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Don’t like what you’re watching on television? Don’t write a letter to the editor.

Viewers’ letters to newspapers complaining about inappropriate content on TV shows are not likely to bring about programming changes, a media expert said on Thursday.

Kristiawan, manager of programming at media watch group, the Tifa Foundation, said the problem is that TV stations are not afraid of rules and regulations, let alone their audience, and therefore complaints regarding inappropriate programming are often overlooked.

“They are not even afraid of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission [KPI],” he said.

Kristiawan was speaking at a seminar organized by Tarumanagara University’s Faculty of Communication Sciences. The event, “Readers’ Letters as a Medium to Criticize Television,” was held in Jakarta on Thursday.

Amar Ahmad, from the KPI, said that according to the Broadcasting Law, TV stations had to publish the warning letters they received from the commission. However, no broadcaster has ever done that.

“There is a lack of transparency from the stations,” he said.

Agus Sudibyo, deputy director of the Foundation for Science, Aesthetics and Technology (SET), said that TV stations simply responded to viewers’ letters with a rebuttal, but it never affected programming. “They only react when there’s a complaint,” he added.

Iskandar Siahaan, former head of news research and development at SCTV, said it was normal for TV stations to react only after an official complaint because otherwise it would appear to be a promotional tool.

“If a station wants to announce it’s changing the screening time of a program, it does not go to a readers’ forum,” he said.

Iskandar admitted that broadcasters mainly aimed for high ratings without regard for the quality of the content.

“And when people read that a show is No. 1 rated, they will want to see that,” he said.

According to research presented by Agus, people mostly wrote letters complaining about the quality of entertainment programs, such as soap operas and reality or quiz shows. “Around 50 percent of the readers’ letters in my research said that those shows had negative impacts and did not educate their viewers,” he said.

Agus said he based his research on an analysis of letters to six national newspapers from 2007 to 2009.

Kristiawan said there was an urgent need for people, especially in rural areas, to be educated about making the right choices about the programs they watched. “Self-censorship works best,” he said, adding that eduction should start from the grass roots.

For example, he said, people in villages could gather once a month to discuss which shows were good for their children and which ones were not.