Going for the Big Break / Shouting at the Box

1. Pity the poor television advertiser. He fights for our attention, but it is an unequal fight. We turn on our TV sets to watch programmes; he would rather we watched his adverts. And these days the advertiser has something else to contend with: the zapper, the remote control. The moment a programme is finished or even half-way finished the selfish viewer turns the telly off, or over.

2. Remember the time when there was no such thing as a remote control for the telly and you had to haul yourself out of the armchair to change channels? Now everything is about to change again with a new voice-activated method.

3. The idea is that instead of pressing buttons, we will be able to channel-hop simply by shouting commands at the set, which will react using “voice recognition”. “Channel One, you ‘orrible little telly”, gets you BBC1, and so on.

4. This is the problem tackled by the Zapper and the Advertiser, a new study from the Billett Consultancy. The consultancy looked at 1,000 households. You could have worked out most of the findings yourself, but there are a couple of surprises.

5. The first is that quality is appreciated. Billet found that more people are likely to get bored with a one-hour LA Law than a one-hour Maigret. Eight per cent of live football watchers flip over during half-time, never to return. People change over half as often during weekends.

6. Perhaps now is the time to remove programme credits, Billett say, their logic being that most people switch off when the credits come on, anyway.

7. This is a bit like a biscuit manufacturer announcing that it will no longer make the first and last biscuits in a pack because they always get broken. Billett believes that ITV could increase the number of viewers aged 16 to 24 if it stopped end-credits and end-break advertising.

8. Can you imagine the chaos throughout the living rooms of Britain if this thing catches on?

9. “We also wonder whether a sensible change would be to increase the advertising minutage for centre-breaks during peak hours and a reduction in end-break minutage.” So, this could be the future: a brief pause for breath between programmes, but a massive slice of advertising during them. The advertisers will get you yet.

10. At least with the zapper there is only one person in charge of the set at a time. As far as I can make out, using this technique, …whoever shouts the quickest wins. There’ll be my husband bellowing “three, three, three,” for the news the kids screaming “six, six, six” for Sky, and me shouting at it to switch itself off.

11. At which point the set will probably have a breakdown. Life was so much simpler when the set stayed on the same channel for three days because no one could be bothered to get up and change it.

Vocabulary Exercises

Ex. 1. Find words and expressions in your key vocabulary list that have a similar meaning to the following.

1) to off-load one’s responsibility;

2) short extract of a film used to advertise it in advance;

3) the time after which programmes for adults are shown;

4) a detrimental effect or influence of television;

5) to change channels;

6) indiscriminate viewers;

7) violence;

8) violence on TV or in films;

9) a film with a lot of violence.

Ex. 2. Complete the sentences with a suitable form of the word or phrase from the key vocabulary list. The first letter of the word is given.

1. They say there’s a lot of evidence that such like programmes have an a… i… on children’s behaviour.

2. Nowadays children grow up a… to the telly spending hours g… to television screens.

3. The f… of a q… show that parents and educationalists have always been concerned about the influence of television on children.

4. New v… d… t… only give viewers possibility not only to have more control over what they are watching but also may become one of the means to r… l… of v… on television.

5. Though the v… i… of television on our perception can hardly be underestimated, there is hardly any doubt that TV provides us mainly with s… e… absolutely i… to r… l… .

6. O… t… is a short preview of a future radio or television programme or a new picture.

Ex. 3.

A

moral standards perverted banned counter-productive masquerading unscrupulous degrades excessive

safeguards corrupting infringes gratuitous

. Put each of the following words or phrases in its correct place below.

The amount of offensive material we are exposed to in films nowadays is surely (1) … . Most people accept that scenes of sex and violence are sometimes necessary to tell a story, but all too often these scenes are (2) … ; they are unnecessary and simply inserted in the film to appeal to the baser human instincts. Censorship is necessary, especially to protect children from the (3) … influence of such scenes, often (4) … as art, in our cinemas. There should also be censorship of pornographic magazines produced by (5) … people willing to cater to the (6) … tastes of a small minority. Such material destroys the innocence of the young and (7) … all who read it. On the other hand, there are those who say that something which is (8) … becomes desirable so censorship is (9) … , and that censorship (10) … on our freedom of choice. However freedom is not merely freedom to do what we want but freedom from attempts to destroy society’s (11) … . Censorship provides the (12) … by which society protects itself.

B. Complete the sentences by using the correct forms of the key words.

mayhem gore a tube (US) couch potato zap gory

mayhem a viewer a box (telly) zapper remote-control

1. Even if the set is on, there is no guarantee that … are giving it their full attention. 45 per cent say they read during programmes, 27 per cent talk on the phone and 26 per cent do housework.

2. Do you think there are a lot of high-powered lawyers, doctors out there who say they don’t watch TV and secretly go home at night and turn the … on and play … ?

3. People think that because you’re on the … and act like a fool, you must be like that all the time.

4. Despite its claims to superiority, the BBC is likely to start as the 56th button on an American viewer’s … .

5. Whatever they pay, customers are left with a … zapper that looks as if it could land a spaceship.

6. … through the television channels in a big American city. You will naturally get at least one Spanish-language channel beaming in news of Latin America and lurid Spanish-language soap operas.

