Captive audience

During this year's school summer vacation, we have friends and their children staying with us. After dinner on Wednesday, after the children were given permission to watch a feature film to be broadcast by Indonesian TV because, after reading the brief description of the film in The Jakarta Post, the parents agreed that it was suitable for the children.

Meanwhile, we adults continued to sit on the terrace outside the house. Suddenly one of the children cautiously approached us with a look of guilt on his face as if he had done something wrong. He then told us that the TV remote control seemed to be out of order. The children claimed they could only receive one program on all the seven local channels.

We then checked together the remote control and, with some relief, we found that apparently it was Laporan Khusus time (special report) again. We discussed the situation and we came to the same conclusion -- namely why not air the Laporan Khusus on one channel only and offer viewers a choice to see something else on the others. One of the children even mentioned this reminded him of the old days of East Germany, when everybody had to look at one and the same show all the time.

We believe it is the right moment now for the new government to also reform the Indonesian TV system.

MANFRED WEBER

Jakarta