WIN TV seem to be having some issues tonight. Their digital signal keeps disappearing, and every time it does, it takes the analogue station with it, simply leaving a blank grey screen behind.
Apparently it’s happening in Wagga Wagga as well.
More information if and as it comes to hand.
Update 7:50pm: Well it’s been a good fifteen minutes of nothing from WIN this time around so far, and I just retuned a digital received and it failed to recognise WIN and its selection of channels (HD etcetera) at all. End Update
Update 8:05pm: Well that’s half an hour, and WIN analogue just changed from a grey screen to a black screen. Digital is still out. End Update
Update 8:08pm: Analogue and Digital just came back to life. Hopefully the problem doesn’t re-occur as it happened during Nine News for brief periods as well. End Update
Update 9:12pm: Off-air again, and they have been for at least the last 25 minutes. End Update
On Friday I noted that WIN News in Canberra was actually a state/territory edition for New South Wales and the ACT produced in WIN’s Wollongong studios. I also noted that I believed it was of a higher quality, and provided a better insight in to the news than the usual Canberra bulletin.
I notice that YouTube user canberratelevision has posted highlights of both the state/territory bulletin, and the Canberra bulletin from the 17th of December. As such, here they are…decide for yourself.
So, how did they do it? The stock intro for the story had a line added to it about it providing branches or pine cones or similar to Victorian school students over the years. The rest appeared to be the stock intro which would have been used on the Canberra edition of WIN News, followed by Janene Manwaring’s story, which also would have aired on WIN News Canberra.
It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who thinks it’s a slow news day around here…oh, and that a bunch of stories on WIN News Victoria were on my 2QN bulletins this morning.
An abbreviated version of this appears on page three of this morning’s Albury-Wodonga newspaper, The Border Mail. You know that it’s a slow news day when a regional paper has to find news in China to fill page three.
Suicide jumper kills cyclist
December 28, 2008 – 8:38PM
A cyclist died after he was hit by an apparently suicidal man who jumped from the 35th floor of a nearby building in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, state media has reported.
The 52-year-old cyclist, surnamed Li, was making deliveries from his fast food restaurant when the jumper landed on him on Thursday afternoon, the official China Daily reported on Sunday.
The younger man, surnamed Liu, was allegedly a drug addict who had moved to Shenzhen from the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang, the newspaper quoted local media as saying.
He jumped from the balcony of an apartment after standing there for 12 hours, it said.
Liu died instantly and Li died later in hospital, the newspaper said in a brief report.
Whilst I doubt this will make a difference…if you dohappen to find yourself perched on a tall building and in need of a reason not to jump, just think about the people below.
I’m in Deniliquin again and was going to write a couple things yesterday afternoon but decided to have a nap instead.
Unfortunately I left the camera at home so I’ll have to wait until later in the week to post the photos I took the last time I was in Deniliquin.
It’s a slow news day here…and it looks like a slow news day in Melbourne and Albury as well as 3AW’s morning show is having a lengthy chat about “the evils of four wheel drives in urban places”. I think one of the emailers got it right that it depends on the driver…I know a number of people who drive four wheel drives in urban areas, some are good at it, and some should walk.
As for Albury…stay tuned because I’ve got a story that I noticed on page three of this morning’s Border Mail coming up shortly.
I noticed that WIN Television decided to run a “state and territory” edition of WIN Local News tonight from their Wollongong studios with reports from various parts of New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.
This probably won’t be a popular statement with the staff at WIN Canberra, but I thought it was a substantial improvement. With Nine News being so Sydney-and-Parliament-House-centric, it was nice to see a half hour bulletin filled with news of substance from across the ACT and regional New South Wales. I was particularly impressed by the fact that, despite it being Boxing Day and therefore not the busiest of news days, the WIN bulletin was filled with news of substance, unlike the Canberra bulletin which seems to struggle to fill the bulletin most nights.
I would be quite happy to see an ACT and New South Wales bulletin as a nightly thing on WIN in place of the existing service, although I would prefer to have a more detailed local weather report than the rushed state overview which we saw tonight…or just a longer version of the state overview, which seemed to work well except for the short amount of time allocated to it.
Well done WIN, that was one of the few quality Aussie productions that we’re likely to see on the box in the coming week.
The base station for Open House with Sheridan Voysey has a new name, as their press release points out:
In September of 2007, Sydney’s Christian Radio station FM103.2 launched their new name Heart 103.2. This was immediately challenged by Macquarie Regional Radio who had trademarked ‘heart’ for radio use, although they were not using the brand outside of Tasmania or Queensland.
As a community radio station, FM103.2 was not in a position to enter a legal battle to salvage the name ‘Heart 103.2” and therefore relinquished the name at the end of 2007.
For the last 12 months, FM103.2 has searched for an alternate station identity. The first step was to seek suggestions from listeners, and then the most popular names were tested in the marketplace. Finally, a trademark was acquired for the name with the most votes.
CEO Phillip Randall today stated that,
It’s been a long and tough journey, but after 9 months of waiting, we are very pleased to announce the new name of Sydney’s Christian Radio station is Hope 103.2!
The new name will help define the station better for listeners and the wider Sydney community.
CEO Phillip Randall explained,
Hope 103.2 was by far the most suggested name amongst our listeners and test groups, and best conveys the nature and purpose of this radio station.
Hope 103.2 will continue to be active as a radio station that cares about social issues and community concerns, and encourage listeners to embrace a ‘Passion for Life’.
