On September 30th it will be 84 years since the world’s first television broadcast. Television, named after Latin and Greek words meaning “far sight”, is arguably one of the most influential technologies ever invented. Since the 1950s it’s been the main medium for melding public opinion and now an incredible 78 percent of the world’s households own at least one TV set. Yet throughout its long and illustrious history it’s been the subject of much criticism. Here’s ten writers, film makers, musicians and poets who who got turned off by the tube.

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“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.” – John Lennon

“Seeing a murder on television… can help work off one’s antagonisms. And if you haven’t any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.” – Alfred Hitchcock

“Television is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.” – T. S. Eliot

“I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can’t stop eating peanuts.” – Orson Welles

“What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish.” – W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

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“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx

“If we were to do the Second Coming of Christ in color for a full hour, there would be a considerable number of stations which would decline to carry it on the grounds that a Western or a quiz show would be more profitable.” – Edward R. Murrow

“Television: chewing gum for the eyes.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

“So, please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookcase on the wall.” – Roald Dahl

“I haven’t had a TV in 10 years, and I really don’t miss it. ‘Cause it’s always so much more fun to be with people than it ever was to be with a television.” – Chuck Palahniuk

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