Please, just one day each year when no violent death is used as entertainment on TV.

The average child sees more than 7000 violent deaths on television before reaching his/her 12th birthday, while an average adult watches about 15,000 violent deaths for entertainment

Business people, with research at their fingertips, spend millions of Euros on television advertising. This is because Advertisers know the great suggestive power of television. They know that we are influenced by what we see on the box.

There are more violent acts than ad breaks transmitted per hour on commercial television.

Television stations sell advertising on the basis that we will be influenced in our buying behavior by repeated exposure to a message. At the same time television stations maintain that we will not be influenced by the violent acts we see even more frequently.

Research shows that the current level of violence and violent death shown on TV, as entertainment, has measurable negative side effects on viewers.

We have a right to be made aware of the side effects of watching TV so that they can make informed viewing choices.  

Public Service Broadcasting has a duty to inform. 

We now watch a lot of violence and violent death as part of our entertainment diet and think that this is normal and healthy.

There is much research which finds that the main side effects of watching violence are:

First, we become desensitised to violence and violent death. Images that would have shocked us even a few weeks earlier, no longer have the same impact on us. 

The second effect is that exposure to violent entertainment makes us generally more nervous and insecure. We become convinced that the world we live in is hostile place, full of violence and threat.

The third effect not surprisingly, is that there is a relationship between watching violence and becoming more violent. This linkage has similarities with the relationship between smoking and cancer: not all smokers get cancer, and not everybody with cancer has smoked. Similarly, people who watch violence do not all become violent, and not all violent people have been watching too much violence on television.

Seeing so much television violence has a lasting effect on us and influences our attitudes and behaviour. It reinforces a culture of violence and lack of respect for life.

Could there be a link between the widespread lack of respect for life depicted on television and the high level of suicides, road deaths and violence seen on the streets?

Support is being sought for a media awareness campaign which aims to:

 1)    Highlight the use of violence and violent death as entertainment on one high profile day each year. 21st September, United Nations World Peace Day

2)    Ask TV stations not to transmit Violent Death as Entertainment on this one day each year.

3)    Encourage schools and colleges to concentrate civics or media classes on “Violence as entertainment” on 21st Sept each year

4)     Encourage each individual to inform themselves of the implications and effects of having a large amount of violence and violent death in their entertainment diet.

Despite all the research data available most television companies currently do not accept that showing violence and violent death for entertainment could have any negative effects.

Their attitude appears similar to that of the cigarette industry when it was asked to acknowledge that there may be some undesirable side effects associated with smoking.

Transmitting large amounts of violence and violent death on TV reinforces the increasingly violent culture that we seem to accept as inevitable.

Media education has been shown to be the most effective to counter the negative effects of exposure to excessive exposuer to media violence.