Beyer furious at TV rating proposal
The Daily Mail (no link as yet) is quoted on Mediawatch-UK’s news snippets page, reporting on an Ofcom proposal to rate TV programmes according to how much sex, swearing and violence they contain. This would help viewers and parents to make informed choices about what to watch, which of course John Beyer fiercely opposes.
Rating programmes is not a new idea and the practicalities involved make it a very expensive and lengthy process. There are thousands of hours of television programmes in archives in this country, and around the world, that would have to reviewed and rated by someone. New programmes would have to viewed in advance in order to be rated. Does Ofcom envisage viewing all this material in order to rate it? The Communications Act 2003 does not provide for the previewing of programmes and so some explanation of how Ofcom’s suggestion is to be achieved is needed. And what standards will prevail in the ratings scheme? Ofcom has been in existence for only 17 months and already it is foreseeing that regulation will pass to the viewing public. In these circumstances one wonders why a regulator costing around £150 million a year in needed!
He rants.
UPDATE: According to Broadcastnow (subscription may be necessary), the BBC are set to preempt Ofcom by introducing their own PG-style classification system. The controller of editorial policy, Stephen Whittle, says:
Ofcom is thinking about it as a concept, we’re testing the means by which it might be achieved. We think it’s better we should keep control of how this is done, so it doesn’t become excessive.
Bit of an alarmist argument (surprise!) from Mr. Beyer there. Presumably, rather than watching and rating every piece of archive, it would only need to be done before soemthing was in danger of being aired. In which case the strustures which exist now, and are perfectly adequate (at least to my mind) would do.
I’m far more bothered about quality control. Some form of censorship to prevent French & Saunders recieving airtime would get my vote for starters.
It wouldn’t be too difficult to rate only the shows that were going to be broadcast.
But rather then French and Saunders…how about Songs of Praise? Or Deadenders?
On rating programmes – if any parent can’t guess what’s coming from the reviews on TV pages and the explicit verbal warnings TV stations insist on giving even at midnight why mollycoddle them further?
As for awful programmes – I picked up an idea from Romanians which works a treat. When they had nothing but wall to wall Ceacescu worship on telly they used to turn the sound off and play a game of ‘who can find the most outrageous record as soundtrack’. I find ‘Ace of Spades’ or ‘Anarchy in the UK’ works well during hymns on Songs of Praise for instance. Bah humbug, it’s time we got back to making our own family entertainment instead of relying on the TV!
You mean *gasp* families actually talking to each other? In this day and age? Surely not!
In the US programmes are rated by those who make them (See this). This is the system used. Some networks refuse to use the subratings (V,S,L,D), though I can’t remember the reasons given. As far as I can tell this seems to work fairly well. Expecting any one organisation to rate the thousands of hours of programming that is broadcast every week is just silly.
Agreed – it would be silly. (Even sillier in the old days when they had the Lord Chamberlain.)
The see-first, complain-later system is another bad move. Difficult though it is, and open to interpretation though it is, there need to be guidelines re what is & is not allowable.
There’s a quite funny reason why some US networks refuse to use the VSLD system. An electronics engineer discovered that, when used with an interactive TV which refuses to show programmes on certain ratings, one of the settings can programme the TV to turn off every time an advert starts because they aren’t rated and back on when the programme starts again. Rather than fix a system the US media had already spent billions developing at the last moment, some corporations just don’t support channels that use it.
doc – there are, each channel has guidleines that are always referred to in response to complaints about programme content
But in that case, programmes must have been viewed in advance after all, to see if they adhere to the guidelines. No point having the guidelines if they are not enforced.
Of course they’re viewed in advance, by channel editors. They then decide, based on years of experience in broadcasting, whether or not the programmes are fit to broadcast based on the guidlines. If they are unsure, they kick the decision upstairs, like in all walks of life.
Occasionally viewers disagree and then you have complaints. There is a complaints procedure and more senior people, greater numbers of them and with greater experience, then decide whether the editor’s decision to bradcast was correct.
Most complaints (of the unorchestrated or ‘genuine’ variety) tend to be about live shows, where they can’t be viewed in advance and where the odd swear word slips in
What is your point, exactly?
You have more knowledge of this procedure than I do. There are times when the guidelines themselves must be faulty, given the number of complaints. I think it is likely that the guidelines are based on a circular and therefore fallacious argument: what ppl consider acceptable to be shown on tv partly depends in the first place on the bounds of normality/acceptability which have already been instilled in them by (among other things) the tv itself.
In addition, who on what authority decided it was ok for live shows to be shown in cases where the risk of offence might be high?
In any live show there is the risk of offence. Think of Richard and Judy – there’s been a number of unscheduled incidents on there clearly designed to cause offence to the easily offended.
