AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

Do you remember a character in the well-known film "Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears" saying: "There'll be nothing soon: no cinema, no theatre and no books - only television…" The era of that "soon" came and went long ago. TV has grown old in a way but still will not yield ground to information technologies. TV has grown old but at the same time, at the world level, it has made a great stride. As one of the mass information media, TV remains the most popular one today, covering population strata beyond the influence of other media.

Omnipotent TV

So why is the role of TV in society so high even today when other mass media are available? TV experts say that a kind of community takes shape on the basis of the audience of a TV media outlet just because the people consciously choose to view one programme or another. TV has the task to foster in each person a sense of oneness with all the others: to strengthen the system of values common to the audience and to counter trends destructive to society. The same task faces the Azerbaijani TV as well. 

One cannot say that TV in Azerbaijan is keeping pace with world trends. At the same time we should not discard the fact that Azerbaijani TV has a relatively short history. The start of broadcasting by the state TV of Azerbaijan dates back to 1956. Undoubtedly, Soviet indoctrination had an effect on the development of TV - not only its information sphere but also entertainment, cultural and educational programmes. But the 1988 events that marked the beginning of the break-up of the Soviet Union and held up the development of TV, also led to partial decline and disintegration of the broadcasting network in Azerbaijan's territory. As Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991, measures were taken to develop a national radio and TV system independent of the centralized broadcasting network of the former Soviet Union. The formation of Azerbaijan's independent TV actually started during that period of time.

Independent channels started appearing in Azerbaijan in the late 1990s. With the advent of the market economy, the era of Soviet television so habitual to many people receded into the past. This was also connected to changes in the very nature of information, the development of information technologies and the increasingly growing volume of data. The social and political system also changed, pluralism appeared and the formation of an advertising market began.

Unfortunately, we cannot say that the years of independent TV led to a leap in its development: the small proportion of achievements gets lost in the mass of faults.  

Basing on objective realities, the crisis of domestic TV broadcasting is characterized by the poor condition of many functions that lie at the basis of good TV. Our domestic TV is lacking not only in spectacularity. It has very few high-quality educational and analytical programmes. Instead, there is a lot of colourful mishmash, potboiler entertainment, reality shows and other quite low-grade products of this sort. The low professional and intellectual standards of presenters of newscasts and other programmes deserve special attention. At prime time, when children with fragile psyche may be sitting in front of TV sets, some TV channels show representatives of the so-called show business blatantly using obscene language. Older people remember TV programmes of the Soviet period when it was impermissible to have a "free" appearance or a relaxed posture as well as flaws in speech. Selection was particularly strict on articulacy and speaking skills. Nowadays, one can ever more often see stuttering announcers, reporters with speech defects and flaws in presentation. Familiarity and liberties that the hosts of some popular programmes allow themselves to take still jar the ear of a small part of the audience. 

Seeing all this, a certain percentage of "old-school" TV viewers want the return of censorship "to keep this disgrace off the screen" and to increase the number of educational programmes. But is this as simple as it seems at first glance?

Society and market

Indeed, only the lazy would not criticize our domestic TV today. However, as Vuqar Qaradagli, the president of the ATV channel, said in an interview to a local media outlet, problems of television should not be discussed in isolation from those of society. "Those sneering at television sneer at the entire society. Television is a product of society. It is the same as to look into a mirror and sneer at yourself. We are the way we are. This is why it is a fundamental error to consider television in isolation from society," he said. According to Qaradagli, it is a different matter that one of the essential problems is the absence of a higher educational institution for training television specialists. "The main problem of television as a whole is the absence of its training component. We have no specialized staff. We have no educational institution even to train ordinary operators. By the way, there are about 100 operator specializations. We have training in none of them. We recruit operators from marquee weddings and then teach and train them. Such is our reality," Qaradagli said.

