by Simon Garth

Created on: October 08, 2007   Last Updated: January 20, 2009

Rising crime levels, increased rates of teenage pregnancy, underage smoking and declining public morals. These very serious social problems (along with countless others) have one thing in common. All of them have at one time or another been attributed to the pursuit of a very popular national pastime - watching television. The theory goes as follows - some parts of the viewing public, typically the young and the intellectually challenged, believe the scenes of sex, violence and aggression that are part and parcel shows such as 'Sex in the city', '24' and 'Big Brother' to be real, and that the continual exposure to these types of TV program which are played out constantly by the TV companies encourages disruptive and anti-social behaviour. The thrust of the argument is that the TV companies affect how we behave as they control what is broadcast on the television.

Anyone who holds this view is missing the fundamental point about the nature of television, which is that TV is all about ratings - the one thing any hard bitten TV executive wants more than anything else in the world is bumper audience figures for their shows. The more viewing ratings a show gets, the easier it is to attract advertising, which in turn means more revenue for the TV Corporation. So it is for this reason that television companies spend vast amounts of money researching ways to get viewers for their programs. The fact of the matter is that the survival of any TV series is dependant on its ability to attract and maintain the attention of the viewing public.

Since no TV Corporation is going to produce a show that no one wants to watch, the pursuit of ratings ensures that the public get more or less exactly the sort of television they want. Any ideals and values portrayed in these programs just mirror the beliefs and the wants of the people watching. It is the wants and beliefs of the audience that shapes the TV shows produced, not the other way round.

Blaming television for society's ills is the text book example of shooting the messenger, as it is we, the viewers, society itself, that dictates what is shown on television. Laying the blame for social ills at the door of television is taking the easy option. Presumably, the belief is that by using TV as a scapegoat, the duty to take responsibility for ones own actions and to do something about societies problems is some how absolved. It is the most shameless case of buck passing ever.

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