F

or two days in a row, for more than 10 hours each day, Trans TV broadcast Raffi Ahmad'€™s wedding ceremony, live. I have to antecede '€œlive'€ with a comma, for this deservedly made the Menuju Janji Suci (Toward holy vow) show receive more criticism.

A while ago, the wedding reception of Anang Hermansyah, a famous Indonesian musician, was broadcast live by RCTI for three hours without any decisive action toward the station.

Why am I against these shows and why have I become so fussy?

Seeing a wedding crowd, all the glittery fashion, and of course the attitudes of the wedding couple, their families and guests may be entertaining. However, we can still be entertained without spending all day watching Raffi'€™s wedding. Celebrity wedding shows could still be broadcast live but not on nationally broadcast Jakarta-based commercial TV.

 Those shows ironically do not give any benefits to the audience, but the couples get money from the right to air that they sell to the stations. Trans TV sells the large predicted audience to more advertisers and gets an exclusive report by buying exclusive broadcast rights from Raffi.

In many families, watching celebrities spending money on luxurious wedding can be very intriguing, realizing that they might be people with low income who get entertainment from television.

Television frequencies are publicly owned, leading to everyone supposedly being unable to use them for the interests of limited members of the society. It is clear that the parties benefitting from this show were Trans TV, the wedding couple and the advertisers.

TV shows invade homes as they are always available on air, and we cannot reject them unless we shut down the TV. Though we can shut it down, or change the channel, the TV station cannot program a show that might be unsuitable for children. Wedding ceremonies are not really suitable for children as they only cover the glamorous aspects of weddings.

Last, as written by Remotivi Coid on its website, airing private wedding ceremonies live actually breaks broadcasting regulations that state that '€œthe use of radio frequency as a limited natural resource and public good is directed for the benefit of society'€.

Meanwhile, the shows do not give any benefit and are not based on the regulation; the show was not supposed to be broadcast for hours, whether live or a rerun.

Gilang Desti Parahita
Yogyakarta