TV and Entertainment

THE SMALL and delightful movie, Morning Glory (2010), breezed through Manila without much fanfare and review. Chock-full of lessons on the place of news and entertainment in television, its plot projects the force of entertainment on news and the special place of morning programs in American television. Designed to draw the predictably low level of attention of people getting ready to go to work or those assisting them and school children, AM programs have succeeded in carving out a special niche in programming—providing a mix of segments: the news brief for the day, features which may be pegged to some current news or not, lots of variety and color, presented to please as they inform.

I must confess that I am too late a riser to have become a watcher of local morning programs, and this discussion is without reference to any particular case, here or abroad.

I did say the movie was delightful. The appeal of Rachel McAdams gets full play in the role of Becky Fuller, a newly hired executive producer for a bottom crawler of a morning show, Daybreak. Diane Keaton brings her comedic talents to the portrayal of Daybreak’s anchor Colleen Peck, a television diva past her prime as a beauty pageant queen.

Becky is given the quite impossible job of lifting the show’s ratings. She asks the network to pull in from paid retirement Mike Pomeroy, played by Harrison Ford. He comes to the show with the ego of a television journalist descending from a golden age, a period he dominated with sufficient proof, not just one but several Pulitzer Prizes and Emmys. Network management had pulled him out as anchor of the evening news program, to pump the show with new and young blood that might sustain the ratings. To appease him and salve the wounds, he is kept on contract and paid to do nothing. Betty argues: Why not give him something to do? The legal terms forces Mike to go back to work, and he does with all the arrogance of a media legend.

Becky needs to raise the ratings or they will all be out of their jobs. And she draws on the usual stuff of entertainment to get the show to jiggle its way upward, a bit too slowly but enough to get notice in the industry.

The movie makes its point with a screaming argument between producer and star, the latter speaking from the fabled heights of where he had been, insisting to her that news can only be serious and everything else in television waters down and removes whatever gravitas he and his kind has given it. Well, Becky argues, you have lost that debate. Television is about entertainment.

The point darkens the future of television in a slowly developing democracy like the Philippines. Academic studies have shown that television is now the main source of political information for most Filipinos. If all television tried to do was entertain, to distract with mindless diversion, then we may as well cast our elections to the futility of democratic efforts, and be lost forever in the wasteland of corrupt politics, bad governance, and the steadfast claim of bliss in ignorance.

Of course it is not all television’s fault. But with little else going for the growing of a discerning and thoughtful electorate, television’s power obliges it to bear greater responsibility.

The movie subtext says much more, at least to me. I edited the first television magazine in the country, a period which brought home the potential of the medium to teach and to educate—not quite in the way the classroom teaches, but in popularizing issues and translating its discussion that makes sense for ordinary people. The entertainment factor eases the learning, the way good teachers try to teach the most difficult chapters of the book—with imagination.

In many ways, shows that entertain should also, with a little bit of effort, teach.

The Philippines stands out for having started television as private sector enterprise.  In most countries, the state undertakes the primary responsibility of television programming, and then allows the private sector to operate pieces of the industry. The tradition has enshrined the place of public broadcasting that state funds support. The quality of the service depends much on the talent that the medium draws. But the orientation of these state run media do tend to take the instructional purpose to heart. In contrast, commerce and corporate profit rules Philippine television.

Some may see the benefits of Philippine experience in having livelier and more colorful presentations than television in the region. But what about public learning?

When Martial Law ended, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP, Association of Broadcasters of the Philippines) which was established as a way of legitimizing control through self-regulation, television owners removed the requisite ratio of public education to entertainment in television programming. Good bye, public service values, and no one even asked why?

Mine may be a minority view. But the liberation of broadcasting, both radio and television, from government control has led to the regime of ratings, and in Sheila Coronel’s words, “the tyranny of the market” and commercialization of electronic mass media.

With the rise of more all news channels, I had looked forward to more creative and inventive treatment of news. What we have seen so far is the cheap and easy resort to the mechanics of showbusiness, not only with kinetic production techniques, but with a sickening overdose of showbiz news.

If all this show business were wed to real entertainment, we would have some real serious television. The best kind of entertainment is awfully serious business. It was entertainment that produced the great dramas and operas of an age.

I am informed about the great improvements in television drama. A little bit of effort would go a long way to upgrade the reach and value of news segments and public affairs.

Television in the Philippines has attracted more investments and operates as big business. Those working on camera earn top salaries that may outrank those given to their counterparts in business organizations. Sorry, the stars have no counterparts.

Such financial gains must oblige some form of pay back to the audience. Television must offer more choices, and in reaching out to a wider audience, craft the magic of the medium to engage and challenge the mind as it touches the heart.

Yes, I agree with Becky, television should be entertaining, which does not mean that it cannot be instructive and educational in the best sense of the word. One need not cancel out the other.