I was hoping to write something pithy and amusing about Romanian television this week, but found myself facing three main problems. The first is that making jokes at the expense of Romanian TV is like making jokes about George W. Bush being stupid – it’s something so patently obvious that even mentioning it seems a little unnecessary, and the joke leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. You end up feeling rather depressed at the whole situation, rather than amused. The second problem is that I lead such a jet-set, ram-packed life of excitement that I rarely have time to watch TV, unlike slobs like yourself (yes YOU), whose every waking moment is no doubt subordinated to the involuntary clicking action that has been hotwired into your thumb through overuse of that life-support device you refer to as a ‘remote control’. See how it feels to be patronised? Do you like it? This was precisely my third problem. When I actually tried to sit down and critically asses a helping of Romanian TV, I found that I was willing to chew off one of my own limbs rather than endure such a battering of patronising rubbish. In Britain this would be described as ‘Low-brow’ programming, to distinguish it from ‘High-Brow’, which denotes anything to do with the arts, or people with beards. Low-brow doesn’t even come close. In Romania, it’s better referred to as ‘No-brow’.
Romanian TV, I’m told, directly borrows from the Italian model. I wouldn’t know. I’ve thankfully been spared what I assume would be the gut-wrenching experience of sitting down to watch one of the Italian stations. Troupes of dancing girls, formation dancing by girls in their underwear, and more scantily-clad gyrating girls seem to be the staple of this kind of broadcasting. I can only hope that Prime Minister Berlusconi, who we must remember controls 90% of Italian television in terms of audience, has some good excuses. Perhaps Mrs Berlusconi routinely dances round their official residence in her underwear whenever there is a lull in the conversation. However, to the rest of us, the idea of employing such techniques in a bid to keep people entertained is just an example of shockingly bad taste.
There are many things to find distasteful on Romanian TV. There are far too many repeats of made-for-TV D-movies that manage to make Chuck Norris look like Kenneth Branagh. There are far too many imported soap operas that have furnished me with a rather limited knowledge of foreign languages (I now know how to say ‘I love you’ / I’m leaving you’ / ‘I’m your father’). There are far too many sub-Jerry Springer talk shows where the aim of the programme seems to be either bullying the guests into saying something controversial or making them look like badly educated yokels.
These are of course all good reasons to feel disappointed with Romanian TV. However, the real offender is undoubtedly TV news broadcasting. Allow me to offer a few tips to any programming chiefs who may well be reading. Under no circumstances should you add dramatic-sounding music to a given news item. Nor should you enliven your footage with subtle horror-movie effects or coloured filters. If a story isn’t tear-jerking or pulse-quickening enough, then please, go and set fire to an orphanage and film the resulting inferno to your hearts content. It would be infinitely preferable to your current practice of adding music and/or effects to bona fide tragedies. Please remember that these news items depict the genuine plight of genuine people, so have a bit of respect. What you call TV news has gone way beyond parody.
The shift towards the tabloidisation of news coverage, and its primary concern with human interest stories (murders, rapes, cats up trees, topless sunbathing at the seaside…) is supposedly the result of the free market in television. ‘Give the people what they want!’ is the rallying cry of the TV executive. ‘If people want to watch news items about buxom strippers adopting injured furry animals then so be it’ (it didn’t actually happen, but it’d make a damn good story). However, this approach over-simplifies the issue. Perhaps we should start crediting the viewing public with a little more intelligence. Many indicators suggest that viewers are actually turning off news programmes of this kind. The Romanian Academic Society’s ‘Forecast report for 2004’ states that news audiences have dwindled following this sensationalisation. News programmes “lost 20% of the audience they had in 2000” through this policy of pandering to the lowest common denominator.
It doesn’t take much thought to figure out the real reason for the shift, especially in a country where real and deep-routed scandal is never far from the surface. Reporting the real stories of the day is a dangerous business. There are too many powerful toes to be trodden on. Remember that last year journalist intimidation peaked since monitoring began, with beatings having been doled out to 16 journalists. Most of these, and other cases of intimidation, still remain unresolved.
People in Britain and America spend on average a quarter of their waking lives glued to the television. In Romania I strongly suspect the figure is higher. Where I come from, only your friend’s wisecracking father (the one with bad breath who laughs at his own jokes) would consider it amusing to call television ‘The Idiot Box’. It is, however, probably the best possible description of what TV has become.
On the 2nd of October, at 12pm, the global kids TV channel Nickelodeon will be celebrating its 25th birthday in a particularly apt way. For the first time in its history, it will cease broadcasting. For three straight hours, children everywhere will be encouraged to go out and play. I suggest that us adults start following the same advice. The world today is an exciting place to live in. Pull the plug on television and see what you’re missing.