Television has come a long way since the days when your grandparents spent their evenings arguing over who had the remote. From the introduction of smart TVs to the advent of streaming services, modern home viewing experiences - and the remotes that direct them - are almost unrecognizable from their origins. First introduced in the 1950s, TV remote controls have defined the public's viewing habits since the channel surfing era, growing into a cultural touchstone now used by sociologists to study family and social dynamics.
When the annals of 2025 at the movies are written, no one will remember The Electric State. The film, a sci-fi comic-book adaptation, is set in a world in which sentient robots have lost a war with humans. Netflix blew a reported $320m on it, making it the 14th most expensive film ever made. But it tanked: though The Electric State initially claimed the No 1 spot on the streamer, viewers quickly lost interest.
PBS does not operate like a traditional network such as CBS or NBC; rather, it is a collection of over 300 local member stations that independently control their programming.