Street wise:Carbon credits: a tool to punish bad TV programmes?

"Poor" in the sense that programmes are not creative or contributing to society.

Criticism of the absence of "good" programmes is growing. TPBS, the first Thai public-TV channel, was born late last year to fill the void, and people are anxiously awaiting how the first-year evaluation will turn out. The big question here is how effectively the channel is dispensing the given "sin taxes" contributed by drinkers and smokers.

If cartoonist Renoo Panyadee's recent column in Arn magazine were applied, these consumers would be paying carbon credits for the pollution they create.

Renoo suggests the adoption of carbon credits for the entire television industry, which means the trading system must be applied to all consumers. There could be a problem in establishing the carbon pricing. He suggests academics and gurus at the forefront in pushing for quality programmes be appointed to a committee that would gauge the carbon level of each programme.

The carbon evaluators would cause producers to feel guilty for making poor programmes. The greater the guilt, the higher the tax. (Yes, it is exactly like the so-called "sin tax" levied on smokers and drinkers. They can never complain when tobacco and alcohol taxes are raised.)

Then the programmes would have to pay fines (credits) in accordance with their carbon levels. The credits would be used to finance the production of "quality" programmes.

I believe if such a committee really were in place, the programmes that would be taxed the most would be those soap operas that normally deal with cat fighting among women and revenge.

Certainly, producers would not mind paying the credits. Featuring famous actors and actresses, they are popular with audiences and advertisers. A small payment should be all right, as long as the programmes can continue airing.

Renoo says with this system in place, grumbling audiences would no longer complain about poor programmes, since they could enjoy better programming produced by the poor programmes' money.

What could be a more win-win situation, as benefits would not be limited only to TPBS?

There is no reason why taxes should be given to sponsor "good" programmes for one channel when a system could be created to ensure the availability of "good" programmes on all free channels.