As part of the changeover to digital television, the southern Canberra suburbs of Conder and Banks will have analogue television switched off today. These two suburbs are, for the most part, unable to receive television transmissions from Tuggeranong Hill clearly and instead utilise a small relay transmitter at the back of Banks.
The transmitter, which is located within the compound of the water tank on the hill behind Orange Thorn Crescent, receives transmissions from Tuggeranong Hill and then retransmits them across the area which is in the shadow of Tuggeranong Hill. The transmitter site is not large enough to accommodate analogue and digital transmission equipment at the same time, so the analogue equipment has to be removed before the digital equipment can be installed. According to workmen who were on-site yesterday, this should take about a week.
Some residents in Conder and Banks are able to receive transmissions from Tuggeranong Hill, especially those which are closer to the relay station than to Tuggeranong Hill, as they are in an elevated position which is not in the shadow of the transmitter site. Others in the valley put their antennas on large polls to receive signals from Tuggeranong Hill. It is interesting looking at some parts of Banks and Conder and seeing almost every house have an antenna which is pointing in a different direction to the antenna of their neighbour, especially in areas where reception from the Banks Water Tank would be clearer but people have gone to the extra effort to try and receive digital signals from Tuggeranong Hill. The people who use the Banks transmitter may very well decide to try and get a signal off Tuggeranong Hill when they turn on their TV this evening and find that they are no longer receiving a signal.
By the middle of next week, when the upgrades at the Banks transmitter site are completed, digital television reception in Conder and Banks should be greatly improved.
The rest of Canberra is due to have analogue television switched off on the 5th of June next year and will not have to do without television when that happens, as the rest of Canberra’s transmitter sites are large enough to accomodate analogue and digital transmission equipment at the same time, and have been running the services in parallel for a number of years.
If Sunrise and Today are cereal, and ABC News Breakfast is toast with soy-bean butter, then Ten’s new breakfast show might just be bacon and eggs: worthwhile and not ashamed to not fit the notion of a “healthy and balanced breakfast”. OK, so I’m stretching the analogy a bit too thin (like Vegemite…oops, sorry) but I am quite pleased to see that the Ten Network’s entry in to the adult Breakfast Television market will contain New Zealand broadcaster Paul Henry who, until recently, hosted a similar show on New Zealand television.
Paul is a controversial figure, but seems to be unafraid to say what he thinks. Given the current state of free speech in this country, this could be just what the doctor ordered.
I have been wondering for a while what Ten have been planning with their new show, as there really is no room for yet another Sunrise or Today. Those two barely have enough room for each other. ABC News 24 has carved out its own niche in both being more news focussed than Today and Sunrise, and also stealing the left-wing audience from Radio National. I was thinking that Ten’s show might try being heavily news focussed in an effort to take some of the ABC audience and starve Sunrise and Today of the viewers who actually care about the news but won’t watch ABC News…instead I think they’re going one better, news with solid opinions to back it up.
Given that Andrew Bolt works for the Ten Network and MTR1377’s future remains under a large cloud of confusion, I wonder what the chances are that Andrew will make regular appearances on Ten’s Breakfast. I would love to see Paul and Andrew host the show (it won’t happen, but I’d like to see it)…I’m sure that the people at Ten who deal with viewer complaints would dread such a thing, but I reckon it would set a record for ratings of a breakfast television show.
Another option, and Ten, please consider this, is to borrow what NBC Today does. They use David Gregory, the despicable “moderator” of NBC’s Meet The Depressed as a political analyst, giving him seemingly endless amounts of time to opine on matters of…uh…something (sorry, I struggle to stay awake through his editorials and I find myself yelling loudly at him whenever he interviews anyone) and Ten could do something similar with Bolt, albeit something much more interesting seeing as Bolt is infinitely more interesting than David Gregory. My proposal is that Ten’s Breakfast could use Andrew Bolt, “host of The Bolt Report” as their resident political analyst, opining on the matters of the day. It would be a bit like the “Kings of Talkback” segment on Sunrise, except that the hosts of the show would actually be paying attention…and I can imagine some great conversations between Paul Henry and Andrew Bolt.
Anyway, as sent by our good friend Padders over at The Right Aussie, here’s a fun clip of Paul Henry on breakfast television in New Zealand during the utterly bizarre “Maori Language Week”.
And here’s a highlight which gave me a good laugh.
I hope we get to see plenty of Paul at his best when he joins Australian television next year.
