It's actually much worse than that. It may well be our own fault, as I wrote in this space last week, that we have come so close to being transported into the dubious wonderland of digital television. But, of course, it gets better.
Digital reception requires the use of sophisticated boxes instead of simple tuners.
One trick these boxes have in common with their big brothers inside our computers is that they can send and collect data. Before your paranoia index passes 100, let me point out that this feature can have its sunny side. There, that's the end of the good news. Because opening your TV to real-time digital messages other than the programming also means content providers can control what you do with the broadcasts you see. Jack Valenti, the defender of the creative rights of the people who own movie studios, was recently lecturing publishers on the need to get aboard the content-control bandwagon.