Don't let your dreams
go up in
smoke
The Rating On The Wall:
Israel Television Has Exploded
GAIL LICHTMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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nce in the not so distant
past, Israel had only one
television station — the
government-operated Is-.
rael Broadcasting Authority.
Back in those days, if you stood
outside on a warm summer night,
when windows and doors were
left open, at the time the night-
ly news was broadcast an almost
surreal scene would emerge.
From every home on the block,
the eerily flickering image of
newscaster Haim Yavin could be
seen casting its bluish pallor in
living room after living room
while his voice reverberated
throughout the neighborhood.
We were a united nation, with
only one choice in TV viewing. We
all watched the same programs,
and at work and at school we dis-
cussed what we had seen the
night before, confident that our
colleagues knew exactly what we
were talking about.
But thex90s changed this. First
came cable TV with a choice of
some 40 stations. Approximate-
ly 750,000 Israeli households in
a country of 5 million signed on.
Then, in November 1993, Chan-
nel 2, Israel's first homegrown
commercial television station,
was established.
No longer were all Israelis
watching D3A. Suddenly we had
choices — American talk shows,
German game shows, Spanish
soap operas, CNN, BBC, MTV,
Sky, Turkish TV, Russian TV,
two rival Hebrew-language news-
casts — the possibilities seemed
endless. Israel had joined the
global village.
A recent poll found Israelis
watching more CNN news dur-
ing a 24-hour period than cable
subscribers in any of the other
210 countries where CNN is
broadcast. A whopping 28.2 per-
cent of Israeli cable subscribers
tune in to CNN at least once a
day.
But it was the advent of Chan-
nel 2, more than cable, which re-
ally changed Israeli viewing
habits. Here was a commercial
station striving to support itself
through advertising revenues.
Suddenly, ratings became the key
word in television programming.
No longer could the stations be
impervious to their viewers' pref-
erences. Market shares, audience
demographics, etc., were in. Ad-
vertisers demanded to know
these things.
In the absence of people me-
ters (the famous little black box-
es of American television ratings),
y is subject to debate depending on
The Israeli version of "Wheel of
Fortune."
duct telephone polls and IBA
hired Consu-Shiluv. And lo and
behold, the pollsters found that
Israelis across the demographic
board prefer local, Hebrew-lan-
guage productions over foreign
programs, no matter how inter-
nationally popular the imports
are.
Gallup found that local pro-
grams in Hebrew make up 92
percent of the top 40 shows.
So, with Channel 2 just gear-
ing up and its franchisers reluc-
tant to invest in big-budget
`The public
votes with the
remote.'
— Yaron Ezrahi
productions, Israel ended up with
the year of the talk shows. Talk
is cheap and talk shows all the
more so. No expensive on-loca-
tion shoots. No scenery. No cos-
tumes. All you need is a host and
a couple of chairs.
A dozen talk shows currently
grace Israel's airwaves weekly.
The second big hit of the past
year has been game shows, more
expensive than talk shows but
still way below dramas. There are
Israeli versions of "Wheel of For-
tune," "The Dating Game," "Let's
Make a Deal," and "Hollywood
Squares," plus a few homegrown
varieties.
Viewing of the once dominant
IBA nightly news dipped from a
mighty 33 percent of the viewing
audience in March 1994 to 19
percent by October.
It has generally been accepted
that Channel 2 has emerged as
whether one looks at Gallup or
Consu-Shiluv polls.
.7, Nevertheless, Channel 2 is
ahead in popularity with all age
groups except the over-55 set.
Those most pleased with Chan-
nel 2 programming, according to
Gallup, are the young (12 to 17)
and those with a high-school ed-
ucation or less.
The fact that the game shows
are less than intellectual fare and
that many of the talk shows im-
itate the worst sensationalism of
their American counterparts,
plus the overall focus on the
young, has resulted in claims that
Israeli television is pitching itself
to the lowest common denomi-
nator in the race for ratings.
Coverage of the Dizengoff bus
bombing seemed to confirm this
view. Unprecedented gruesome
footage of the carnage was broad-
cast on both IBA and Channel 2
news in apparent efforts to cap-
ture the larger audience share.
But the stations themselves
deny this. Channel 2 points with
pride to such programs as "Fact,"
a "60 Minutes"-style documen-
tary and "Gov Night,' a more
highbrow talk show.
IBA director Yair Stern says
the channel is aiming for quality
plus popularity. In line with this,
IBA recently screened "Kastner,"
a locally made historical drama
dealing with the Dr. Rudolph
Kastner libel trial in the 1950s.
Now that just about everyone
in Israel seems to have been in-
terviewed during the past year
on one of the talk shows, what
does the future have in store?
In the short run, fewer talk
shows. But don't hold your breath
in anticipation of highbrow fare.
Their place is being taken by lo-
cal soap operas. This should come
as no surprise given the success
of such foreign soaps as "The
Young and the Restless," "The
Bold and the Beautiful," and the
various Spanish telenovellas.
"Antonella," for example, which
ran for most of last year, was, at
its height, receiving ratings as
high as the IBA nightly newscast.
No fewer than five Israeli
soaps are either in production or
about to go into production. One,
"Ramat Aviv Gimmel," which is
being filmed by G.G. Studios, is
set to be marketed abroad under
the English-language title
"Mediterranean Affairs." Italy,
Spain, Mexico and Argentina
have already bought the still-to-
be-completed soap.