Turn on your TV at 10 p.m. eighteen months ago and you would have a choice of two or three programmes offering debate and comment on the affairs of the day. A leading politician interviewed by a searching host. A bunch of academics discussing a burning issue. An investigative report on the latest corruption scandal. A TV journalist delivering a quickfire editorial with insight and wit.

Turn on today and you find nothing like this. Blank. Zero. Zilch. This is the television equivalent of book burning.

Chang Noi spent last week in a search for signs of critical intelligence on Thai TV. It was like a trek across Antarctica. Krong Sathanakan is the only regular programme of current affairs debate which survives. It is debating why so much tourism budget was earmarked for a province which happens to the constituency of the minister in charge of tourism. There are three guests, but there is no chance of controversy. All three are bureaucrats involved in the tourism budget allocation. They each explain (at length) the principles and practices of allocating budget. It is almost convincing. You have to remind yourself that the minister involved is Somsak Thepsuthin, star pupil of Montri Pongpanich, veteran of the telecom concession allocations of the early 1990s, and key figure in the landfill contracts for Nong Ngu Hao.

The host does not ask why such good procedures produced such an odd result. Instead he asks how anyone could have conceived the idea that the process might have been fixed. Two years ago, this host was sharper than this. Now he has parked his critical faculties and put gel in his hair. And survived.

Over to Channel 9’s English-language Newsline. The issue is the AMLO investigation of journalists’ bank accounts. The guest is (surprise!) a government minister, Dr Suvarn Valaisathien. He explains the affair has been blown out of all proportions. It is not an “investigation”, only a “preliminary enquiry”. The host seems overjoyed by this news. He does not ask what is the difference between an enquiry and an investigation. He asks why the investigation has targeted journalists who are critical of government. Oh, replies Dr Suvarn, that is just a coincidence. The host is even more overjoyed by this enlightenment. End of interview.

No tough questions. No probing. No wondering why Dr Suvarn, once thought an honourable man, is spouting nonsense. This, like Krong Sathanakan, is government propaganda dressed up as independent reporting. Television hosts used to be terriers. Now they are poodles.

Drama series are affected too. These always include lots of love triangles, family dramas, and ghost stories. But over the last decade there were more and more series which took on current issues—drug running, border troubles, corruption scandals, local godfathers, women in politics, good police and bad police. The audiences rewarded these thoughtful productions with high ratings. Producers competed to be more challenging, more relevant. Just two years back, the Karen troubles on the border were replayed in a drama only a few months later.

Now? The title of a new drama last week, Monrak Mae Nam Mun (Wonder of the Mun River). suggested it might confront the complex politics of that river. No chance. It returns to the old style of rural drama in which villagers are portrayed as sub-imbeciles, and the heroes are all officials in uniform. The teacher (the carrier of urban wisdom) will fight his way through a thicket of sub-plots, save the village from its own stupidity, and be rewarded by marrying the pretty girl. On top, the series is propaganda for the government’s one village one product scheme.

On another channel, Phlae Kao (old wound) is just ending. This is one of the most popular and intricate social dramas of the past half-century. In this remake, the producers removed the social complexity to allow the romance to dominate. The audience voted with the channel-changer, and the series bombed.

Last try: the news. Parliament is debating the government’s first year in office. News cameras go out on the streets for a popular assessment. Twenty interviewees all say the government has done well and their lives have got better. The unanimity is striking. Clever propaganda would have one or two dissenting voices. But this is not clever propaganda. Everything is dumb.

The partial opening of the electronic media was one of the most exciting and important developments of the 1990s. It began from the explosion of critical energy during the 1992 crisis. Groups like Nation and Watchdog pioneered new styles of news, comment and debate. Drama producers and script writers responded to an audience demand for relevance and provocation. Together they created a culture of debate, questioning, and challenge which television and radio carried far beyond the limited audience for print media. This helped create the climate in which the 1997 constitution could be imagined, drafted, and passed in the face of conservative opposition. In this climate, someone could imagine founding a new political party with the slogan “think new, act new, for every Thai”.

This explosion of debate and challenge aroused very deep-seated fears among those who imagine society as a harmonious, passive, controlled body. The Thaksin government’s desire to muzzle criticism signalled the opportunity to reverse the trend of liberalisation. But the extent of the dumbing down shows deeper, darker forces are at work.

The TV space once filled by information, criticism and debate now hosts more game shows, entertainment magazines, and football. The decline of serious social dramas makes way for tales about family inheritance disputes featuring huge fortunes, gory bullet-ridden deaths, and male villains who abuse women. Flicking across channels one night at drama time, Chang Noi found two scenes of women being beaten and one rape.

While this dark age lasts, the citizens will switch off their brains, sit back, and enjoy sex, violence and farce.