Less violence on TV

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 24

Less violence on TV

From the “Economist,” London

Ordinary people know perfectly well, even as they switch on for another dose, that if the television that fills their homes is full of violence, society is likelier to be so too.

The only people that do not know it are the experts, who have been arguing on the subject for 25 years, and — guess who? — most of the people who run television. But even they have had to make concessions, and after the Hungerford killings they realised that they must make more fast or it would be done for them.

The 8.8. C. thought it recently put out a learned study claiming that its programmes had become less violent over the years, and were much less so than commercial television’s, easily found cause to act.

It dropped one film about a nutter on the rampage, postponed other violent programmes and a series about that favourite screen figure, the man who takes private vengeance because the law/society/Somebody Up There will not; for example, Rambo, on whose bloody exploits the 8.8. C. has an option which it does not

now propose to take up. With rather less enthusiasm, and a lot less self-congratulation, the commercial companies stopped some programmes too. Not that anyone was admitting his programmes were too violent, let alone that they might cause violence: oh no, it was simply a matter of taste, a concession to public agitation about Hungerford. Still the television rivals, whose scheme of joint guidelines on violence collapsed three years back, are now to hold fresh talks. Well they might, for their case by now is lost. In vain did a recently leaked survey done for the Independent Broadcastings Authority affirm that only a tiny minority, per cent of viewers admitted to feeling violent after watching violent programmes: that means about 1 million adults, and Michael Ryan was a minority of one. In vain did Mr Anthony Smith of the British Film Institute, argue this week that the fault lies not in the box but in human nature; a fatuous antithesis like blaming sunburn not on the sun, but on sensitive skins. Even before Hungerford the

public — overwhelmingly, say opinion polls — thought television too violent. The issue now is not who is right but what is to be done.

Mrs Mary Whitehouse, unsurprisingly, has issued the loudest call for action. But she is far from alone, and the Government is listening. Mr Douglas Hurd, the Home Secretary, does not believe, as she does and his party’s election manifesto did, that televised sex ’n’ violence are to be condemned in the same breath. He knows, and he knows the public knows, that one of these activities is widespread, usually agreeable to those involved and seldom does anyone much harm. But he also knows how widely shared are Mrs Whitehouse’s views on the other.

The likely answer is an outside committee to keep an eye on this aspect of the television authorities’ performance. The question for them — and others who value freedom, even open to abuse — is how far and how strongly it will be empowered to keep a censorious foot on everything else as well. Copyright — The Economist.