2CC, Canberra’s commercial talk radio station, have changed their open line number to something a bit more reminiscent of their on-air identity. The old 6255 4444 is gone, replaced with 6255 1206, a nod to their frequency, 1206 kHz.
This isn’t the first time 2CC have changed their phone number. In fact it has changed three times in the last fifteen years. Originally 2CC used 11611 as their open line number having somehow managed to retain it despite Canberra moving beyond five-digit phone numbers. Eventually (it may have been during the change from seven to eight digit phone numbers in 1997, but I thought it was later) 2CC changed to 6255 6666, and later on in the early 2000s they changed to 6255 4444. At the time of that change I was jokingly told that it was because a Feng Shui expert told them to do it.
It is nice to see the number change to something a tad more logical, especially given that 2CC’s sister station 1053 2CA has had both 6241 1053 and 6242 1053 for yonks. Hopefully the new number serves them well for a long time to come.
Or to be more precise, their friends over at Fairfax Radio Syndication are indicating that changes are afoot.
As many of you would be well aware, 2UE’s Michael Smith has taken 2UE to court in an effort to prevent them from firing him. The exact details of this seem to change from one court session to the next, but it all started back when an affidavit about Julia Gillard’s relationship with a conman was the big story of the day and resulted in The Australian retracting an opinion piece by Glenn Milne, and Andrew Bolt almost quitting the Herald Sun. Smith was going to air an interview with the author of the affidavit, however to date that interview has not met the airwaves.
For the entire duration of the Smith V 2UE legal matter, 2UE have retained Michael Smith’s name in all of their on-air promotions. They continue to air promos mentioning Smith as part of the “new lineup” of 2011. They continue to show Smith’s name and face on their website and on the giant billboard they set up down the road from 2GB’s studios. Fairfax Radio Syndication have even kept the listing for Smith’s show on their website.
However, over the weekend, this has changed. 2UE continue to name and promote Smith, but Fairfax Radio Syndication do not. Both entities fall under the ownership of the Fairfax empire. Interestingly, Fairfax Radio Syndication have retained the listing for Stuart Bocking’s night show.
If I were to read in to this, I would suggest that this means that a settlement has been reached between Smith and 2UE over the weekend, and that Smith will be leaving 2UE with an official announcement to be made shortly. Stuart Bocking, who has been filling in for Michael Smith, will return to his night show, and someone else will take over the afternoon timeslot. Also of interest is that Fairfax Radio Syndication’s information about New Day Australia no longer mentions Mike Jeffreys (host of the weekday edition, who has been filling in for Bocking) and instead says that “Our presenters are no strangers to a news/talk/entertainment format”. Perhaps this means that Mark Kennedy and Tim Shaw will continue to host New Day Australia on a rotational basis and Mike Jeffreys will move elsewhere in the schedule. If this were to happen, my hunch would be that Mike will move to Drive, replacing Paul Murray whose ratings probably haven’t met expectations, and Paul will move to afternoons where he would be freer to utilise his more humourous style.
Of course, it’s also possible that Fairfax Radio Syndication just don’t want to make it look like they’re offering a program which hasn’t really existed for many weeks…but then, why would they leave Stuart’s listing up?
Ahhh 2UE, “where we guarantee you won’t have the faintest clue who will host which show next week”.
Some of you may be familiar with a show called “The Game Plan” which airs on Ten’s “sport and other stuff” digital multichannel One. It comes in two versions, a rugby league one and an AFL one. The rugby league one is hosted by Andrew Moore, Steve Roach and Joel Caine from The Continuous Call Team on 2GB and radio stations across the country.
For the rugby league finals, The Game Plan has been extended from its usual timeslot of 8:30pm-9:30pm to 8:30pm-10:00pm and is having a studio audience. Tonight I will be in that studio audience and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be travelling up to Sydney today for that and one or two other things and will be coming back tomorrow.
If you’re in to rugby league, I would recommend watching The Game Plan. It’s a great show and spends plenty of time discussing rugby league in an interesting manner without deviating in to the off-topic in the way that shows of the genre on other networks have an annoying tendency to do. At the moment, if I’m at home, I will usually watch it live and DVR Rush over on Ten (which airs at the same time) for viewing straight after.
Just because I can, I’ll try to post a freeze frame or two when I get back, and I should also see about posting a freeze frame or two from when I was at the National Press Club a few weeks ago to see Chezch President Vaclav Klaus.
