Signing the TV pledge in Gore

Press, 1 June 1985, Page 19

Signing the TV pledge in Gore

By

KEN COATES

The man behind the planned mid-winter television switch-off in Gore, the borough librarian, Anthony Lewis, has given the town its biggest buzz since rolled oats porridge was invented. Mr Lewis and his helpers have announced that the town’s 9500 residents will be asked to sign pledges not to watch the box during July. All who abstain, successfully resisting the addiction, will be awarded “cold turkey certificates.” The idea is to get people to prise themselves away from their TV sets by focusing their attention on local organisations and “more stimulating activities.”

Television tends to stand in the way of individuals’ communicating ideas and feelings, of community involvement, and people in families talking to each other, says Mr Lewis.

Tongue-in-cheek, he says that application has been made to the Government for psychiatric support during July as withdrawal for

the community will be “very unpleasant, if not agonising.”

Citizens have been invited to send cartoons, paintings, sculpture, sketches or poems, to a “television turn-off exhibition.”

The great switch-off will encourage promotion of special interests by as many community groups as possible. That’s the theory, anyway. Putting it into practice is bringing some hiccups. “It is not a pleasant thought for many people, and if we got a 90 per cent success rate, that would be most gratifying,” says Mr Lewis. He is now well aware of the implications of launching such a project in a small, conservative community, after holding a public meeting back in February. The 38-year-old librarian, with two children, is also aware he is an outsider, not a Gore-ite. He came first from England, in 1966, then from New Plymouth, Papua-New Guinea, and Nelson. He went to Gore because of necessity rather

than choice, as it was the only town in which he could find a job. The prospect of no “Coronation Street” or “Young Doctors” on cold, frosty, foggy nights has proved daunting for some townsfolk. Worthy citizens, according to Mr Lewis, “intelligent, professional people,” have had to be reassured that the switch-off campaign is not compulsory. “For some, the switch-off is a touchy subject and the actual crunch of turning off the TV scares the hell out of them,” says Mr Lewis.

“I talk to various groups about the library and inevitably the subject comes up — what about the compulsory switch-off? I suppose this says something about the gullibility of the population.” Anthony Lewis, who did his postgraduate library studies in Britain, says he borrowed the idea from a librarian in the United States, in

Farmington (population 14,000) in Connecticut. He has tried to improve on it for Gore, preparing explanatory material for 400 clubs and organisations, and for every household in the town.

Already there has been a spin-off which has gratified the borough fathers of Gore who consider their town does not get enough publicity. “Those who consider Gore needs more promotion have certainly been aware of the wide interest of the media in this project,” says Mr Lewis. “I have had no negative comments from the Borough Council, and I report to their monthly meetings.”

He is aware that his scheme is referred to as “that little venture by that bloke down at the library,” but looks past this scepticism to wide participation in a festival of activities during the non-viewing month.

These could include film society

evenings, craft demonstrations and instruction, music and quiz evenings, hobby displays, sports tournaments .and games, story-telling, reading aloud, and quilting. Ham radio operators, for example, have promised to mount a display of short-wave radios to show people what they can do in spare time.

“I am not ranting against television as an evil. I realise in a conservative community like this I could get shot down in flames,” Mr Lewis says. “We are more interested in the positive alternatives to watching TV and therefore about people appreciating what is in their community.” Some Gore people have admitted they watch television too much, about three-quarters of these say they do not enjoy what they watch, and they also admit they are hesitant to take an initiative in switching off, even when they have reservations about the suitability of some programmes for their children.

Others says they do not have a TV set through choice; other viewers watch only three days a week, or restrict their viewing to before 8 p.m.

What is the librarian’s personal view of television: “It is totally irrelevant. When people ask me how I keep up with the news, I tell them I read newspapers like ‘The Press’ and international magazines.

“I am not out of touch with what is going on, but I have not the faintest idea who reads the news on television, which raises the question of whether people are more interested in who reads it than what is in the news.”

The function to mark the great switch-off in Gore is planned for the evening of June 30 in the town’s Art Gallery. That is the week-end of Television New Zealand’s telethon — perhaps not the happiest of coincidences. But it will not deter Anthony Lewis and his band who are planning a debate: “TV or not TV — who is in control?”