Channel blurbs cost viewers time

Press, 22 April 1977, Page 11

Channel blurbs cost viewers time

By d. mckenzie Having been rightfully scandalised out of their earlier practice of running ail the good programmes one against the other —

an arrangement which refused to be sanctified and excused by the label of complementarity — the latest folly of the channels is to make persistent i intervention in their own programme previews. Not that this revealing of next week’s “plot” can be justified in any circumstances, but let that pass for the present. This new idea takes the form of running excerpts from items to come, arid thrusting in a voice-over, channel commentary, or interpretation, which at best is blindingly obvious in context and therefore futile; or quite irrelevant to the picture and the viewer’s dramatic interest at that point. An example of the first mav be two men, identified as Bill and Joe, screaming at each other on a silent screen until one finally draws back and punches the other heavily in the face. The channel commentary will then be: “• . . but Bill does not agree with Joe, and .. .” An example of the other may be two young lovers smiling closely. and plainly lost in each others murmurs; and the channel will say: "Maria says to Anton, never mind about material dialectics, what does he propose to do about her Pi egnancy.” How do they know. And, in any case, can’t we wait to pick it up at the

actual showing and in the actors’ own voices?

This intervention by the channels can be termed, in lieu of a better phrase, “rostrum mothering.” And it should be stopped forthwith — if necessary by force. As a matter of fact, rostrum mothering is only part of the incessant and growing trick of the channels to grab screen time for their own advertising.

Once they tumbled to the idea that all their own blurbs were not included in the formal advertising time ratio then there was nothing to hold them back from their excerpts, “oreviews,” “Next on One,” “Tonight at 9.40.” “Saturday at 10.10,” and all the rest of it. It’s all very well, but does TVI know or even care that when Bill Brand reached the screen on Wednesday the programmes were running 6 min late?

Clearly something was clogging the machine; is anyone prepared to say that the blurbs did not play their part? And another thing abut station tricks — the young gentleman who recently won a major television award because he made sloppy winks at the camera has now taken to bugging both his eyes simultaneously. Presumably this means that next year’s major aware will be for eye bugging. And the ' young gentleman is still doing his winks.