Forget costly review — ratings are AO-kay
Timebands and classifications obsolete but a nice aid for parents
It’s long been established that bureaucracy went mad quite some time ago. You’d think by now it would have ceased being so maddening to learn of another example but nope. Stupidity, like my rage at such stupidity, knows no bounds.
This week the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) announced it would be launching a time-consuming and costly Heartbreak Island consultation process to see if free-toair TV still needs to use timebands and classification labels or if they have become obsolete in this day and age of myriad, internet-based, viewing options.
Yo BSA! I got your answers: Yes, yes and yes. You can send the “consultation” cheque straight here to the office, cheers.
What a farcical waste of time and effort and money. Let’s run through them one by one and look at why.
Doh — raise the rack
Mike McLoughlin has made a life-changing discovery about his dishwasher and he shared the revelation on social media. He has lived in his current house since 2008 and it always annoyed him that the lower level of the dishwasher wasn’t tall enough to fit his biggest dinner plates. So he’d just end up hand washing them. This week he discovered you can raise the rack to easily accommodate the dinner-sized plates. He had been hand washing dinner plates unnecessarily for 10 years! And according to the responses, he wasn’t alone . . . “18 YEARS! I’ve had mine 18 years and only just realised! I used to lie the plates down so they would wash! I’m raging and ecstatic all at the same time.” Others shared their own domestic ignorance: “This is a bit how I felt when I discovered protective film on my fridge, five years after I got it,”said one tweeter.
Oddities from around the world 1.
In Japan, where smoking is deeply ingrained in the culture, one company granted non-smoking staff an additional six days off each year to make up for the time smokers take for cigarette breaks. The change in company policy is intended to encourage staff to quit smoking.
Eighties saxophonist Kenny G’s 1989 recording Going Home is China’s unofficial national “closing song” for businesses such as food courts, outdoor markets, health clubs, shopping malls, and train stations.
In 1991, America’s best selling “car” was the Little Tikes-Cozy Coupe. Described as “a cross between a Volkswagen Beetle and Fred Flintstone’s vehicle” the Cozy Coupe was selling 500,000 units per year, making it the top-selling model in the United States, outselling the 399,000 Accords and
299,000 Taurus vehicles sold that year.
2. 3. Entertainment indulgence for super rich
Imagine this: Eleven people are looking on as a couple argue in bed on the 39th floor of a fancy hotel in London. This is the latest entertainment indulgence for the super wealthy: a private West End theatre production. The high-end suite was transformed into a 1930s apartment for the setting of Noel Coward’s Tonight at 8:30. The audience sit in chairs around the perimeter of the room. If you have the money, production crews promise to transform any space into a theatre set and actors will create “the most intimate play you’ve ever seen”. The producer Lucy Eaton, 30, tells the Guardian: “It was an incredible experience and the guests said they were so sold on the intimacy of it.” The intimate experience does not come cheap, however. The average price of production is £5000 and longer or more complex plays can cost a lot more. “It is expensive,” Eaton said. “But it really is an elite luxury experience for lords, sheikhs and CEOs.”
The timeband dictates what shows can and can’t screen before a certain time on free-to-air TV. You can liken them to The Wall in Game of Thrones. Only here the fortification is to defend innocents’ eyes from the onslaught of adult-orientated material rather than the realm of man from unstoppable snow zombies.
So no snow zombies killing everyone on TVNZ, Three, Maori TV or Prime until after the kids are safely tucked up in bed.
Sure, it sounds a quaint notion considering you can flick over to any of Sky’s channels, log on the various demand services like Netflix or even stream good ol’ free YouTube and get your fill of sex, drugs and/or violence at any time of the day or night. And maybe it is. But right now, timebands aren’t hurting anyone, they keep kids from seeing stuff they shouldn’t — at least a little bit — and they help keep the facade of decency alive. And when you have young kids that’s reassuring.
The other thing the BSA feels it needs to consult about is whether the classification system should change from the straightforward G (General), PGR (Parental Guidance Recommended) and AO (Adults Only) ratings to the more convoluted and pointless G, PG, M (Mature), 16 and 18. I can see an argument for swapping AO to M but distinguishing between 16, 18 and AOs) . . . what’s the point? There’s none.
The BSA reckons it has research that shows only 29 per cent of parents use these classifications to restrict what their kids can watch. This number tells me that New Zealand is full of dumbass adults who are lousy parents. It does not suggest we should be consulting about rating systems or considering making them more useless, it suggests we need some serious parental guidance services.
Because if you’re the kind of parent that needs an AO rating to realise that, ya know, perhaps the slippery-bodied contestants of Heartbreak Island aren’t exactly going to be appropriate viewing for your 8-year-old kid then — newsflash — you’re a bad parent.
Tinkering at the edges and putting a 16 rating on a show instead of an AO one is not going to fix this problem. At that age teens are gonna watch all the snow zombies and slippery bodies they want. But that doesn’t matter because they’re not the target market for these classifications. They’re really there for the young ’uns.
The timeband and classifications work in tandem, both indicating whether it’s cool for your kid to watch a show or if they really shouldn’t. Just because a whole lot of numbskulls choose to ignore these does not mean they should be abandoned.
Yes, the days of the family gathering around the telly to watch free-to-air TV together are nearing their end, and the BSA admits as much, but does that mean we should abandon the pretence of living in a civilised society?
I hope not. TVNZ have been chomping at the timeband recently, there’s little doubt the aforementioned Heartbreak Island should have screened later, and I’m aware that this all sounds a bit fuddy duddy or “get off my lawn”.
But when you have kids this is the kind of stuff you have to think about. Whether you want to or not.
Whatever this consultation is costing is not worth the money. This really is obvious stuff.
Yes, the timeband should be preserved. Yes, the ratings classifications should stay as they are and, yes, all of this is fast becoming obsolete anyway. But that doesn’t mean they should go.
It’s easy to race to the bottom. But the prize isn’t worth winning.