The Game Plan – NRL airs on One at 8:30pm in NSW, QLD and the ACT. Check your local guides in other areas
Regular readers of this blog would know that I’m a fan of former Las Vegas radio host Casey Hendrickson, and I believe that some of the readers of this blog are too.
For those of you who haven’t been following Casey’s movements since leaving KDOX at the end of last year, I have some good news. Casey has found a new station and his show starts today.
Casey is the new host of the morning drive program “Michinana’s Morning News” on 95.3 MNC Michiana’s News Channel in South Bend, Indiana.
Casey joins the rest of the Morning News team in boradcasting from 5am-9am US Eastern time which, under current timezones, translates to 7pm-11pm Canberra time. MNC’s stream is available on their website where you can also find an app to listen on a mobile device. If you’re looking for the station on the TuneIn Radio app, you will find it under the callsign WTRC-FM.
I wish Casey every success at his new station. He filled in on the station a while back and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The station’s management must have seeing as they have asked him back, so I’m sure he will do well. Go get ’em Casey!
I should probably also note, seeing as I neglected to do so at the time, that Casey’s former colleague at KXNT in Las Vegas, Alan Stock, was let go by the station a little while back when KXNT management made a decision to have less political talk on the station. Alan has since moved over to competitor KDWN AM 720 where he hosts the 10am to Midday program, just after his former co-host Heidi Harris hosts the morning drive show. Unfortunately the KDWN stream is not directly accessible in Australia.
I’ll have more to say about President Klaus’ address to the National Press Club tonight after I have rewatched it, however I do need to set the record straight on The Australian’s first attempt at an article on the subject.
The majority of the story is accurate, however the end is quite misleading. The article ends thusly:
He was more upbeat about the merits of Coalition’s direct action policy.
“I would say that, in some respect, I would be in favour of direct action,” he said.
“Direct action is visible, understandable and probably people can more easily discuss the cost benefits of such measures.”
This, sadly, is a misrepresentation. Yes, it’s a direct quote, but the context is missing as President Klaus was not “upbeat” about the Coalition’s “Direct Action” policy, in face he went on to call it “crazy” and stated quite clearly that he is opposed to any of the current government or opposition policies on dealing with climate change. As noted elsewhere in the article, he stated that trying to fight the climate is futile, and adaptation is the better approach.
This first attempt was from Joe Kelly and with the exception of the noted problem, was a good article. I don’t know if Mr. Kelly was there or not, but I do know that Christian Kerr from The Australian was there and asked a couple pertinent questions, so I look forward to Mr. Kerr’s article which I trust will be a more full and frank account of the address.
Over at Mix 106.3, they’ve been without a permanent breakfast show since May when Cam Sullings resigned from the job, moving to a daytime slot and Lisa Ridgley decided to “consider her options” before quitting and travelling to Egypt. For a while, Mix have been making on-air references to something new coming to breakfast soon, and this week they made their announcement. Their new breakfast team will be Pete Curulli and Carla ‘Biggzy’ Bignasca. Pete was recently Mix’s Drive Show presenter, and has been filling the void on Breakfast of late. Carla used to co-host host Austereo’s national evening Hot 30 Countdown which is heard on Mix’s stablemate FM 104.7.
Mix will “introduce” the pair to their audience at 8am on Friday.
At 2CC, Breakfast host Mark Parton went on holidays recently, all the way over to South America. Alas, volcano eruptions have prevented him from returning to the country as the airlines can’t fly through the ash cloud. Mark is currently still stranded in South America and will be for at least the rest of this week. If all goes well, he should be back on-air around the middle of next week, and until then Jorian Gardner will continue to fill-in. Jorian caught up with Mark by phone the other day and Mark jokingly claimed that the volcanic ash cloud, which is not visible from his location, was a plot by 666 ABC Canberra Breakfast host Ross Solly to keep him off the air.
Perhaps Mark, but if I were you, I’d be considering it to be a plot by your previous employers at Mix to get their new breakfast show up and running before you can return to the airwaves. They’ve underestimated Mark’s resolve though as his latest Facebook status is about having trouble finding State Of Origin on the 80 channels available to him in Buenos Aires…even an ash cloud can’t keep him from his Origin. If the ash cloud keeps him over there until the next Origin match, I expect that Mark will fly the plane back himself and land outside Suncorp Stadium.