As regards intellectual content, the TV man said, programmes of this kind are produced and aired today by TV channels subsidized by the state: Public TV and state TV, because channels sponsored from the state budget are just obliged to engage in the intellectual development of society. "Using state funds, they must, like a locomotive, pull society forward. As for us, we are closely connected with the market. In this respect, our hands are tied," the ATV president said.

Struggling for high ratings

Zeynal Mammadli, a teacher of journalism and TV expert, has told R+ about some basics of the domestic TV backstage. According to him, we must be aware today that, under free market conditions, the channel management is free to choose both its strategy and the schedule and format of its programmes. As we know, commercials account for a lion's share of private channels' revenues. High rating channels receive the bulk of advertising. Struggling for their ratings, the channels have to wage a bitter war for their audience. Segmentation of this market is in progress. The channels cannot make all their products on their own and confine themselves just to newscasts. They outsource the production of high rating programmes to local or foreign production companies or buy licences for well-known foreign shows.

We have a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, the TV channels are ready to do anything to please their TV viewer offering them products they would consume with pleasure. On the other hand, the consumer devours only what they are given and have no influence on the choice and the broadcasting. According to the latest ratings, some 10-17 per cent of the population view local TV in this country, with people aged below 36 accounting for only about 30 per cent of them. Only 102,000 viewers watch TV during day and most of them are aged people. Young people and office and intellectual workers prefer to sate their hunger for information through the Internet. However, according to programmes aired by local TV, we are used to thinking that the main audience group consists of housewives and pensioners. 

Is regulation possible?

The question arises: if a channel has a high rating, why not impose a quota to make it allot part of its airtime to entertainment and another part to educational and informative programmes?

The notion of quota belongs to Soviet-era criteria. Under market conditions, there must be no quotas or restrictions. However, relics of old principles are still there. For example, a definite number of newscasts is to be aired; a programme that has been shot will go on the air irrespective of the viewer's needs and so on. Meanwhile, to maximize their success, channels should display more flexibility both in preparing and in airing their programmes. And how about censorship, in the good sense of the word? According to the expert, the notion of "censorship in the good sense" is nonsense and it is naive to believe that censorship can be positive. It will be a different matter if we change our approach and speak not about censorship but about true professionalism and good standards where things falling short of high standards are not permissible. But then we have to deal with language quality, journalist ethics and the format of products delivered. And to solve these problems, it is necessary, as they say, to "see the root" of the problem, practise a systemic approach and create a television school. Such is the opinion held by Qaradagli. 

Where is the way out?

Except the TV channels funded by the state (AzTV and Public TV receive much more money from the budget than any other channel in the region), the rest live by airing commercials. As a rule, the salaries and fees of journalists working for those channels are not very high. Accordingly, they have no particular incentive to develop. In addition, in normal terms, there must be no interference in the work of a programme producer, let alone interference in a channel's operation, but here it is regrettably not so at all. There are long-standing heads of services and editors to approve whatever thing that is going to go on the air. Programme producers are under heavy pressure. They seek to be always on the safe side and this is why quite creative products have no access to the screen. Another proof to that pressure is the prevalence of recorded programmes on our TV. It would be logical to have more live broadcasts, all the more so as they cost less than recorded ones. But their fear of surprises is so great that all our programmes, even entertainment ones, are shown on tape delay. Live broadcasts on our TV channels often show things that need no adjustment, such as "stars" of show business openly squabbling and sorting things out with one another.   

Thus, in essence, the TV channels have the freedom to choose their format and programmes. Although censorship and direct interference by the authorities in the operation of private TV channels are impermissible, the state, nonetheless, could take measures to improve the quality of TV content. After all, taking into account the fact that all TV programmes are oriented towards high ratings on which the amount of advertising depends, the state might offer incentives for private business to provide commercials for the channels to show also during educational and analytical programmes. There are various ways to do this. One of them is tax breaks. During the period of sweeping commercialization, only certain roundabout measures can somewhat raise the level of our TV.