I can reccomend reading the Media Guardian on a monday. My knowledge of how the meejah works has, in part, come from there. It provides informative, well-written and interesting comment on the media.
Society changes and guidelines are updated. You’re clearly campaigning to change society to a more conservative (with a small c) society, and if you succeed, then what is considered normal or decent will be less than at present.
There’s no need to change anything unless it has bad effects. Ppl should base their stance not on what they ‘want’, but on the clearest stats available. There are a few stats which definitely are clear, namely those which demonstrate the changes in STD/divorce/abortion/undewrage intercourse/extramarital intercourse since the sexual revolution. Some might see these changes as good. It beats me how anyone can.
Ah but Christopher, as you yourself said, stats are rotten.
Yet again you’ve missed the point.
You have to deal with society as it is and try to amend it was the crux of what i said. Then you just bang on about divorce etc. yet again.
Anyway, you’re just picking the figures you want to suit your cause. The problem with figures is you’ve got to have had consistent measurements. How much information was captured on eg gay suicides, which I’ll bet have dropped drastically since the sexual revolution and consequent legalisation of homosexuality. As a member of christian voice, you’re probably against that legalisation, but you wouldn’t discuss these sorts of issues, would you? oh no.
Im not sure the best approach is to start where you are. I think the best approach is to investigate the background of why things are as they are. Root causes rather than symptoms.
I dont know what christian voice’s membership system is. I think it’s probably by subscription, & I have never paid them one. (Stingy as well as argumentative, hey?)
Info on gay suicides would be illuminating – has anyone got any? I know that in recent years there has been a rise in suicides of young males. Of course, to counter my point, one would need to cite a larger number of stats, involving larger percentages, that pointed to the opposite conclusion, or to a different conclusion.
Is your surname Pedrick by any chance?
Never paid them a subscription? Then why did you say here: http://maggidawn.typepad.com/maggidawn/2005/02/oh_dear_oh_dear.html that you were a christian voice member? is it free to join?
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No, my surname’s not Pedrick. It’s actually one that you would greatly approve of.
.
If you want to design an ideal society, then where you are is not the best place to start from.
If you want to change the current society to your idealised society, then you have to start from where you are. Your argument is like a variant of the old Irish joke where a guy asks an irishman how d’you get to dublin, and the irishman replies I wouldn’t start from here, you want to start from some other specified location.
Something to do with Peter or Paul?
(Can’t contain my anticipation!!)
Ive campaigned with them twice, and support their activism in a world where few get activist about issues that deserve activism. So if that counts as being a member I am – but not paid-up.
You have to start not only from where you are, but also from an awareness of history. History only repeats itself cos no-one listens to the lessons of history.
You’ve campaigned with them? You wouldn’t be one of the “pixel-faced loons” pictured here would you?
Let me guess – the green bomber jacket!
Re: surname – no and no, sarky get. It’s not like it’s important anyway, I’ve been using this contraction of my name online for about a decade (off and on). In the mid-90s the web wasn’t replete with autofills like it is now, so it was a lot quicker than typing my full name (especially as my typing was even worse then). You can probably find out most things you desire to know about me using this contraction of my names imaginatively through a search engine.
…
But you did state in the link I’ve provide that you were a member of CV. Or do you habitually lie to priests?
At that time (and in fact still today) I didnt know the basis of membership. Does one fill in a form? Does one pay? Im on their mailing list, and have stood with them physically. That may count as membership, it may not. In a loose sense, I suppose it does. (What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?? :o)
Hi Monitor-
I could even be the one on the left, but how am I supposed to tell unless it gets unpixellated? 😮 The only night I was outside the theatre was the final night.
doc – I’ve just got it. You’re actually a comic genius, Andy Kaufman stylee.
You had me going there, but piecing together your location and your quote that ‘in your part of the country MO means mail order’, when it is in precisely your exact location (to within what must be no more than 2-3 miles), more than any other in this country, that it means modus operandum.
Sir, I salute you. You’re the best spofer ever.
Er, yes, which neatly avoids the question of how you twigged my location. Did I let it slip??
I thought of ‘modus operandi’ as a possibility a bit later – but no: I’ve never come across this abbreviation before. Of course the internet is full of abbreviations that fox me.
As an abbreviation it’s in common parlance in British cop shows or movies.
I answered about how I happened across your location in the comments section where you first asked. A quick google for “christopher shell” revealed it.
Oh I see!
I tried and failed to achieve the same result – maybe all residents are listed by our borough councils or something?
not as far as i’m aware. I left the quotation marks in, which may make a difference.
after a page or so there’s something where you mention you live in hendon
ok. For a moment I thought you were in MI5 or something. 😮
hahahaha. i doubt they’d have me (thankfully)