The news presenter on duty will always chuckle condescendingly when he reads the trite text at the beginning of the holiday evening: Crowds of Israelis have filled nature and parks around the country, strolled in great weather and created traffic jams.
The reporter in the field will report from a cloud of smoke from barbecues, and the report will end with pictures of mountains of garbage made in blue and white.
Tradition of an Israeli holiday.
But the holiday TV not only giggles about junk, it also floods us with unnecessary shows, reruns, replacement presenters, and the general feeling of "we went on vacation, we'll be back after the holidays."
Lucky that once a week they still broadcast "Wedding at First Sight" and "Chef Games" to remind us of what was here before the state made itself a bridge of a month.
For the past three weeks, there has been no organized broadcast schedule on the broadcast channels, and a host of weird things find their way into prime time.
Stand-up shows fill holes, Hezi Dean does magic, and Keshet 12 shows off "Be With Her: The Movie," even though it's a condensed summary of the series, in other words: a compilation.
For the holidays, Network 13 pulled out of the warehouse the docu-reality "Daddy's Life," which was mostly filmed more than two years ago;
Keshet brought as a counterpoint "Get Out of This," a suspense show with Avi Nussbaum and Adi Ashkenazi, which was filmed more than a year and a half ago.
In between, they also stuck a request for an invested docu on the history of stand-up in Israel, which was filmed about three years ago.
There seems to have been a reason why these and other plans have been drying up on the shelf for a long time.
Like the presenter on duty who got stuck in the news studio on holiday evenings, so too did the boring holiday shows bounce to the front of the screen just to pass the time, until the real stars of the broadcast schedule returned from vacation.
Traditionally, a broadcast schedule in commercial channels is built so that summer seasons end just before Rosh Hashanah and winter seasons before Passover, because holidays are like a black hole in the broadcast schedule.
No one wants to be there at a time when Israelis are flying abroad, gathering for family reunions, filling malls or scattering garbage at nature sites.
Last year, the channels took a risk and launched flagship programs before the holidays.
"The Race for a Million", "The Singer in a Mask" and "Ninja" came up even before Yom Kippur and captivated the viewers.
The reason, of course, was the corona closure, which left viewers in homes.
By the way, even this year the ratings of the holidays are not as low as one imagines it: "wedding", for example, garnered 18 percent, and the launch of "Get Out Of It" - 17 percent.
Today, with the postponed viewing, Netflix and the effects of the Corona, Israelis also watch television during the holidays.
Therefore, it is permissible to click on the commercial channels back, when what they broadcast in the festive month is mainly leftovers that have not found a better time to stroke them.
nirw@israelhayom.co.il