Quality on television

At this time of year television stations in Malta are busy preparing their autumn schedules. Some have already made their calls public while others, notably the public broadcaster, is about to issue its call for new or established programmes to fill in the schedules between October 2006 and June 2007.

In reality, the local scenario offers limited diversity in programme schedules as the three TV stations have, over the years, devised almost identical schedules with studio-based talk shows of one type or another. There is a very definite reason for this. Budgets are very small both when programmes are channel-financed as well as when they are created and produced by independent producers.

Although the studio formula allows for relatively cheaper productions, an injection of new ideas is desirable from time to time to innovate the local scenario of television programming.

Over the past decade or so Maltese television seems to have accepted the norm that popularity is the way ahead. Advertising income thrives upon it, independent productions bank on it and television channels brag about it. There is little more advertisers and their publicity agents can do about this. Their clients tend to favour the publicity machine feeding and parading clichéd slogans promoting popularity, equating it to success.

After every audience survey, however, it has become de rigueur for journalists, some media professionals and a number of demanding televiewers to query quality.

Although it is generally assumed that quality favours large audiences on television, in truth the values attached to this public and common art form attract a varied criteria that very often changes according to whoever is assessing it. Media researchers, among them Timothy Legatt, a UK communications consultant, when discussing quality give special meaning to choice, range, variety, balance and appreciation. Mr Legatt concludes that popularity does not necessarily indicate viewers' opinions as to programme quality (Legatt in Ishikawa, 1996). Viewers tend to employ a different scale of values in judging quality.

Quoting Wober's research for the IBA, Mr Legatt says that 88 per cent of viewers interviewed in 1990 agreed that "a programme can be of high quality even if very few viewers like it". These results also indicated that "serious programmes" are thought of as of high quality even when a percentage of the same viewers sometimes liked to watch programmes they knew were of "low quality".

People can distinguish between what they recognise as intrinsically good and what they personally like. In general, the IBA survey confirmed that while viewers tend to use a particular criteria when they express their opinion on quality for the community at large, on a personal level they watch what they appreciate most, that is what entertains them. Bourdieu calls this a "cultural choice". It is predominantly a reflection of the differential possession of "cultural capital" as distributed through the education and occupational system.

Professional broadcasters and distinguished members of the public on the other hand have specific criteria for quality on television. Broadcasters feel that quality lies in their work: technical accomplishment and programme content. In the latter they are concerned with clarity of objective, innovativeness and relevance to viewers' current concerns. This complements the view from on high where, according to a set of distinguished persons, quality broadcasting should offer diversity of choices, opportunities at good viewing times to as many different tastes and interests as possible and assumes programming to seek constantly to renew, not to repeat formulae, to explore, to take risks, to push the boat out, to extend the frontiers and to take itself and the audience by surprise.

While research in this area is not so exhaustive one could safely deduce that programmes which are highly rated by peer broadcasters are usually recognised as quality programmes by audiences, even if only by a minority.

A Canadian discourse on TV broadcasting lists four operational definitions of quality in programming. It identifies large audiences, a policy of enrichment of the social and cultural fabric, professional high production values and the public service criteria in focusing on relevant social concerns of the country.

Published comments about TV broadcast quality in Malta follow the pattern of the theories expounded abroad. While most critics and observers tend to complain of a total absence of vertical and horizontal quality on Maltese TV channels, large audiences seem to support the programmes that entertain them most even if these are described by several elite members of the public and experienced broadcasters as programmes of low quality. While serious broadcasts like the news still attract the major share of advertising spending, populist programmes keep attracting the highest amount of air sales on any station.

The technical quality of the output of the TV broadcasting industry in Malta may be questioned mainly because of the presence of a large number of workers in the industry who lack specialised training in their skills. However, the majority of Maltese viewers are satisfied with other aspects of quality in local programmes. They seem to be watching mostly a number of shows in their own distinct language, Maltese, dealing with issues of proximity and one's own culture. This seems to have brought about a situation where local producers and TV channels have, for a number of years, settled for several popular formulae that produce inexpensive programmes but perhaps with little innovativeness and diversity.

A quantity of inexpensive but informative and entertaining programmes in Maltese also seems to appeal not only to the majority of the viewing public but also to advertisers who support the TV broadcast industry with their revenues. Even if, according to observers of the media landscape, one were to judge the overall quality of programming on Maltese television as not very good, by popularity and income standards, it seems to be satisfying.

Mr Xuereb works in media management.