TV schedules slowly return back to normal
JAKARTA (JP): State-run TVRI and the five commercial television stations will resume their regular schedules after two days of covering the death of First Lady Mrs. Tien Soeharto and her funeral to the exclusion of all else.
TV executives however said that in observance of the seven days of national mourning, they will continue to air special programs relating to the death of Mrs. Tien in between their regular programs.
They are also cutting down or even eliminating some of their programs.
"We're not airing any comedies," Erwin Ario Darma, RCTI's spokesman told The Jakarta Post yesterday.
RCTI will also perform special programs related to Mrs. Tien Soeharto, Erwin said.
Since Sunday afternoon until last night, the six commercial stations -- TVRI, RCTI, SCTV, TPI, ANteve and Indosiar have been broadcasting only news of Mrs. Tien's death and her elaborate state funeral in Surakarta yesterday.
Led by RCTI, the six stations pooled their reporters, newscasters and resources to bring up-to-date news to millions of viewers across the archipelago.
The stations won praise for their very extensive coverage although there was criticism of the poor quality of some of the broadcasts.
"This is a very important national event," Eduard Depari, RCTI public relations manager, told the Post.
The coverage involved 22 newscasters and 16 reporters in all, Depari said.
He admitted that RCTI suffered huge financial losses as it had scrapped all ads over the past two days. "The losses were quite large but this important national event overrides all commercial considerations," he explained.
RCTI is owned by businessman Bambang Trihatmodjo, the son of President Soeharto. TPI is owned by Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, the President's daughter.
This is the second time that the country's television stations have coordinated their coverage in spite of stiff competition for rating and advertising revenues. The first came during the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Bogor in November 1994.
Competition will resume today as the stations begin broadcasting their normal programs although most have said they would continue to run programs about Mrs. Tien.
"We are preparing the programs now," Erwin of RCTI said.
Indosiar also plans to show programs related to the death in the remaining mourning days. "One of them is the presentation of condolence messages which have been pouring in to our office by telephone and facsimile," spokesman Andreas Ambesa said.
SCTV said it plans to run short films of Mrs. Tien's activities in between its regular programs. "The news came so suddenly we were not prepared," spokesman Budi Darmawan said.
TPI will delay airing its regular programs during the mourning days ordered by the state secretariat. Instead it will run special programs such as obituaries and profiles of Mrs. Tien, and talk shows about Mrs. Tien.
"This is TPI's policy, " spokesman Farid Poniman said.
The stations all said the decision to concentrate exclusively on this event all Sunday and Monday and to run programs about Mrs. Tien over the next days was taken on their own initiative and insisted that this had not been ordered by the Ministry of Information.
"This is our way of showing respect to Mrs. Tien, who is a national heroine," Andreas said. (01)