IMW News

1. Our new date for the High Court petition oral arguments regarding our demand that Eitan Oren be indicted has been set for February 14, 2000. However, the State Prosecution is insisting that we present, in typed format, all the police interrogation records we have. Our lawyers argue that we are obliged to present only those that are relevant to our case. There might be a delay. We received three VHS video cassettes containg the material shot on the night of the swearing-in ceremony but not the original BETA cassette. We reviewed the material and are doubtful that it represents all the footage shot that evening. We hope to be able to have a professional lab check, if we receive the BETA and if it still exists.

2. The Attorney-General's office has finally acknowledged receipt of our three complaints against the appointment of Ma'ariv editor Yaakov Erez as chairperson of the Wye Incitement Committee - they have asked the Prime Minister's Legal Advisor to repsond -, our police complaint against censorship on Kol Yisrael listeners' program and our demand that Rafik Halaby, IBA TV news director, be suspended due to police investigation and their opinion that he be charged.

3. Yaakov Achimeir, senior IBA TV correspondent, editor and presenter, published a Letter to the Editor in the Ha'Aretz Weekend Supplement on January 28, 2000 denouncing the actions of his colleagues in Kol Yisrael, calling them "mouth stuffing", indirectly supporting our complaint.

4. IMW is gearing up for another appearance before the Knesset's Finance Committee which is to authroize the IBA's budget for 2000. We have received a copy and will prepare a brief explaining its shortcomings.

5. IMW complained to the new IBA Ombudsman, Amos Goren, that interview show host, Daliah Ya'iri, during the month of December 9-January 5, had double the amount of pro- government respondents in the matter of the Golan and the Syrian negotiations than anti-government guests, not to mention the pro-government commentators that appeared. IMW noted that our review monitoring indicated gross imbalance.

6. Outgoing IBA Ombudsman, Viktor Grayevsky, included words of praise for IMW's activities in his Fifth Annual Report just issued.

-  Help needed

We still need all the help we can get. IMW needs monitors, listeners and recorders to follow the Golan/Syrian Negotiation coverage.  If you can commit yourself to at least on program, call the office or post an e-mail. We're looking for imbalance, lack of diversity in commentary, expressions of personal opinion, unfair interview techniques, slanted reporting, etc.

Reminder!
You may hear Rami Sadan and Yisrael Medad discussing media issues on their popular radio program "Chofesh HaShidur" (The Freedom of Broadcasting) on Arutz 7, Sunday mornings live! between 8-9AM.

Israel's Media Watch finds this New York Times article relevant not only as a general comment on the state of television culture but notes that Israel's Channel Two has begun broadcasting a similar program which has already drawn criticism.

1. January 30, 2000 Television's New Voyeurism Pictures Real-Life Intimacy By BILL CARTER The European invasion began with "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", which transformed the competitive landscape of network television. Now, just months later, a new wave of formats, all based on real-life experience voyeuristically captured on camera, is coming from abroad. The shows range from examinations of people trying to survive on a desert island to people trying to get along while locked together in various settings of forced intimacy -- in a house, on a bus or a tourist vacation, in a home set up to match conditions 100 years ago.

The shows, many of which will have ambitious Internet components, have been described as various combinations of MTV's cinema verite show "The Real World," the syndicated talk show "Jerry Springer" and, of course, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," which came from Britain. One show makes its Orwellian aura overt: It is called "Big Brother."

Virtually all the shows have been significant hits in European countries. "Big Brother" is a phenomenon in Holland, even spawning a second series, a talk show where the events on the show are exhaustively discussed. It is the chance for the networks -- which have been losing viewers to cable television for at least a decade -- to create the kind of phenomenon in this country that ABC did with "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," which is driving network executives to pursue the other inventive European television formats that break the mold of comedies, dramas and news programs. In fact, the bidding for the American version of "Big Brother" reached a fever pitch last week, with prices escalating to a point where one senior network executive labeled the process "totally nuts." A deal for "Big Brother" is expected this week, with CBS the front-runner. In a first, plans call for the show to run for 100 consecutive nights in prime time. That would give CBS the first two examples of this genre, because the network is already deep into its planning for a 13-episode summer series called "Survivor" -- a giant hit in Sweden -- in which 16 people will be stranded on an island off Borneo in the Pacific Ocean, charged with finding ways to survive.

Cast members will be eliminated each week by vote of the other contestants until one is the final survivor, winning $1 million. "Survivor" has lined up eight sponsors, and they will be given product-placement opportunities. For example, Reebok is a sponsor; the contestants will most likely be wearing Reebok shoes. Leslie Moonves, president of CBS Television, said the move toward these wilder formats reflected the network's conclusion that tried-and-true television, like situation comedies on brightly lit Hollywood sound stages, now leaves many American viewers cold. "What's happening is people are realizing you need to be different," Mr. Moonves said. "You can't go with the same old meat and potatoes anymore. You've got to shake things up. And clearly people are realizing it's a big world out there and shows really can come from the other side of the Atlantic."

The reality shows have an economic advantage over scripted series: they do not employ vast numbers of writers and they have no expensive stars at all. That points to a downside for Hollywood. Mr. Moonves said that every game show in prime time cost the industry 100 jobs. Producers have already complained that the proliferation of news magazines and game shows are radically shrinking prime-time opportunities.

