Prime and prejudice

School is nearly out for summer, and that means it's the official start of the silly season, when columnists, journalists and commentators have to scrape the barrel to find something worth talking about.

In Malta, this is fairly easy, because the barrel's bottom is covered with a substantial layer of sludge.

So taking a leaf from two of the presenters on PBS - one of whom punctuates every four words with "eh" or "em", and the other who mumbles to himself and occasionally includes lists of names of fans - this week I will be taking a similar ramble.

There is the tiny question of the collision of gigantic egos, where what is sauce for the goose has tuned out not to be sauce for the gander.

It was daggers drawn even before Simon Lumsden, head of programming at PBS, disputed the use of Norman Hamilton's voice to report on the Eurovision goings-on from Belgrade, during Hermann Bonaci's TVM programme Flimkien. The reason, apparently, was that since Hamilton has his own platform on One (Bla Aġenda), this was not to be tolerated.

Inevitably, Hamilton trotted out the old chestnut about politics. Just to be on the safe side, and as a buffer, he included the fact that many people work part-time in two different sections of the media.

Meanwhile, a part of the Family TV prospectus I was sent reads "... at Family TV Network we are committed to the principles of ethical broadcasting, public accountability, diversity, integrity, honesty and creativity. Our group pledges to reflect this philosophy through appealing and effective programs (sic) which will enhance community building and lifelong learning."

Again, this is a case where fine words butter no parsnips. I have been watching Family TV on and off - and, to be frank, I thought that Ġorġ (not his real name, apparently, because one of the competitions actually asked us what it was) was laying it on with a trowel... but all his shows (repeated ad nauseam in between endless re-runs of sitcoms) are 'like that'.

And this brings me to another point. A lot was said about the 'hard time' PBS employees had editing Thunderbirds so that the marionettes' behaviour was 're-evaluated' in that they were never seen smoking, or drinking-and-driving. This was disparaged as a waste of time.

When Fox had conducted the same exercise, the 'reasons' given for editing an hour's show down to 30 minutes was denied by the network as being to remove all traces of "inappropriate elements [such as] drinking, smoking, subservient minorities, excessive violence". The blame was put squarely on the "short attention-span" of American children.

This made no sense, because other shows aimed at this audience-band were, and still are, 60 minutes long.

Family TV re-runs sit coms (not a totally appropriate term, but I will let it flow) at any hour of the day. Therefore, it is only logical to suppose that children might be watching the early afternoon or weekend shows. As a corollary, this means that they will have watched the 'crystal ball' antics of one character, and the 'white magic' of another - complete with fire-and-brimstone sermon of a priest who later collapsed, gossip-mongering and irresponsible and irrational behaviours galore, and the word "magħmul" (curse) uttered several times.

This does not really reflect the "values" that the station implied it would have.

The Broadcasting Authority, however, prefers to slap fines on people who are guilty of other types of infringement.

I am all for the ones that are about not safeguarding the rights of vulnerable people, or the ones about subliminal advertising of alcohol, and because the presenters have no idea about the rules governing the use of the vernacular in broadcasting.

However, I think it is utterly silly to haul someone over the coals because the website address of a photographer was visible in a screen shot, and similar fripperies.

The only reason that a fine could be levied for there not being the letter "R" on the screen while a repeat is airing could be that people would be inclined to waste pulses trying to call in for competitions or offers.

Moreover, the BA's finicky insistence to have the summary of their decision broadcast on a news bulletin smacks of 'justice being seen to be done'.

The news bulletins on Net and One are already utterly devoid of news value. Or, to put it differently, most of the items on Net News of late have been about the Labour Party, and a hefty number of those on One News have been about the Nationalist Party.

To add insult to injury, the Broadcasting Authority wants to subtract even more of the minuscule dregs of sense that remain if the pettiness and innuendo are edited out.

The mind boggles. Or, in a word so beloved of our newscasters, the brain is not konxju that this makes any sense.

• On Thursday Net presents D Search (for a beauty queen). I wish the producers and presenter would decide whether they will use "contest" or "kompetizzjoni" to describe the challenge - but whichever the case, kuntest is definitely not the word to use. And I wish that that the stills in the introduction were all of the Maltese beauties taking part.

• Xarabank has been voted "first" - just as Oprah has been voted "most powerful celebrity" - again. So, what's new? Nothing compares to them. And that is not necessarily a compliment.

television@timesofmalta.com