This page describes, very biefly, contacts with seven Television Networks transmitting to the island of Ireland.

Some senior television executives  have made comments such as:

 "There is no proven link between watching violence and being violent"

 "There is no public interest in reducing the amount of violence screened"

                                        and

 "We would loose our audience for the night if it became known that we were not going to show any violent deaths"

Staff at the Irish national broadcaster RTE were consistantly most coutreous and eventually agreed to a meeting.  A very worthwhile exchange of ideas then took place with senior management of the television stations.  The company felt that they could not agree to avoid screening Violent Death for Entertainment purposes on September 21st.

The reasons given included:

Not having any control on the story line of imported SOAPs, that might include violent death, which form a very important part of the schedule.

They did not wish to be seen to respond to any pressure group bcause it would create a precedent which others might wish to follow.

Also they were not  comfortable with being a "good citizen on one day of the year and but reverting to old habits for the other 364 days".

Finally they would not agree because this was not seen as "a mass movement with widespread public support" 

Research showing how the context and character of the person perpertrating violence was discussed and appeared to be accepted by the RTE executives.

Subsequent programming appeares to have been informed and the fewer blatently violent programs have aired following the meetimg.

TG4, alone among Irish television stations, has been consistently supportive of a media violence awareness day.

The experience gained  from these contacts suggests that it will be necessary to have the Media Violence Awareness Day sposored by an organisation of weight and undoubted moral authority before it will be observed by most television stations.