"There's no question that if the reality shows take off there will be a contraction in the business," he said. "There could be a real shift in who's working and not working." More than anything, the move toward the European shows reflects the effect of "Millionaire," which has transformed the network prime-time ratings race, pulling ABC from a likely third place this season to a near-certain first-place finish. "Millionaire" has already fathered a brood of game shows. Last year there were no game shows on network prime time.

Now there are eight hours of games each week. Because "Millionaire" emerged from Britain as a fully developed hit, network executives have started looking at other European shows. One agent who has been in the middle of many of the negotiations for these new programs, Ben Silverman, head of international packaging for the William Morris Agency, lived for more than four years in England. "I scoured the TV listings all over Europe looking for shows that sounded interesting," Mr. Silverman said. "The European producers don't come from the American system. They don't have this trecord that leads them to reject certain ideas. They also don't have the infrastructure to support shows full of writers and stars. So they have to find innovative stuff."

Mr. Silverman, along with a William Morris partner in Los Angeles, Greg Lipstone, represented the British company Celador in negotiations with ABC for "Millionaire," which was supposed to be nothing more than a summer series. After it became a hit, Mr. Silverman started getting calls about othEuropean properties he had already lined up. Even PBS called, securing the rights to a show produced by a British company called Wall to Wall. This one, "1900 House," involves bringing a family into a home with cameras and making them live just as they would have a century ago -- without, for example, television.

But "Big Brother," owned by the Dutch company Endemol Entertainment, is currently the hottest property in this genre. Mark Itkin, the senior vice president of William Morris for reality programs, said: "I had no idea the bidding would be so hot. But the show has so many elements, from being on 100 days in a row to an Internet component that is especially attractive to networks." Mr. Silverman first believed only a cable network would make the commitment to Endemol's format: 100 consecutive nights of "Big Brother." But after "Millionaire," three big broadcast networks jumped into the bidding, each promising to broadcast "Big Brother" essentially every single night this summer. "Big Brother" throws a group of 10 people, mostly in their 20's, into a new house constructed with cameras and recording equipment everywhere to document their every move. In Holland that included everything from showers to sex, though an American version is clearly not going to go that far.

In Holland, the Internet helped drive the show because users could log onto the show's Web site, pick out certain characters and cameras, and literally watch 24 hours a day. Each week one cast member is voted out, with viewers participating by phone and Internet. The last cast member standing in Holland won 250,000 guilders, about $111,000. Many of the elements are similar to "Survivor," so similar, that Mark Burnett, who is producing "Survivor" for CBS, said the show's British originators had filed suit against Endemol. The suit is pending. Mr. Burnett described "Survivor" as "a little bit of 'Truman Show' and 'Lord of the Flies,' with an edgy 'Gilligan's Island' thrown in." Currently Mr. Burnett is whittling down the hundreds of applicants for "Survivor," using, among other things, a battery of psychological tests. He hopes to avoid the unfortunate outcome of the show's first edition in Sweden, when one cast member committed suicide after being rejected by his comrades. And that was in a format that was softer than the American version. In Sweden, cast members decided by voting whom they wanted to remain on the island. Mr. Burnett acknowledged that the American version would be far more Darwinian. Individuals will be voted out by the group. Though CBS may lead this trend, program executives at the other networks are likely to try to come up with their own, similar formats.

Mike Darnell, executive vice president of special programs for Fox, has been highly inventive in the reality arena, coming up with the concepts for everything from the game show "Greed" to "When Good Pets Go Bad." He was also the man behind the now-scrapped idea to crash a Boeing 747 live in the desert.

Mr. Darnell's latest brainstorm is a special, set for Feb. 15, called "Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire," in which 50 female contestants will be whittled down by beauty pageant-like contests and extensive interviewing to five finalists, all in wedding gowns, one of whom will be proposed to and married on the air, live, by a willing millionaire.

"All these shows are voyeuristic," Mr. Darnell said. "After a while they become soap operas. That's why casting is so important. The people you pick will determine whether you're a hit or a bomb."

Robert Thompson, founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, called the trend toward voyeurism shows an inevitable confluence of advances in technology and basic human interest.

"Popular culture is beginning to catch up with our real behavior," Mr. Thompson said. "We all talk about family values, but that's not how most of us operate as human beings. In some ways, this is the programmers discovering what TV was always so great at in the first place. This is Peeping Tom to the max."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

2) The state-owned Television New Zealand (TVNZ) has been ordered to abandon its predominantly commercial objectives and concentrate on being a public broadcaster. The Government will establish a charter for TVNZ which ''brings public interest objectives for its development to the fore'', the Prime Minister, Ms Helen Clark, said yesterday. She said TVNZ, which operates two commercial channels, had put the pursuit of profit ahead of public responsibilities under the last nine years of conservative government rule as it competed with the privately owned TV3. Ms Clark's Government came to power last November. ''Ministers wish to see TVNZ offering more programming reflecting New Zealand perspectives, culture and identity,'' she said. Ms Clark spoke amid public concern about a multi-million-dollar payout to former newsreader John Hawkesby, who was sacked in January 1999 after just 24 days on the job. Ms Clark said the Government had rejected a TVNZ proposal to spend more than $156 million on a digital television service because it would divert attention ''from its responsibilities as a public interest broadcaster''. She added that she did envisage a digital service in the longer term. Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/0002/01/world/world5.html

DPA / Bloomberg

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