Thanks for the embargo, it’s great to be able to schedule a post to appear here when an embargo expires while I’m out of town.
As it happens, 1WAY FM’s breakfast host James Scott will be taking leave for four weeks starting on the 15th. Obviously I won’t be in town during the first week of his absence, however from the 22nd of January until the 9th of January I will be in town and filling in for James. This will include Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
So, it’s a week of news in Deniliquin, during which I will be taking unpaid leave from my “day job” in Canberra, and then three weeks of Breakfast on 1WAY FM, which conveniently coincides with shifts which don’t occur during the morning at my “day job”.
I might be pushing myself a bit to cover a breakfast show and maintain my “day job” for those few weeks, but I think it will be fun. I’m considering putting in for leave for late January or at some stage in February anyway…but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
2CC and 2CA are streaming at long last, and the sound quality is pretty good.
2CC are currently streaming in Windows Media Audio 9.1 format at 32 kbps, 22 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR which is more than ample for talk radio, and sounds a lot better than most other talk radio webstreams in the country.
2CA are doing even better with a Windows Media Audio 9.1 stream at 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo 1-pass CBR. I’m quite happy with this sound quality too.
At this stage I can see mentions on the 2XL and SnowFM websites of streaming, but the streams aren’t working for me at this time.
None the less, I’m very happy that I can now listen to 2CC and 2CA from outside of Canberra without hooking a radio up to a computer at home and running Shoutcast. Very happy, and I’ll treat it as an early Christmas present. Thank you Capital Radio Network!
It’s a fun night (or hour or so) of British comedy. At 8pm, the My Family Christmas Special, and at 8:30, Wallace and Gromit star in an all new adventure, it’s “A Matter of Loaf and Death”.
I’m hopeful that the To The Manor Born Christmas Special which premiered on British television last year (on Christmas Eve if I recall correctly) will find its way to the ABC this month. It was a great show and I’d be very surprised if the ABC don’t air it.
I won’t get home until a bit after 8pm tonight, so I’ll just have to timeshift tonight’s programming, and then watch last night’s episode of MDA from ABC2 afterwards.
Radioinfo is reporting that Paul ‘Cracker’ Hardy, the voice of the Harvey Norman commercials amongst other things, has died due to a heart attack aged 57.
Further Update: I’ve had a look through my collection of ads and found a few of Paul’s voiceovers…unfortunately I can’t find any of his Rebel Sport ads, although it’s quite probable that I have some at home in an un-catalogued file somewhere. Anyway, here’s a sample of some of the ads of his that I have in my collection, plus his demo from his production company Hardy Audio.
Some of the non-Harvey Norman ads make me realise just how prolific Paul’s voice really is in Australian media…to think that his subtle voice changes made me think I was listening to a different person.
Thanks to Frankster for contributing a couple of these ads to my collection a while back (around the time of the Harvey Norman theme music change if I recall correctly) and to Jock’s Journal for the photo of Paul. Jock’s Journal have a tributes page at http://newmedia.com.au/Paul_Hardy.htm. End Update
I was just looking at the television guide for this evening to see if there is anything worth watching because, quite frankly, the usual Thursday night lineup isn’t very inspiring. I’ve lost interest in the two shows which I used to find interesting on a Thursday (namely Inspector Rex on SBS, of which I can only watch the repeats so many times before I start reciting them, and Law And Order SVU which really needs to be put out of its misery) and as such wasn’t exactly expecting to find anything useful.
To my rescue comes Steve Liebmann with new episodes of his excellent documentary series Crime Investigation Australia which tonight looks in to the Claremont murders of the mid-1990s. The programme starts at 8:30 on Channel Nine and concludes at 9:45, which is theoretically (assuming that Channel Ten can keep to their publicly released schedule) 15 minutes in to Law And Order SVU, so I suppose that I could watch Steve Liebmann’s show and timeshift SVU in the hope that the producers of SVU manage to provide me with something slightly more interesting than most of their recent episodes. I suspect that the ability to skip the ad breaks in that show might help my cause.
Anyhoo, the blurb in the TV guide about Steve’s show tonight is as follows:
This chilling episode details the long and difficult investigation which began with the disappearance of 18-year-old secretary Sarah Spiers from a nightclub in the up-market Perth suburb of Claremont on Australia Day, 1996. The new information has been kept secret by police until now for fear its release could jeopardise the investigation.
Sounds like it will be very worthwhile viewing.
Update 8:36PM: Nine also seem to have a lackadaisical approach to timekeeping. C’mon guys, I don’t want to watch any more minutes of the end of Getaway. End Update
It looks like 2UE’s Summer Breakfast schedule is going to be a combination of the traditional fill-in and the weekend guys.
For two weeks from December 8 (or was that December 15? Fairly sure it’s December 8 Update: Now confirmed as the 8th End Update ) George and Paul will be filling-in for Mike and Sandy. Then for two weeks from December 22 it’s John Stanley, and for another two weeks from January 5 it’s George and Paul again.
It looks like we’re also heading back to the modified summer schedule where breakfast finishes at 10am, is followed by a four hour “morning” show, and four hours of Drive.
As for the weekends, with the exception of Glenn Wheeler filling in for John Kerr on New Day Australia, the whole thing is still a mystery.
Radioinfo is reporting that Paul ‘Cracker’ Hardy, the voice of the Harvey Norman commercials amongst other things, has died due to a heart attack aged 57.