As always it is great to hear from readers and I had a lovely handwritten letter from Maureen, who lives in Harrow Weald, which reminds me of how spread out my readership is these days.

Maureen reminded me that people in the 1930s through to the 1950s often went to the cinema twice or three times a week, but how often to go these days? The same change of habit is happening today with the way television is watched. Many of my pals do not even watch the main channels but subscribe to other packages. As audiences decline, that has medium-term implications for the BBC and ITV, one of which relies on a licence fee and the other on advertising revenue. Today a viewing public of five or eight million is considered a huge success, but turn the clock back to say 1972 and what a different result it seems.

That year the Miss World contest attracted more than 23 million viewers and Bruce Forsyth and The Generation Game captured more than17 million. I remember watching an episode being recorded at the old BBC Shepherds Bush Empire. Compare that with the dire remake recently that looked like it had been transferred from an end of the pier show. If television executives, not actually underpaid, are too lazy to come up with new formats, they could at least do justice to an old favourite.

Do you remember the Colditz wartime drama that starred Robert Wagner and various English actors? That scooped 17 million and good old Dad's Army was still hitting big numbers of nearly 16 million!

Films on television were also popular and three old 1950s movies starring the great Norman Wisdom averaged about 14 million viewers each. I had the pleasure to meet Norman in the 1990s at a couple of events hosted by Morris Bright, now Chairman of Elstree Studios. Norman was such a naturally nice man despite a horrible childhood.

What is the future for the established channels? Rising costs can mean an hour of drama could cost £1 million compared with an hour-long series in the 1960s coming in at £20,000. The more expensive it is, the less executives want to take risks with new ideas or even new talent, so we seem the same faces over and over again.

Elstree Studios is very lucky, not only due to its location, it also has kept abreast of changing times. Much of the work now derives from television as several purpose-built facilities at Teddington, Wembley and now at the South Bank, not to mention BBC Television Centre, have succumbed to the value of the land on which they sit. Now Elstree is home to a diverse number of programmes ranging from The Crown to Pointless and Lemon Juice to Big Brother.

There is still a fair share of film production as well, although I know some old veterans like myself lament that there is not more. However, the studio makes a very healthy return for its owner Hertsmere Council and thus benefits all of us ratepayers across the borough. I urge them to get ahead with building another sound stage or two. When I was chair of the studio in the late 1990s I urged the same thing and we built two giant new stages, which Prince Charles opened in 1999. Many films and television shows have been shot on them since and one is now annually home to Strictly Come Dancing, which gets great ratings by today's standards.

I was so proud to lead the campaign to save Elstree, on a voluntary basis, from 1988 until we won in 1996. We inherited a semi derelict abandoned studio, but look at it now! I rarely visit now as most productions operate closed sets and many people involved today were not born or left school when we started the campaign in 1988 and have no idea who I am or what happened all those years ago. That is good, as the future of my beloved studio matters more to me than the past. Until next time, remember, according to my long suffering doctor, always to have more water with it .