Between 11am and midday Canberra time (9pm-10pm US eastern time/6pm-7pm US pacific time), my friend Alan Stock from Newsradio KXNT in Las Vegas will be on ‘Hannity’ as a panellist on Sean Hannity’s ‘Great American Panel’.
Alan is currently in New York City for the annual Talk Radio Day at The United Nations where he is probably wearing the brightest Hawaiian shirt known to man. He’ll probably take it to Hannity’s show as well.
I’ll be watching, and I invite you to watch as well. FOX don’t usually upload this segment to their website afterwards, so if you want to watch but miss it, the show is replayed again at 2pm Canberra time (Midnight US eastern/9pm US pacific).
Good Sunday Morning. Plenty to get through this morning, so we’ll dive straight in.
A little while after I posted many details on the fact that the US economy is in serious trouble, more evidence of this came to light.
The US government’s jobs report showed hiring by US companies slowed markedly in May, while the unemployment rate kept rising.
Non-farm payrolls rose by 54,000 last month as the private sector posted the smallest job gain in nearly a year, according to the Labour Department. The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.1 per cent in May.
[..]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 97.29 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 12151.26, led lower by Alcoa, which dropped US28 cents (1.7 per cent) to $US15.92. The blue-chip index has dropped 5.1 per cent during its five-week losing skid and closed today at its lowest level since March 23.
(h/t Steven Russolillo, Dow Jones Newswires, via The Australian)
The fact is, the US economy was never in recovery despite what the Obama administration would have you believe. It had a decent period of stability on the back of over-the-top government spending, but it never entered a recovery, and as was always going to happen, the government’s crippling debt is now an even bigger problem than the original economic woes were. If there ever was any doubt (I’d say that there wasn’t, but it’s an arguable point), it’s gone now, Obama owns this recession and seemingly has very little idea of how to fix it.
THE World Bank has revealed the global market for trading in carbon permits has stalled, just weeks out from the federal government’s release of its detailed plans to shift to an emissions trading scheme.
[..]
The value of the primary Clean Development Mechanism market fell by double digits for the third year in a row, ending lower than it was in 2005.
(h/t Graham Lloyd and Siobhain Ryan from The Australian)
Even the bankers can’t work out how to make a quid out of this crazy scheme. It seems that trading in fresh air just isn’t lucrative, so what makes Ms. Gillard and friends think that taxing the air will be any more successful?
CHILDREN as young as 12 would be allowed to drive under a radical road-safety training proposal to be put to the State Government this week.
That opening line sounds crazy, but if we dig a little deeper, we find that it’s misleading.
Under the CAMS plan, schoolchildren would be given up to four practical lessons each year from age 12. CAMS will explore the idea of using dirt tracks or paddocks for lessons, which would include driving along a skid pan.
CAMS president Andrew Papadopoulos – who taught his own children to drive at age 12 – said the existing school driving courses needed to include a much greater practical component.
He said waiting until students were 17 or 18 to teach them driving skills was too late, because many young people had already developed attitudes towards driving by that age.
“This is about instilling the right attitude to driving in kids early,” he said.
(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)
If, as the opening line suggest, this idea was about letting twelve-year-olds loose on the roads, then I’d agree that it’s “radical” and alarming, but the actual idea is an incredibly good idea. Our current system puts kids (they’re under 18, they’re kids, even if the ACT government disagrees and thinks 12-17 is “young person” and not “child”) in a position where driving is a novelty to them, and generally a fun thing rather than a serious thing. The problems tend to be attitudinal ones more than capability ones.
This idea would change the attitudes of kids before they are old enough to drive on the open road by taking them through practical sessions which would imprint the fact that driving is a serious activity.
If it were up to me, I’d be implementing this idea immediately. I also have ideas to overhaul the driver’s licence system in a way which would make the process of getting a licence similar to the current arrangements for motorbike licences, with an emphasis on solo learning under limited demerit points. People who could successfully graduate from such a system would then go straight on to a full licence, while people who fail either by racking up too many demerit points or by failing assessments would be forced through a logbook system for basic skills before they could graduate back to the solo-learning system.
I believe that one of the great flaws of our current system is that it teaches reliance on a passenger rather than on one’s own judgement, and considering that the vast majority of driving is done on one’s own, it is important for people to learn on their own…and people who are incapable of that simply shouldn’t be on the road. Of course another thing I would do is get rid of the crazy system which is in place in New South Wales where artificial speed limits are imposed on L and P platers which prevent people from learning to overtake, prevent them from learning to handle a vehicle at highway speeds, and provide a slow-moving hazard for the rest of us.