7. All the available evidence suggests a huge public appetite for lust and … .

8. It’s not a family film as it’s a bit messy in parts and some scenes are very … .

9. Hans, played by Hans Hirschmuller, has taken to beating up his young wife Irmgard (Irm Hermann). This tale of domestic … contains many of the usual Fassbinder traits.

10. Glancing through the television programmes for the week I was struck by the number of films advertised containing violence, murder and … .

Ex. 4. Read the text and decide which answer (A, B, C or D) best completes each collocation or fixed phrase.

A

After more than fifty years of television, it might seem only too obvious to conclude that it is (1) D to stay. There have been many objections to it during this time, of course, and on a variety of grounds. Did it cause eye-strain? Was the screen bombarding us with radioactivity? Did the advertisements contain subliminal (2) … , persuading us to buy more or vote Republican? Did children turn to violence through watching it, either because so many programmes taught them how to shoot, rob, and kill, or because they had to do something to (3) … the hours they had spent (4) … to the tiny screen? Or did it simply create a vast passive audience, drugged by glamorous serials and inane situation comedies? On the other hand, did it increase anxiety by (5) … the news and (6) … our living rooms with war, famine and political unrest?

1) A around B there C ready D here

2) A information B messages C data D communications

3) A counteract B negate C offset D compensate

4) A attached B fixed C glued D adhered

5) A scandalizing B hyping C dramatizing D sensationalizing

6) A filling B loading C stuffing D packing

B

With the advent of so-called “Reality TV”, which puts the emphasis on ordinary people doing ordinary things on TV, the BBC has been much criticized for (1) C down its schedules. But it worries me that the biggest victims of this never-ending diet of violent cartoons, immoral dramas and banal docu-soaps is the nation’s children. The sheer quantity of TV watched by the under 16 is truly alarming, with the national (2) … for Britain placed at three and a half hours per day. The programmes that are rubbish easily (3) … the programmes that are decent and watchable. There will no doubt be howls of (4) … out there from people who believe that TV is educational. Fast-moving visual images (5) … no useful educational purpose and will be forgotten by the next day. A young family near me has recently taken a (6) … against TV and given their set away. Their children now do something truly educational. They read books.

1. A dimming B dumping C dumbing D duncing

2. A medium B norm C average D par

3. A outdistance B outdo C outreach D outnumber

4. A protest B complaint C objection D disapproval

5. A fill B serve C make D form

6. A position B place C stand D stage

Ex. 5. Give the English equivalents of the following words and phrases.

Проводить время у телевизора; переключать телевизор с канала на канал; пульт дистанционного управления; зрители, которые проводят много вре­мени у экранов телевизоров; результаты анкетирования; реклама фильма; перекладывать ответственность; оказывать вредное влияние; контролировать программы, которые смотрят дети; время, после которого транслируются программы для взрослых; сцены насилия; фильм, содержащий сцены насилия.

Ex. 6. Translate into English.

1. Выпускаемые в США телевизоры должны быть оснащены специальным устройством, которое позволяет родителям осуществлять контроль за тем, какие программы смотрят их дети. 2. Его любимое времяпрепровождение – сидеть перед телевизором и переключаться с канала на канал с помощью пульта дистанционного управления. 3. Телевидение часто обвиняют в том, что экран заполнили сцены, изображающие драки и убийства. 4. Нет прямого доказательства тому, что телевидение оказывает вредное влияние на детей и что дети становятся более агрессивными, если смотрят телевизор. 5. Резуль­таты анкетирования показали, что многие родители не следят за тем, что и когда смотрят их дети. 6. Исследователи пришли к вы­воду, что дети, которые проводят много времени у телевизоров, отстают от своих сверстников в школе. 7. За последние десятилетия люди настолько пристрастились к теле­видению, что часами сидят прикованные к телеэкранам.

Here are some arguments for and against TV sets in our homes.

Pro: Nobody imposes TV on you. If you don’t like it, don’t buy a set – or switch off! We must watch TV to be well-informed. There is often a considerable variety of programmes and we can select what we want to see. TV is considered to be a source of information and entertainment. TV offers enormous possibilities for education: e.g. close-circuit TV-surgery; schools broadcasts; educating adult illiterates; specialized subjects: e.g. language teaching. TV provides outlet for creative talents: many playwrights, actors, etc., emerged from TV. TV is a unifying force in the world.

Con: We begin to forget what we did before television. Free time now is regulated by it. Monster demands: absolute silence and attention; daren’t open your mouth. Whole generations are growing up addicted, neglecting other things. Children are exposed to rubbishy commercials, violence, etc. With TV we have passive enjoyment and second-hand experiences. Because of TV we are cut off from real world, we become lazy, glued to sets instead of going out. Television is totally irrelevant to real living.

7. Can you think of any arguments to justify censorship apart from the need to protect the audience from undesirable influences. Discuss and justify your decisions. Here are some arguments on both sides.