Growing 
up in the Seventies, I remember our family going through three specific TVs. The very first one was a black and white in a wooden-like box with a giant knob to ‘switch channels’. With the popularity of colour broadcasts, my dad eventually bought a genuine ITT colour television with revolutionary ‘tip’ buttons but no remote control, yet. This was in the late Seventies.
How did we survive those remote control-less days? That was actually easy: the person closest to the TV was the person who was in charge of switching channels. That also meant that the person closest to the television was actually in charge of what was going to be watched, that is, unless my dad (or mom) ordered otherwise. I remember experiencing these parental vetos firsthand. The situation dramatically changed with the introduction of a television with remote control (early Eighties), our third one, where the power to All The Channels (10 at most) was unlocked by the ‘One Who Managed To Grab The Remote Control First’ or ‘The One With The Authority To Have And Control The Remote Because Age Says So’.
I’m not sure what was worse, those days: being a ‘remote control’, trying to fight for a remote control or being younger of age.