The main problem of television is the picture. It has to follow strict technical normatives. The program itself could never justify these strong and established technical rules. All attempts to set up normatives for the programme ended up by reflecting basic social correctness (as every citizen has to respect) on one hand and on the other hand as well as heuchlerisch as meaningless requirement of objectivity on the other.

Television frees itself from its basic role as media for information and entertainment and appears nowadays as meta-reality, which not only commends real reality, but continously influences it. Nowadays it is more important what is watched on TV rather than what actually happens.

The revolution in Rumania and the Gulf-war are the best examples of how far television emancipates itself from reality. The power of the broadcasting station/channel determines the success or failure of revolutions and coups.

There is no need for "sinister powers" to influence the viewers, it is much more the mechanism of the media itself which leads to the simplest explanation and makes it the "reality". In a news item of 1´30 there can only be one explanation of reality - and even a documentary, as long it might be, cannot reflect all aspects/ controverseys of any reality. Time is money and therefore broadcasts are economic capital. Not even TV can elongate the day so this capital is restricted to 24 hours. This resource of 86 400 seconds should be merchandised optimally. Without any corrective, threatend by ratings, everything which is not merchandisable will be instantly eliminated. The testpattern is a victim.

The tremendous speed of the medium and the mass of information leaves no time for reflection or even reaction. We do not need no testpattern, we need a new testpattern, that not only makes technical broadcasting signals controllable, but also social broadcasting signals.