Boxed out... a box in the eye

Channel 1
I am trying to figure out why it took the editorial board 45 pages of print, including appendixes, and seven months to state the obvious, the ridiculous and the outright disastrous, as per the Public Broadcasting Service. Maybe someone at some point thought one had better formalise the state of affairs at PBS.

Channel 2
For October 2004 , PBS had over 150 proposals for TV: a number which is mind-boggling, to say the least. Most of these must have been for teleshopping programmes, programmes that involved some sort of televoting, programmes about cooking, make-overs etc. Judging by what was aired on PBS over the past three months, one can only imagine what the proposals not chosen consisted of.

Channel 3
The Proposal

In my programme there will be an introduction where I will thank the sponsors, say hello to the televiewers, remind them of what they are watching (you can never be to sure) and give them a rundown of the programme (it's the same week in, week out). Then I will proceed with the televoting question, in original format for local TV... which will be seen on air.

In the second part of the programme I will show the prizes which are to be won, thank the sponsors, introduce the first item and proceed to the guest who, for a change, will sit down.

To make the programme more original, I will alternate the guest sitting down with one standing up, one lying down, one sideways... like a kamasutra of TV interviews cum discussions. I will then have a sponsored game... with a box, a computer, a bag... where viewers can phone in; not to be confused with the televoting question, which I will announce again. I will also announce the prizes again.

A make-over, a cooking lesson with the precise ingredients down to the last gram, some health talk about bunions and coughs, a personality (there are so many where to choose from), a home tip: how to burn your house down and claim insurance, and other such useful and entertaining matters. Now its time for the sponsors to be thanked and... how hours fly, thank you, see you next week (or see me next week).

Channel 4
On news presentation

Surely what must have been a kick in the teeth for the newscasters: "l-aspett estetiku tal-prezentazzjoni tal-ahbarijiet huwa 'l boghod mil-livell mixtieq" (the aesthetical aspect of news presentation leaves a lot to be desired). I wonder how the newscasters in question will report this fact. It has been quite a while since PBS first underwent some sort of cosmetic changes and yet the newsroom seems to have been overlooked. One notable achievement is the discovery of sound-bites... no further comment.

Channel 5
The survey conducted shows that the programmes are termed and boxed as being news, discussions, drama, sports and kids. What about entertainment programmes, documentaries, etc? But then again when you look at the schedule you find that most of the programmes fall into the category of wannabe discussion programmes and spot the new seating arrangements. Sofas have a field day on most of our programmes but kitchens are vying for a place too.

Channel 6
PBS should be on the forefront of proposing programmes of all types and optimum quality, interesting lighting, sets with depth and colour, near to perfect sound and cameras with a purpose (the fact that a camera goes up and down and that it can glide across a studio floor must be there for a purpose). PBS should propose programmes which are entertaining, unbiased, challenging, educationally provocative, sexy, comical and watchable, bearing in mind that there are things we love to watch and love to hate, so we watch them anyway.

Channel 7
How ironic that a report that insists on the proper use of Maltese as being an important step in broadcasting then refers to the time slots as being prime time or as seconda serata. We are a bilingual, nearly a trilingual, nation and we cannot escape this fact... we need to look beyond linguistics for better broadcasting. Just for starters, look at Bruno Vespa's airtime on Rai Uno and try telling him his show is terza serata. The point being that good TV is watched at any time and on any station and in any language. For all I care good TV could be in Gremlo.

Channel 8
And like most people do when they watch TV today, because if you haven't noticed that is how you watch TV anyway, I zapped through the report... so this is, if you wish, a zap comment on that report. And since we are zapping, maybe the surveys and monitoring which the report speaks of should perhaps consider this. We watch TV armed with one, maybe two and possibly three remote controls. Most surveys worth their salt conduct their surveys over a number of months, having sample families with monitoring boxes attached to their sets and one can then gauge what they are watching, at what time and for how long. For example in Italy, Auditel, can tell you at what time a particular programme is popular. But we all know this anyway.

Channel 9
(That's if you haven't zapped already...)

How Auditel works. They choose a "panel", a group of families, which represent the population: [a] geographical position [b] number of family members, kids, socio-economic status, level of education etc. and [c] the number of TV sets they have at home. Then the families are given a "meter" attached to the TV set which sends a signal to the telephone line which, in turn, sends the signal to a computer that collects all the data.

At present the system in Italy gauges 14,000 individuals at any given time.

Another important aspect about the Auditel system is that they specifically do not vote programmes as being the most watched because understandably they realise that viewers watch " bits" of programmes at any given time. Also each "panel" keeps the "meter" for five years.

Channel 10
Ikompli not.