RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

Does television, generally speaking, represent one kind of television creativity or is it a mosaic, a stage on which spectacles of various kinds evolve? Is television, as is frequently considered, perhaps only a light industry? In the course of the twenty years of television, TV reviewing has become the basic profession of a number of people whose articles аге read in the press every day. This number is far exceeded by those who deal with television itselfwriting for in, directing, filming, in a word - creating. The work of those involved in the creation of television programmes is constantly subject to criticism. They react if their work is mentioned in T\ reviews, but they react even more if their work is passed over without апу expert assessment of its value. The fundamental question does, however, remain: аге the assessments of the creator and his critic, be they written or silent, identical at least within certain limitations, do they have anything in common? In other words, are television’s criteria and those of its critics the same? This question can be posed in a more direct way: аге there апу criteria at all for TV reviews? It not unfrequently happens that programmes in which television has invested a great deal of effort and capital receive bad reviews despite the fact that the television centre considers that the writer s achievement was successful. Bad reviews are also received by other creative forms, but here there аге certain differences. When a book, for example, receives bad reviews, the critic s assessment can be checked, opposed. A fllm can be seen again; a play can be seen several times and both the work and the assessment can be corrected. Television programmes, on the other hand, are usually seen onh once and this is a great handicap to those involved in its creation. The writer has no opportunity to enter into an argument with the critics, to quote his work, to bring in those who also worked оп the programme to confirm his idea and demonstrate the possible lack of depth of the critic’s analysis. The writer fmds himself in an intenable postition. His work had' only one opportunity to justify his idea, effort, the capital invested and the work of the team. The critics ha% e far greater opportunity. Argument would probably be absurd, but perhaps there could be room for dealoque. After this year’s festival in Portorož the critics openly expressed their discontent that the јигу to assess one уеаг s television

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