Riffling through the decisions of the Broadcasting Authority of late, I noticed that a good number of them centred on subliminal, premature, or over-running advertising, and the way vulnerable people were presented (on television).
Looking further, I discovered that the watershed (9 p.m.) is intended for both television and radio. The rules governing this are covered by Subsidiary Legislation 350.18 (Family viewing and listening), of the Broadcasting Authority.
It appears to have been taken for granted that anything that offends "against religious sentiment, good taste or decency, or is likely to encourage or incite to crime or to lead to disorder or to be offensive to public feeling..." (Article 13[2] [a]) would be a whole programme, and not snippets thrown at listeners under the guise of 'information'.
The story is told of one particular head of programmes at a certain radio station who used to have the radio on all day. This meant that seconds after someone made a faux pas on air, this person would be in the studio pointing out the gaffe.
This week, at around 5 p.m., I was shocked to hear a disc-jockey describe a sex aid on radio, using the same explicit phrase more than once (so it could not have been a lapsus). Should we be glad he stopped short of giving the serial number of the product? This was, in my opinion, much worse than the lavatorial humour that some children enjoy so much, or the innuendo that passes straight over their heads.
The British press made a meal of Clare Balding, BBC's doyenne of sports broadcasting, because she asked Liam Treadwell (The Grand National's winning jockey) to show viewers his teeth, and ribbing him that now he could afford to have them fixed. Ms Balding's supporters sought to explain that she was merely highlighting the differences between the wages of a footballer and a jockey... I think not.
Incidentally, I have noticed that some foreign stations are using Twitter, and getting multitudinous instant responses; in Malta we still go by good old telephones and e-mails.
One of the many television series churned out by the Donald P. Belisario stables was Quantum Leap.
Scott Bakula starred as Dr Samuel Beckett. The premise was that a botched time-machine experiment caused Dr Beckett to 'leap' into the lives of people across time, in order to fix certain facets of their lives. One of the running gags of the series was that whenever Dr Beckett's face was reflected - in a brass doorknob as well as in a mirror or water - the face that appeared was that of the person he was during that episode, and never himself. Dean Stockwell as the hologram Al Calavicci, helped and hindered him simultaneously.
Missjoni (Net Television) takes up the hypothesis that 'visitors' can make people's transitions to the Great Beyond better, albeit tackling it in a different way. Since the two main 'helpers' (demi-angles?) had not exactly spread sunshine and laughter during their earthly sojourn, they have to do it now, if ever they want to be admitted to heaven.
This particular 'purgatory' consists of living the last week of the person who would otherwise come to a bad end, righting their wrongs as best they can. They get their next assignment the week following. The cast includes John Suda, Hermann Bonaci, Frida Cauchi, and Ray Abdilla, and it is well worth watching.
One of the points I mooted when I was a guest at a PBS editorial board meeting was how, given the local predilection for drama, new radio plays can be recorded to replace the vintage ones currently being dusted down from storage and presented on Radju Malta on a Sunday evening.
One Television is taking another tack. Very soon, it will be issuing a call for submissions in a national contest intended to seek out untapped talent. The idea is to get professional and amateur writers to contribute shorts that will be moulded into a series for television. These must have an airing-time of at least five minutes, but not longer than 10.
A professional jury will be selecting the best 20 submissions, and these will be tweaked where necessary for broadcast, as One Television productions. Further details and an application form are available at www.one.com.mt.
Kay Birley and Martin Stanford recently had a very public contretemps about who had been the first to announce Princess Diana's death. The Elestoplast solution was that the former had announced it officially, but later than the latter, who had simply announced it.
Two local stations are claiming to have been the first to interview our new President George Abela on air. In fact, RTK was so pleased with their scoop that they aired the interview twice on the same day; last Saturday Tonio Bonello's piece was broadcast in the morning, and in the evening's Holqa ma' l-Awstralja.
Apart from the fact that certain disc-jockeys cannot hold back from unprofessionally talking over the records they play, they are not supposed to cut them off unless they have a newsflash or some other emergency. That is partly why instrumental tracks exist - to fill the gaps in airtime until the news comes on.
Why is it, then, that one particular person uses the word silta before and after each 'full' record he plays?
television@timesofmalta.com