What the hell...is 'water cooler television'?

Micro docs (not, as the phrase might imply, a reference to the number of health care professionals likely to be left working in the NHS after Capita get a hold of the health service, nor dwarf GPs, but an entirely new concept in educating the attentionally spanned impoverished and the subject of last Saturday’s blog post) are, possibly, a breakthrough in water-cooler friendly television. 
Whatever that is.
Ten minutes on the internet turns up LOADS of porn, but also that ‘water cooler television is an outdated cultural reference to television that people talk about when they gather around the water cooler, rather than television featuring water coolers nor television programming for water coolers.  Although, if you want the sort of people who spend a lot of time hanging around the water cooler discussing your programming, then lots of programmes about water coolers, including a soap set in the room or corner of the office where the water cooler is located, is not a bad idea and, for those who are really frequent visitors to the water cooler, a sister channel about toilets.
Thinking about it for a couple of seconds, which is a couple of seconds too long, who the fuck wants water cooler loiterers talking about their programmes anyway?  If your aspiration is to have your body of work watched and then criticised by the sort of people who use hydration as an excuse to hang around a large bottle of H2O in the hope the pretty girl on work experience has to come by to change the paper in the bottom draw of the nearby photocopier (because you arrived early to empty the tray to engineer such a visit), then aim higher. 
What does success look like? 
It looks like a BAFTA award.
But also, well, on a commercial channel it looks like people watching your programme, then talking about it down the pub, then coming home drunk and instead of playing on-line poker until they have to put their kidneys on eBay to cover their debts going on line with a credit card and purchasing whatever crap was advertised during the commercial breaks in your programme.  In other words, 50 Malibu Barbie’s arriving at the home of a man with no idea why the fuck he ordered them, delivered by a man who is already thinking ‘peado’. 
On the BBC, success looks like people watching your programme, then talking about it down the pub, then coming home drunk and instead of playing on-line poker until they have to put their kidneys on eBay to cover their debts going on line with a credit card and purchasing the same jacket your lead character was wearing in a crucial scene after visiting the sort of web site that gives that sort of information.  In other words, a North Face parka arriving at the home of a man with no idea why the fuck he ordered it, in July, but, as it’s a North face parka, is really pleased and practically has to wrestle it away from delivery guy.
Fuck the water cooler tribe, they don’t even pay for their drink, we want the pub people.
So, what do people talk about down the pub.  Teevee obviously and, because the pub is the parliament of the people and hence a place where you want to always appear smarter than everyone else, you talk about the documentary you saw last night on some diverting subject, rather than the afternoon you spent watching back-to-back Ballamorys in your pants working your way through a Pot Noodle three for the price of two pack you bought on a whim that was supposed to last you a month.
Hence the need for micro docs.  You can’t get cooler telly.