fort in the Grave, with KEITH FORT

YOU can also receive this column in digital by ringing the following number and paying through the nose. Well, why not? TV does it all the time.

Now we hear the shattering news that viewing figures for terrestrial programmes are dropping like a stone - as much as 26 per cent for one channel.

Well, surprise, surprise.

What has dragged them down to this current state of affairs? Well, the quality of programmes is a whole issue in itself, but before I get to that look at what else is happening.

At the end of just about every programme I watch, I am invited to switch off. Not in so many words but it amounts to the same thing.

It runs something like: "If you want to continue with this subject or pass on your own views then..." or "Find out more about this subject by..." or "Get more up-to-date information by....calling us on our website now."

It's like saying don't watch any more programmes. Switch off and ring us on your computer. Obviously many people are doing so.

Then there's the annoying habit of all terrestrial channels of presenting trailers for must-see programmes which look really fascinating only to reveal at the conclusion that they are to be shown on channels which we can't get.

It's like telling you that your three- or four-year-old-plus TV is no good any more -- "these programmes are for digital viewers only". Or, in other cases, you would need to pay a special subscription to receive a digital service through an aerial or cable.

All this is anathema to viewers like me who joined TV in its infancy, paid our licence fees, goggled through the black and white development years, squirmed but then mellowed to the introduction of commercial TV and are still expecting a reasonable service for our money and strongly object to being told our sets are obsolete or we'll all have to pay and join the digital elite.

It's no secret where all the money's going at the expense of us in the terrestrial backwater.

The policy is gathering force with the BBC recently announcing two new digital channels for children. It's even launching digital radio. And how many are listening to that, I wonder? Have you priced up a digital radio? Save yourself a heart attack.

Then there's the whole issue of programme standards for us stuck in the terrestrial twilight.

This is what makes it so obvious that so much has been spent on developing digital channels that it's sucking the lifeblood out of the most-watched terrestrial programmes.

If you're not into soaps, old films, hospitals (actual or dramatic) sport "stolen" from the BBC, yobs on holiday, late-night smut, reruns of Indiana Jones or the entire repeat of Morse, there's not much left is there?

Recent programme synopsis: "Max learns the truth about Tess." In front of this you could put Crossroads, Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Playing the Field, EastEnders, Blind Date -- even the Tweenies.

That says something about the banality of present-day terrestrial programmes.

I used to regard BBC2 as the doyen of British television. It is now a shadow of its former self. On one day near Christmas its schedule was filled with six old films interrupted only by a 25-year-old episode of Dad's Army. I could only imagine a viewing audience of asylum seekers - not all of them from abroad.

At least C4 is pitching in with some imaginative archaeology, interesting current affairs and historical tour de forces from ancient times to modern warfare. BBC was last seen clinging to threatened wildlife while even Horizon seems to have eschewed its once brilliant style.

Am I wrong or is there an army of us who cannot forgive the commercial cowboys for buying out from under the BBC sports programmes they so brilliantly pioneered? Hopefully by now someone will learn that when you nick a sports deal from Auntie's back pocket you don't necessarily pinch the audience that goes with it.

Come back Formula 1, Test cricket and Premiership Gary, I hear you BBC addicts cry.

Des? Who's he?

For all its cash deals on soccer I can't think of any channel that's thrown away audience support more than ITV (or ITV1 now that 2 is digital). They showed us what they thought of our popular News at Ten programme and poor old Trevor McDonald, didn't they?

No, somebody needs to rethink the dash for digital, finance more worthwhile programmes and stop treating the mass of the British viewing public like brainless idiots. Otherwise a lot more of us will simply find something else to do with our time.