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Published on July 30, 2007

Attempting to regulate a habit in which people have long indulged is like stirring up a hornets' nest. Those in charge of enforcing the regulations can expect resistance with stinging barbs, and success in their task will not come easily. This is what the government is facing in trying to introduce ratings and corresponding restrictions on programmes showed on free public television stations, which have an audience of tens of millions nationwide.

A meeting last week between the officials responsible and TV producers and station executives to discuss the enforcement of programme ratings ended without much progress since the latter remained adamantly opposed to such action. The regulators reportedly planned to first discuss details of the rating regulations with the participants in the hope of making them understand and cooperate, but were met with fierce resistance that marred the intended elaboration on the point.

Despite protests from members of the television business, Prime Minister's Office Minister Khunying Dhipavadee Meksawan has stood firm that the planned ratings will be implemented by the end of the year. Although this may leave the TV industry fuming over the sacrifice of the freedom they have long enjoyed in producing various programmes, the regulators may win applause from the majority of ordinary citizens for their courage in asserting such control for the greater public benefit.

That the TV producers and executives are up in arms against the ratings plan is understandable. For most of the six free TV stations, their top money-makers are Thai soap operas whose content would place them under the Parental Guidance and Restricted categories under the new rating criteria. The rating regulations will ban the airing of programmes in these categories during the daily prime time between 4pm and 8pm to prevent their possible bad influence on children. Programmes in the PG category will be allowed to air only after 8pm, while those in the R category can only be shown after 10pm. Since most of the widely popular Thai soaps that draw big adverting are currently shown between 4pm and 8pm, shifting the show times to later at night could mean a big loss of income for TV stations. A study recently released by the National Institute for Child and Family Development estimated that Channel 3 and Channel 7, the country's biggest competitors in TV soap operas, make a combined Bt1.05 billion a month from commercials aired during the soaps.

While soap-opera producers have been at the forefront of the fight against TV ratings to protect their interests, members of the public seem to have already made their voices heard through civic groups and opinion surveys that show popular support for the implementation of rating regulations. The television people's concern over their financial gain, therefore, must not by any means force the agencies responsible to back down on the enforcement of TV ratings.

Producers of Thai soap operas have long enjoyed freedom to produce dramas that can easily become big earners for TV stations, but their formula for success is not free of questionable moral points. Although most popular soaps uphold good moral and social values and end with a rewarding outcome for good people, they are often, if not habitually, laced with scenes of boisterous quarrels full of foul language, sexual harassment or even rape, and bloody assaults or killings. As long as producers maintain that they need to keep these scenes in their dramas to make them realistic or colourful, they have no excuse to have their shows exempted from being put in the PG or R categories under the new ratings system.

Viewers and ordinary folk might wonder whether it might not be easier for these television producers to stop protesting and simply omit or tone down the scenes inappropriate for children so that the shows are rated in the General category, which would allow them to keep their dramas on air during prime time. Although they may claim the need to maintain the artistic completeness of their work - besides trying to sell it with the help of these sensational scenes - the producers should be sensible enough to know that they need to make some sacrifice for the sake of public good.