The ultimate accolade is having a proper noun take a lower case and included in a dictionary as a generic term - as happened to biro, thermos, cellophane and linoleum.

The surname of physics and chemistry expert Angus MacGyver (whose exploits resembled those of the A-Team but without the gratuitous violence) has become a verb meaning "to use ingenuity to fix or remedy a problem using only the tools available at hand".

And while New Line Cinema is looking to produce a family-friendly cinema-screen version of the series, there is little chance that any of our very own 'resourceful' personalities will be similarly remembered.

This is mostly because their inventiveness is restricted to translating news items verbatim off the internet - which wreaks havoc with syntax - or coining new terminology for words that have perfectly understandable Maltese equivalents.

This week, for instance, nobody made a meal of the fact that the new leader of Madagascar, Andry Nirina Rajoelina, was a former disc-jockey. Yet one person was quick to tell us that Marc Ravalomanana was "Il-President uxxenti".

For all that, this week appears to have been a free-for-all regarding the creation of new words and terminology; erbatax-il elf cittadini; is-sitta u erbgħa u sittin minuta; optzjoni; tidissipa; jikondottaw l-elettriku... the list is endless. But at least Radju Malta fixed the advertisement where sittax ewro was being repeated ad nauseam.

I was under the impression that each station was to have a consultant on the use of the vernacular. I would have thought that the 'level playing field' envisaged by the Broadcasting Authority also included slapping fines on those who insult listeners and viewers by not being professional.

For all that, it is also painful to listen to educators on E22 and Campus FM mangle the English language - even when it is patently clear they are reading from a script.

This crass lack of professionalism is also evident in news items about local personalities.

There was a time when we had to chase people either physically or over the telephone to compile a news report or a feature, and research essential background information by consulting books or going to the public library. These days, a few clicks of the mouse will proffer the requisite information.

Why is it, then, that although Victor Tedesco himself was heard giving his date of birth as April 9, 1916, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1wPgufMOwA) it was mostly reported he was 90? Apparently it was only Enzo Gusman who had the presence of mind to look up this interview with the man himself, for posthumous confirmation as it were, merely minutes after the demise.

If one person can do this, why can't everyone else? Truly, the Madagasy proverb says "The lazy man who goes to borrow a spade says, 'I hope I will not find one.'"

These past weeks, we have been treated to Youtube clips of John Bundy and Ray Calleja taking calls from clueless people who nonetheless decided to take part in phone-ins. Yet, unfortunately, sometimes the boot is on the other foot. We recently had the guest of a quizmaster, touted as being 'a music expert', singing Bobby Darin's Beyond The Sea, claiming it was the English version of Claude Debussy's La Mer. And he was serious.

All this, and more, was touched upon in the Radju Malta Saturday morning programme Għandi Xi Ngħid, of which I heard only the second part, the guests for which were Gerald Fenech and Ġorġ Peresso (I missed Abigail Mallia and Fr Joe Borg, who, I am told, also had plenty to say on the topic of local broadcasting).

Inevitably, there was mention of poor content (stemming from lack of research and general knowledge) and poor delivery (which occurs when anyone thinks that a studio and a microphone create a broadcaster).

Peresso inevitably reminded us that it was actually the British who introduced the concept of 'edutainment' via the audio-visual media, through the likes of Effie Ciantar and Fr Henry Boren.

There was a time when good old Rediffusion considered it a sacred duty to teach; these days, however, it is the audience who calls the shots - because pluralisation has made it all too easy to zap. People do not have a problem, as they did when the only alternatives were Rai and BBC and they did not understand English or Italian.

They can find enough 'stuff' or 'music' in the vernacular to satiate them across the airwaves.

This creates a vicious circle, where the blind lead the blind into producing more bland and inane fare because 'that is what the people want'. Attention to detail lasts for as long as it takes to digest the statistics - where, alas, it is not always the good programmes that top the list.

Sometimes, the mindless regurgitations of the same material piped into factories, shops and buses, indicates that people have no inclination to 'listen' (read 'think'), but prefer to be carried along on an endless tape of inane platter chatter interspersed with muzak. This is evidenced by the legions of fans who never miss the opportunity to call their heroes on air - to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether they have been privately primed to do so.

The consensus appeared to be, however, that the State broadcaster must never be tempted to adopt a one-size-fits-all populist order to garner listenership and viewership.

Ironically, the BBC has axed its last children's radio show after 87 years, together with its famous introduction, "Are you sitting comfortably?" It was discovered that the average listener's age was 50. Ah! But that was because it aired every Sunday at 7.15 p.m. after The Archers. Now if they had run it on weekdays at around 3 p.m., the story would have been very different.

television@timesofmalta.com