Turning off the blinding light so that I might see
Tomorrow I will turn off my television and not turn it on again for forty days. I might not turn it on again at all if I keep reading stuff like this:
Despite its protestations to the contrary, RTÉ must pipe the tunes of those who pay the most, that is to say, the commercial interests who want bland pap that will not disturb the trance of consumers. Certainly some tunes must necessarily be dictated to the people who authorise or pay the licence fee, but these are placatory offerings to appease vengeful minor gods. The real business is bread and circuses at the behest of the advertising pantheon. And this has always been RTÉ’s balancing act: trying to keep both paymasters happy. The choice is easy. One lobby is a well-heeled and articulate coterie of global profiteers; the other is the disorganised and disparate million-odd who pay the licence fee which is their personal entertainment tax, and who are effectively disenfranchised.
I’m half-way through Bob Quinn’s Maverick, his account of his time as a member of the RTÉ Authority along with his outspoken views on the role of the public broadcaster. It’s an interesting insight into the workings of RTÉ and into the sorry state of our national identity. It also offers some glimpses into the possibilities of an alternative Ireland. Writing in 2001, Quinn was ringing alarm bells about the corruption of the public service remit by commercial forces. If anything it’s even worse now with the You’re a Star generation and the advent of programme funding by text message.
Let’s see how long I last in the wilderness.
Mark Waters marked time at 10:01 pm on February 20th, 2007 .
Life without television isn’t that bad, actually. There’s rarely anything worth watching. Now if I were going to give up something that was hard to give up, it would be my broadband connection.
Good luck.
Thanks. It feels like giving up cigarettes. A dirty habit that’s hard to break even though you know it’s killing you.
Giving up the broadband connection is probably the equivalent of coming off heroin.
Plus, the heroin will help you forget the cigarettes ‘cos you can watch most of the rare good stuff on telly on the net anyway (or is that allowed?)
Also, are you allowing yourself watch DVDs on the TV?
Believe it or not, there’s been serious discussion about whether internet watching and DVDs are allowed. My opinion is that they should be allowed since they require the viewer to choose what they’re going to watch rather than passively accept whatever is pushed in front of them. My bugbear is the passivity that television induces.
The committee has yet to make a decision on this. We’ll see how well the committee holds up after being starved of cathode rays for a week.
Well, for cigarettes/heroin, I wouldn’t really have a clue. I’ve never tried either. I failed with tea though. The withdrawal symptoms made me quite sick.
As for the DVD/internet quandary, I’d say DVDs probably okay but internet stuff probably not so okay. But I’m very good at avoiding television if I’m bored with it. Are you allowed cable radio? Because that’s what would catch me out. I listen to ClassicFM via the digibox/television whilst reading or doing needlework.
I think DVDs should definitely be allowed, on the grounds that it’s not that different to going to the cinema (presumably allowed).
Watching TV on the net could be a difficult one to sway with the committee, though.
The committee has spoken and as you predicted DVDs get the thumbs up but a no-no on the Internet. So no more smashing telly
.
As for cable radio I think that’s allowed but unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to configure my dodgy FTA satellite box (and when I say dodgy I mean when you google the make and model you come up with zero hits - well zero that don’t contain Cinese characters anyway).
It’s very peaceful here at the moment.
Nice link, Mark. Truly appreciate it. Hadn’t come across it before. It’s a long time since I had anything to do with a satbox but isn’t it just a case of tuning in different audio subchannels on the …. better not go there.
Internet radio though is good. BBC in particular.
Glorious opportunity to rediscover your CD collection though.