Sometimes, it feels so good to say “I told you so!” The previous week, I did something I rarely do. And last week, my foresight about how Frank Zammit would one day be a role model for his generation and the younger one has been confirmed.

Through happenstance, I found out Zammit has been nominated by the Youth On the Move EU Programme ( http://europa.eu/youthonthemove ) as Ambassador for Malta.

The idea behind this plan is for each country to have one personality representing it. This would be a part of an ongoing Europe-wide campaign to promote initiative. The chosen few will have been an inspiration to others. What probably clinched it for him was his shoestring travel and adventures abroad.

• I have never had as much feedback (mostly positive) as I did after last week’s column in which I touched upon the Song for Europe contest and the Malta Television Awards.

The idea that the Broadcasting Authority must be responsible for awards pertaining to local broadcast media did not, to put it mildly, meet with everyone’s approval.

At least someone tried to be funny; he said had there been radio awards, it would not have made any difference if two, or even half a dozen local stations chickened out of the fray, because there would be enough for the contest to be viable.

When it comes to the Eurovision, some say it became passé after the first couple of editions, using words such as schmaltzy, tacky, kitschy, ‘dead horse’, and ‘a gargantuan waste of money and energy’.

I seem to note, however, that only rarely does a naysayer get invited to air his views on a discussion programme (or even in a post-mortem about why we did not win, again).

The number of websites, one of which treats the whole shebang as an anthropological exercise, that are devoted – and that is the right word – to Eurovision would seem to indicate otherwise.

Some friends have even been known to memorise their favourite songs, in a language they are unfamiliar with, due to the compulsion that grabs them each time this contest comes around.

As far as I’m concerned, Ira Losco and Julie Zahra are where they are today not because of this contest, but because they are who they are.

Past winners have gone on to garner themselves a solid fan base in different countries – but the contest was their stepping stone, not a passport to fame.

Could there be a connection between the fact that PBS is now organising the Song for Europe, and the fact their righteous indignation about how One became Station of the Year by default?

Nobody has explained to me in words of one syllable why the mistake made by a clerk at DJ Burgess was allowed to rob TVM of this award; ‘what’s done is done’ cuts no ice with me.

I think the case was purposely allowed to drag on until the awards’ next edition was nigh. In this way, the deadlines for nominations would already have been mentioned, and stations that had no hope of collecting a Mermaid could exit stage left with an excuse of their choice.

It was inevitable that some people would insist that the only way for the awards to be viable, and credible, was for DJ Burgess to organise them but leave the judging part to the BA.

But I found fault with this immediately. The BA would probably use the peer jury system, and appoint judges who are acquainted with or would have worked with the nominees, so we are back to square one.

The other option would be to bring judges from abroad; there are two drawbacks to this. It would be expensive to bring them over, and they could never hope to understand the Maltese mentality, and therefore they would probably not vote for what the Maltese public wants, but for what television ought to be like.

High-end programmes would trump all the others, whereas populist programmes would not even get a mention. I have noticed that some programmes are never entered into awards – because the teams behind them are satisfied that they have a staunch fan base, and that is enough.

• People who have worked at PBS insist that its very infrastructure needs to be addressed and rehauled.

Here we are not talking about a green room that needs a virtual lick of paint, but the studios (that black cloth must have been hanging there since when I was a child taking part in Il-Kliem Bħaċ-Cirasa!), the apparatus, sound systems, website, podcasting, live and on-demand streaming, and so forth.

• Airtime is still being swallowed up by teleshopping. I would say it’s about the colour of money.

It remains to be seen whether there will ever be a watershed for radio – and whether gambling will one day be considered as bad for the minds of little children as alcohol – in which case, there will be no mentions of lotteries or lotto before the said watershed, let alone broadcasts of draws.

• Most newscasters do not realise that Alexandria is Lixandra in Maltese, and that Premier translates into Prim Ministru. It used to be Arabja Sawdita; nowadays it’s Arabja Sawdija. Ċili has suddenly morphed into Ċile. Why?

• Most morning programmes on local television stations are merely a visual radio. I don’t see why we should spend time watching a series of interviewees face the same bland interviewer, with the same topics being regurgitated on different television stations.

The idea behind a breakfast show ought to be to wake people up and set them off to a good start to the day, not to send them back to sleep.

television@timesofmalta.com