Opinion • October 27 2003

Ratings

It is ratings week and what a week for us all, Saviour Balzan writesYesterday the daily Independent indulged in what I consider to be a damn good editorial.

The editor, Noel Grima a man who has a mind of his own tackled the question of high profile TV programmes and the broadcasting survey. His premonition is, in someway or another, confirmed in our front-page story.
Neither myself or Noel Grima should be treated with soft gloves or considered for beatification. We are far from virgins, angels or agenda free editors. But then there are limits to what one can accept.
If the dates of the survey held last week were truly leaked, the Broadcasting Authority should do us all a very big favour and consider scrapping its current system of surveying and apply a methodology that is less calendar oriented, more encompassing and less open to abuse.
On our front page, one of our stories reports that in the past some producers were ‘pre-informed’ that a BA survey would take place. The news, and we have good reason to believe that our information is correct, offered the producers an unprecedented advantage over countless other programmes and producers.
In other countries such stories are taken very seriously.
High ratings are not only about pride, but about commercial success. In many respects the three programmes mentioned in this newspaper retain a very high standard of professionalism even if doubts can sometimes be shed on what could be a shaky moral standing.
But then morality is not a issue for the tainted pen of Saviour Balzan.
It also has to be said that their hosts are lively, creative, television animals.
But all this is irrelevant.
The Malta we live in today is peppered with examples of short cuts to the system. No one is willing to miss out on his or her chance to take short cuts, but not everyone is in the enviable position of enjoying a headstart.

In this column I had every intention of commenting on what hit our TVs about Satanism and black mass. But the programme’s host, who cannot fathom any criticism or commentary, warned me, in no uncertain terms, that he would spill the beans.
Lest anyone is concerned about my well being; let it be known that I remain monogamous, pay my taxes, accept advertorials in my commercial pages, have not resorted to paedophilia, love to play a voluntary Bernard Inghams, do not break promises and have a very brusque sense of humour.
But I promise I will come back to the Black mass next week after watching riveting infra red photography from a seemingly still camera.
My colleague Noel Grima suggested this country has better things to talk about. And alienation was very much in play. So very true.
What I find appalling is when the people who do the talking are the ones who should have retired and gone into hiding a long time ago. Like those disgraced South Korean dictators.
When Joe Grima was the morning glory of the Labour party, he was always equated with the uglier side of Labour.
Mr Grima has said that he has apologised for his wrongs.
So?
That does not mean that we should accept him as a host on a station that is run by a political party that has had more cruel words and expletives for him than I could think of in sixty days of utter boredom.
Joe Grima was not some quiet backbencher, he was much more than that. He was noisy, physical and rude. He was what old Labour stood for.
To be Joe Grima meant to have privileges. And if the readers are interested in a long list of what these privileges meant, then I will be only too pleased to accommodate their wishes.
Before I close, I would like to close with two Grima snippets.
The first was his brush, or shall we say punching spree, at the Broadcasting Authority when together with a certain Joe Galea, then a chauffeur now a TV producer at PBS, they punched and punched Tony Mallia (Mr Mallia’s opinion article on page 10). Mr Mallia who would later leave the BA to be appointed an editor with the PN’s press, was pushed onto a balcony at the BA’s HQ by Grima and Galea and saved by the timely intervention of a BA employee.
Mr Grima was under the false impression that a scathing article scribbled against him in The Democrat was Mr Mallia’s doing. Irrelevant, but it was in fact written by someone who today takes delight at hitting out at the Nationalist party in The Times.
The other incident refers to Mintoff’s decision to accelerate constitutional changes to allow the party with the largest amount of votes to govern. It is a fact and I have checked this with some MLP executive members who were there that day, that Mr Grima was the only person to vote against the Mintoff initiative in the party executive. He later voted for it in parliament.
Well, it appears that Nationalists are very happy with Joe Grima so good for them.
Thank God for zapping.