Power Play: The battle of box

Hard to imagine there was a time when you had to get up from your La-Z-Boy and trek across the lounge to turn up the volume on the television.

Then walk back again hours later to turn it off. Admittedly, it wasn't too arduous in terms of channel changing. There was a programme on and you either watched it or you didn't. Normally, you did because this was before smartphones and your other options were to peel potatoes, do maths homework or fight with your sister.

Mild sniping emerged when more channels were introduced, but there was not much overt hostility. In most families, mum and dad decided what the family watched. Today, grown men sit in front of Teletubbies to avoid a scene with a two-year-old.

The end of harmonious television-related family relations came with the launch of M-Net in 1986. This is acknowledged by telly-historians as the beginning of the remote control wars. Suddenly, options were boundless - 40 channels, 50, a million - but you could only pick one at a time.

Like all wars, this one is about power, and the question is: who picks the programme? Alliances are entered into - the MasterChef addicts versus the soccer fiends - but broken the next day, when the fight is between the teen drama aficionados and the news watchers. The fact is there is only one programme that every human between the ages of eight and 80 enjoys, and that's Modern Family. And it is only on once a week.

The PVR has exaggerated the problem, offering not just today's programming, but your recorded programmes, the ones on catch-up and even the paid-for movies. Is it any wonder consensus is impossible?

On occasion, it is not about preference, but about values and ideology.

In my family, my husband believes watching How Clean is Your House rots your brain and encourages vilification of people who are mentally ill. I view it as harmless voyeurism, and a handy cautionary tale for children: "It all started when she was little, when she didn't pick up her bath towel", I editorialise over a slovenly woman with knickers and rat poo in her kitchen sink.

A secondary remote-related dispute: how loud? If I wanted to be deafened, I'd go to a rock concert.

Third remote problem - its tendency to disappear. Every TV session requires a rummage through the bed or sofa cushions.

The remote wars cast your family's flaws in a harsh light. Your children are Philistines, your husband a deaf coot, your wife a control freak. They are selfish. No one ever puts anything away in the right place. But once a week for 30 minutes peace and goodwill reigns, thanks to Modern Family.