Television

One of my favourite animals is media watchdog extraordinaire, which acquired its name through convoluted logic - it barked at the postman. It shares a family with a (black) cat called Ginger (it snaps).

The friend in whose house these animals lord it over the humans, who shall be nameless, gets really annoyed when people don't immediately grasp the rhyme and reason behind their names.

Headlines pertaining to television, which also cause a double take, this week, were: "Watching television could lead to poor diabetes control".

But of course the reasoning is deceptively simple; the higher the number of hours spent in front of the box (by everybody, not just children with Type I diabetes mellitus) the higher the chances were of an increase in body mass index, and the total amount of insulin they would need on a daily basis, since they were likely to have poor control over blood glucose levels.

Let us forget, for the nonce, the terrible trend of teenagers not using insulin to retain a slim figure - and ruining their vital organs irrevocably in the process. And let us, however, remember the high incidence of diabetes in Malta.

People who have Type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes have a higher risk of developing CVD (cardiovascular disease) than the rest of the population, according to Dr Hanna D. Margeirsdottir, of Ullevaal University Hospital, Oslo, as quoted in Diabetes Care.

Over 530 children and teens from the eastern part of Norway, who had had Type I diabetes for an average of five years, with an average age of 13, took part in the study. This centred around the time spent watching television and/or a personal computer, and indicated that less physical activity and increased sedentary behaviour, which led to less energy expenditure, and increased calorie ingestion, could explain, in part, the conclusions obtaining.

Moreover: "Television viewing also has been found to be associated with snacking behaviour, and participants who spend more time watching television tend to follow an unhealthy eating pattern," the report reads.

Montage is the brand new, in-house production at PBS, airing on Tuesdays as of last week, for this summer schedule at 10 p.m. - without any repeats on TVM or on E22, or even On Demand streaming on di-ve, more's the pity.

As the name implies, this is a magazine programme - I place it somewhere between an upbeat Meander and You magazine. Each letter of the title covers a particular topic - art, music, news, technology, gossip - and each programme is chock-full of seamlessly blended clips.

Montage is hosted by Nirvana Azzopardi, scripted, narrated, and produced by Norma Saliba, and co-produced by David Gutteridge. Martin Mercieca and Frans Lia are editors and directors.

The most important event taking place nationwide today is, of course, the broadcasting marathon Ohloq Tbissima. Held on the premises of St Joseph Home, St Venera, from where the Centru Animazzjoni Missjunarja (CAM) within the Missionary Society of St Paul operates, this is a 60-hour stint that is being broadcast, as you read this, on Melita Cable Channel 12 and Education 22, with sporadic transmissions from TVM, Net TV and One TV, and streamed on di-ve as well as lining to several radio stations.

The marathon kicked off last Friday, and will end at midnight today. So you still have the time - the opportunity - to help in the sterling work being done in Peru, Pakistan and the Philippines, and locally as well.

Something that is bound to catch on is the new project by Brainbox on TVM. This is Halli Messagg, where people can call in and, well, leave a message to be broadcast on air, just before the weekdays' 8 p.m. news bulletin.

The idea is to bring the erstwhile request programmes on Rediffusion up to date; but here, each message can last only 30 seconds. It will be launched tomorrow at 7.45 p.m.

It is early days yet to hope for the "more advanced" version of this, being practiced on some television stations abroad. Although it is akin to Paperissima, the other idea is in fact to have news items where the amateur footage is sent in by viewers who are at the right place at the right time... before news teams are even alerted that something is happening.

And before someone says that this cannot happen on a national station "for obvious reasons" - well, someone else can bell the cat. After all, one can safely assume that provisions can be made for relaying BetaSP, the accepted broadcast format, as well as the lowly VHS, DVD and even CCTV footage, if needs be.

I wish anyone behind the modern equivalent of a turntable looks at the title of the records that will be playing. Last week, for instance, we had Barbra Streisand being introduced as the singer of The Man with the Child in His Eyes - which most people recognise as a song performed by Kate Bush.

In any case, another record by Ms Streisand eventually went on air - and no apology was forthcoming. This is not an isolated incident - and, of course, some disc jockeys still sing along with the records, thinking they are being hip (and preventing us from recording the tracks, a practice that is now officially classified as antediluvian, given the amount of free downloads available from several sites).

One TV is airing a surreal, spooky, sensational drama, filmed "on location" in an inexistent village in the general whereabouts of Buskett. As Freddy Mercury, Sarah Brightman and Shirley Bassey ask... Who Wants To Live Forever? Some of the characters in Miriana Coljero, apparently, do.