Ismira Lutfia, Jakarta – Warnings to improve televisions stations' programing during the fasting month seem to have fallen on deaf ears as violence, obscenity and mysticism continue to dominate the airwaves, a watchdog said.
According to monitoring by the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology's Information Public Body (BIP) over the first nine days of Ramadan, 1,252 television segments depicted violence, obscenity and mysticism in programs broadcast by 10 Jakarta-based national television stations.
The country's sole public television station, TVRI, was also monitored and included in the BIP's findings.
In 2009, only 425 segments from eight stations over six days of the holy month were found to have violated the guidelines of family-orientated fare.
"We have been monitoring programs on TV during Ramadan for four years and we have found that shows featuring mysticism, obscenity and physical and psychological abuse are common during Ramadan," Teguh Himawan, an adviser for the BIP, said on Tuesday.
Out of this year's monitored segments, physical and psychological abuse accounted for 39.9 percent and 38.9 percent, respectively, of the material deemed "offensive."
Sinansari Ecip, from the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) monitoring team and a former member of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), said stations' desires for big ratings over the holiday season was overshadowing the "spirit of the occasion."
"There were some shows with Ramadan-related titles whose content failed to fit with the spirit [of the holiday]," he said.
Sinansari added that the comedy shows that dominated the airwaves when Muslims were having the predawn meal were some of the biggest "offenders."
"The broadcasters have not initiated a policy to reduce the level of harsh words, mockery and violence, or to improve the poor quality of the quiz shows," Sinansari said.
However, Dadang Rachmat Hidayat, the chairman of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission, said the watchdog may have been too late in warning networks to produce better quality programs, and that it only held meetings with TV executives a week before the start of the fasting month.
"We should have done it at least two months before Ramadan," he said, adding that although he had noticed some improvements in programs, most changes were made to scrape by the bare minimums of the broadcasting code of conduct and programming standards.
Teguh, the BIP adviser, said: "In the context of public education, these shows during Ramadan have shown that the broadcasters are not doing their best to educate, to enlighten and to empower their audience."
However, two stations, TPI and ANTV, were applauded for suspending infotainment shows during Ramadan.
Programming during the holiday season adjusts to a change in viewers' habits, when the number of people in front of the TV surges in comparison to the rest of the year.
A recent survey from market research company Nielsen on audience numbers from Aug. 11 to Aug. 22 showed that viewership increased by 21 percent. And the 5- to 14-year-old demographic made up the largest increase over Ramadan, with an additional 32 percent tuning in over the previous month.
Prime-time viewing had also shifted to the predawn meal hours of 2 a.m. to 5 a.m., when the number of viewers had multiplied by eight to about six million viewers. There was also a significant 28 percent increase in the number of television viewers during the fast-breaking hours of 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., according to the survey.
Traditionally, the most watched programs during the fasting month are comedies and dramas, which attract the highest number of viewers during both the predawn meal and the fast-breaking hours.
The Nielsen survey found that "Para Pencari Tuhan," or "God Seekers," which stars Deddy Mizwar as a pious father figure, had the highest rating of 3.7 percent and attracted an average of 1,838,000 viewers per episode.