Sticky posts

The previous week it was ‘Expertise Mission Creep’. Last week it was ‘Hamster Journeys’ – the attitude of ‘going nowhere fast’ adopted by some media personalities, presenters and journalists alike, to camouflage their abysmal lack of savoir faire.

Some of them actually think that a delay button is only to be used for members of the public who call in to a live programme. They fail to realise that even in-studio guests may sometimes make colloquial references to parts of the anatomy, and the purpose for which they may allegedly be used.

Especially because last week it was Media Warehouse Statistics Week, we had the usual amount of gloating from some people (not all) who placed well in the ‘only credible local statistics’ (not my description).

As an aside, I wonder why according to this source, Broadcasting Authority or other surveys ought to be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. All those who are not biased know which of the results are deserved, and which are not – even though they may be viewers or listeners of the latter.

These people, who boast of their achievements, fail to realise that their audience will watch and listen to anything to alleviate tedium, especially if they don’t like reading and don’t do crafts – and they tend to chose either the least of 10 evils or what others watch, so that they will not feel left out of conversations on the morrow. Inevitably and ironically, these viewers and listeners will increase the totals, leading production houses to think they have hit on the right formulae for statistical success.

• Meanwhile, the ‘station of the nation’ is quietly regaining for itself the right to call itself so. PBS chairman Joseph Mizzi must be very pleased that his battle-plan for TVM to nearly double its financial partnerships with third party producers appears to be bearing fruit.

• Friends of mine thought I was joking when I commented that the Malta Music Awards lacked għana. I wasn’t. But I also understand why Nomad Son, a doom metal band that cites Uriah Heep, Pentagram, Candlemass and Black Sabbath as its inspirations, would win both Best Metal Band and International Achievement awards, and why tenor Joseph Calleja was named artiste of the decade.

Yet I fail to see why some genres of music – such as the gospel I mentioned last week, etnika and the aforementioned għana – never get a look in, even if only performed by guest artistes.

• Drama production companies, meanwhile, do their best to provide us with even more sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, and country music song-themes gone even sourer.

There are companies and organisations that cut corners by managing their own advertising.

Some bright spark in management comes up with an idea, and someone else gets to do the visuals and the script. The money thus saved goes into purchasing more air time – and insults to potential clients.

Then there are those warehouse-type establishments where advertising consists of presentations of deal after deal by people who have absolutely no idea what to wear – or rather what not to – on television. The cameramen try to keep these people out of the frame, giving viewers motion sickness as they move in their restricted space.

Sometimes, of course, it is the advertising agencies that come up with misleading campaigns. I am instantly suspicious, for example, of advertisements that include the words new, improved, free, low-sugar, low-fat, or low-salt, and any combination thereof.

• Hoarders is a reality television series that highlights the lives of those who cannot get a grip on their penchant for collecting things, to the extent that it spirals out of control and becomes hoarding; no Flylady Fling Boogie for them.

One particular advert features one such compulsive pack-rat, living proof that mass and mess expand to fill the space available.

But rather than having the Hoarders team come along to help her sort her accumulation of clothes and soft furnishings, donating or disposing of things she does not need – she actually purchases a machine that panders to her unconventional behaviour by vacuuming the daylights out of the bags into which she would have shoved these items.

• Advertorials for Christmastide that have long been going on – mostly by people wearing short-sleeved T-shirts, smiles that do not go up to their eyes, and lots of teeth.

Last week I chanced upon one that meandered and fluffed even more than Sarah Palin. A ‘budget’ tree comes complete with a hose-pipe pulsating in different colours.

The presenter told us all we need are balls – and then corrected himself by saying we could go the kindergarten route and cover matchboxes with wrapping papers, tie them with ribbons, and hang them on the branches instead.

The association of ideas led his mind back to the time when he used to make a lot of things out of toilet paper rolls and these could be hung on the tree, too. Indeed, he waffled on, his daughter had asked for some rolls just the other day, which means (according to him there are still teachers keen on teaching children.

Just for the record, some Hoarders have thousands of ‘keepsake’ loo rolls, so they should do all right with this particular tree.

• Food, inevitably, gets a look in throughout the year, and more so during this period. We are encouraged to bet on the results of a football game – if we win, our meal is free. We are encouraged to go to restaurants that have It’s My Party and I Cry If I Wanna and Waterloo and The Lion Sleeps Tonight as background music for their bumphs.

television@timesofmalta.com