opinion • November 30 2003

TV come home

Impressed by our TV fare, Matthew Vella muses about programmes and presenters that are not prime time stars

Our national television station has been churning out some glorious visual wares lately, but a pastime of late is having to gloat, rather than cringe, on the immense banality that thankfully does not seem to exist on this side of the box.
I have been taking my afternoon breaks just to catch a glimpse of that pot-pourri kollox jghaddi misch-masch that is Kollox ma’ Kollox, another brainwave of the Bonaci ‘me Karl, you Romina’ marriage combo.
Kollox ma’ Kollox, as the name implies, means that you get little or no quality (if quality means having to admire Karl Bonaci’s silver-ringed index finger and thumb), and lots of quantity. Too much quantity in fact. It’s a morning commercial variety replete with teleshopping presentations hosted by Mr Bonaci, a man liable to sell you anything, the last of which has a device that dispenses cereal flakes at the touch of a button, on supposition that children are bored at having to see it come out from a box as it normally does.
It’s a saccharine-sweet formula for the Bonaci lovebirds, who profess lovingly the virtues of having a solid wardrobe, a solid bed, a solid kitchen or a solid cupboard – the sole word, in this case ‘solida’ (instead of ‘sod’ which is Maltese for ‘robust’), which can describe a piece of wood in the world of Kollox ma’ Kollox – so let’s not forget the torturous playing around with the Maltese language, freely coupled with brief interludes of English (heqq, you know what I mean, hux). And if time allows, Bonaci will escort you around the latest kitsch décor in marble works and lampshades dressed in a pale blue sweater with the faint glimmer of a bust protruding out of his thirty-ish frame and into the screen.
How can the Broadcasting Authority really allow such blatant misuse of state TV? How cheap have we got, to allow such brazen farming-out of programmes to land in the hands of pantomime actors?
I could hardly brace myself for another season of Tista’ Tkun Int, which has unfortunately lost one wooden plank and will now have to rely on the unconvincing goodness of that benefactor of all benefactors, Rachel Vella.
I suppose that TTI has now come full circle. The advertising brochure for its new season reveals more and more the undignified abrasion of financial gain this business of heart-wrenching is. Mine bleeds as I see the smiling faces of Rachel, her father, and the gorillas and pom-pom girls who parade around the studio every Sunday morning with those grinning mugs, so free of gum disease.
It is only TTI that can be so rudely unrepentant of having caused tens of thousands of PBS viewers to live every Sunday morning vicariously through the lives of the unfortunate who get showered with gifts for their lives’ ordeals. Even more brazen must be the business of seeking out the people who make the story every morning, paraded about solely for the intensity they can provide to get the tears jerking from the word ‘GO.’ Naturally a fitted kitchen, luxury cars, fur coats, diamonds, or a holiday in Cocomo will give us the right fix for some on-the-spot justice with the fates.
You should see the TTI advertising brochure for this year, the one with the prices for buying air during TTI. The way these people strike a pose in their suits and dresses… they could picket in the streets just for more diamonds and luxury cars and they will have it right on a silver platter. They carry it well, truly, the banner of selective charity.
I suppose the thin red line that previously separated Rachel Vella’s humble demeanour from the soaring ratings as more water got sprayed out the eyeballs today is no longer. TTI really splash it out in full glory. "We’ve given out Lm650,000 in prizes so far!!" is an unashamed statement of theirs. I suppose that another way of giving charity would have actually been creating a foundation rather than exchanging the airtime for commercial sponsors, which at hundred bob for five seconds, does not come cheap.
The thing is that in television, everyone is giving out money for nothing. And getting it back. This week you might have won some cash from TTI. The next day you will be giving it back to the Bonaci’s. It could almost work. An economy based on the financial erudition of Karl Bonaci and Rachel Vella. Just think…holidays instead of children’s allowance…hooray! Boarded out? Have a diamond ring silly. Got the flu? Try this cereal dispenser.
I could feel concerned that the saintly piety of Rachel Vella and the riveting sales techniques of Mr Bonaci could mean that TVM is headed for more quality lunacy in the future. A warm fuzzy feeling comes all over me, however, as I imagine Karl Bonaci running PBS, along with Rachel Vella, happy they finally got the place they deserve, at the head of national broadcasting culture. Because indeed, what is culture if not showering people with prizes for doing nothing, and selling them glass-paned fireplaces for those cocoa-cup wintry nights?