Who’s Afraid of digital television?

December 16, 2011
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By Pablo Perel.

You are at home, you feel as comfortable as possible on a couch, chair or stool, or perhaps lie in bed and turn on the TV. From that moment, without being fully aware of it and almost without realizing it, you carry in one hand a powerful and ruthless that shakes multimillion companies and influential and glamorous entrepreneurs: the remote control.

From the moment half a century ago, when someone realized that the advertising rates, and therefore the income of a private TV channel depended linearly on the audience, the activity became one of the most fiercely competitive in human civilization, a fact perhaps only comparable to the mammalian male competition to gain supremacy over the herd, time to procreate. These struggles were winning instinctive force of low blows and dirty tricks of boxing, rather than have implemented techniques chivalry. The results of these contests gave the TV the no little deserved nickname of “boob.”

The public television stations and cable TV signals were partially immune to this struggle generating productions more intellectually more ambitious and greater respect for the intelligence of the viewer.

A few days ago under the FyMTI (Market Festival and International TV Fiction), held in Buenos Aires, we had Charo Calvo, renowned directors of the group Antena 3 of Spain, which in Europe has begun to decline and withdrawal of reality shows because the public “feels disgust of themselves to be spectators of this kind of television.”

On the other hand, a popular Sunday columnist of an centenary newspaper wrote an article in which predicted the most resounding failure resulting from the production of Digital TV contests in Argentina, based on an inconsistent equation of rating, international market and quality.

It is interesting to note that while a voice says the trend is audience are moving away from the degrading television, other voice predicts a bleak future for those who refrain from producing garbage television.

Article 53 of the Law on Audiovisual Communication Services 26,522 speaks of promoting “national audiovisual content production for all formats and media, facilitating dialogue, cooperation and business organization among economic actors and public institutions, private and academic benefit of competitiveness.” Here is the keyword of the moment: competitiveness.

It seems to be competitive today is not to see who is faster naked and more vulgar but the favor of the public and the markets tends to lean towards more enriching productions. It is true that the digital TV productions are newborn, but even more true is that people see less and less represented for those who exhibit in a boob box.