TV violence cut out

Press, 14 March 1978, Page 21

TV violence cut out

Forty cuts were made to television programmes over the last month to try to curb violence on television, according to Mr lan Cross, chairman of the Broadcasting Corporation. Mr Cross told Rotarians and their wives at a district conference in Palmerston North that broadcasting in New Zealand “is not accepting what the rest of the ■ world wants to dish out.” He said broadcasting was i offering every assistance to the Parliamentary committee that is studying the possible relationship between television violence and violent p

offending. Acts of violence on tele-J vision had been monitored and noted from February 10 to March 6, said Mr Cross. “But quite frankly we found it didn’t work. Such a quantitative approach is not really a sound basis for reaching any conclusions because it fails to take into account the context of each violent act, and the nature of the programme. “For instance, of about 500 hours of television, some 134 woundin 0 s and killings by weapons were recorded.

: “But 35 of these occurred iin one war film involving the United. States Marines, and it would be hard to show such a film without that kind of act.” Mr Cross said it could be argued that it would be more harmful to depict a war in a way that did not convey something of the truth about it. “Another 45 violent acts in total occurred in a John Wayne movie. It is hard to make a Western without such exchanges, especially when cowboys and Indians are in conflict.”