Anyway, my plan could probably be legitimately considered “radical”. The plan from CAMS on the other hand should not be considered radical, and should be implemented immediately, and it’s good to see the O’Farrell government taking it seriously.
***
Also in New South Wales, and the sideshow this week has been centred around filibusters, not that I can work out why this has caused so much excitement.
The basic story is that the O’Farrell government introduced a bill which would give the Premier the ability to set wages for public servants, something which sounds like a sensible idea for a boss to be able to do. The Greens and Labor, predictably, didn’t like the idea and so tried to block it with a filibuster and a deluge of amendments. Nothing out of the ordinary here, this is a regular tactic in politics and is permitted under the rules of parliament, even if it’s not a regular occurrence in Australian governments. Then, after a few days of this, the Liberal/National coalition used their majority to, as is allowed under the rules of parliament, break the filibuster and restrict debate on the deluge of amendments.
The bill passed the lower house yesterday, and will pass the upper house soon.
Yet, incredibly, this has all sparked outrage from both sides of politics. On the right, there was outrage about the Greens babbling on and on for hours and hours and hours, with individual members setting new records for the amount of time a person has spoken in the New South Wales parliament, and now on the left there is outrage over the government using their massive majority to break the filibuster and pass the bill. Both sets of outrage are ill-considered. It could just be that, due to the rarity of these events in Australian parliaments, people think there is something wrong with the events, but it’s more likely that people are just using the opportunity to make their points on the bill rather than the actual events which have occurred in the parliament.
Either way, I think the simple solution here is to say “move along, nothing to see here” as the political machine just moves through its regular processes.
***
Of course there was also a sideshow in federal politics this week involving cat noises. While it was dumb of Senator David Bushby to meow at Senator Penny Wong, at least he had the grace to apologise for it afterwards. We’re still waiting for the apologies from Ms. Wong’s colleagues for the similarly sexist comments which are shouted at Julie Bishop during every session of parliament.
FOUR overstretched and stressed-out State MPs will quit their second jobs as mayors, declaring they can’t cope with the workload of both positions.
But the most prominent double-dipping MP – Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore – refuses to concede there is a problem despite missing every day of parliament last week while on a mayoral junket to Brazil and New York City.
In fact, while parliament was open for business yesterday continuing its marathon session about public sector pay, Ms Moore was tweeting from New York City, where she was checking out bike lanes.
Ms Moore, who has missed 25 per cent of parliamentary sittings since Barry O’Farrell took office, is tightly holding her grip as the Lord Mayor and the MP for Sydney despite politician mayors from all sides of politics admitting it can’t be done.
[..]
Ms Moore, who pulls two six-figure salaries, has three offices and two distinct sets of advisers and staff for each position despite insisting there is overlap in the positions.
(h/t Linda Silmalis, The Sunday Telegraph)
It should be illegal to hold political office in multiple governments. It’s illegal to be a public servant and hold a political office, and the conflicts of interest there are similar to the conflicts of interest in holding multiple political offices.
In Clover’s case, it’s beyond me why she needs to inspect bicycle lanes in New York City when she has already plastered the darn things all over Sydney. And the climate change summit in Brazil…catch a plane to that one did we Clover? Wouldn’t a teleconference have been less carbon dioxide intensive? And how exactly are you being an effective member of the New South Wales Parliament if you’re absent a quarter of the time?
Beyond Clover, we’ve seen similar issues with politicians missing votes in the federal parliament. Here’s a thought, perhaps the rule should be that in order to get paid, the politicians have to turn up to the parliament. If you don’t turn up, your pay is docked…just like it would be in the private sector.
***
In business news, AAMI Insurance is set to close all of its branches, moving all of its customer service to the phone and online.
Spokesman Reuben Aitchison says the branches these days contribute just two per cent to the business and transactions of the Suncorp-owned company, while there has been a significant growth in business through the Internet.
He says the insurer will now concentrate on providing telephone and online services, and hopes to employ half of about 100 affected staff in call centres.
(h/t Australian Associated Press via The Herald Sun)
Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. If the branches, which are retail outlets anyway and not really able to manage insurance claims, are costing more to run than they are bringing in, then effectively my premiums are subsidising the branches, and I would much rather see AAMI’s running costs reduced than to see my premiums go up. I have no problem with their telephone and online customer service, in fact I have nothing but praise for it. If people really want to sit across a desk from an employee of their insurer, then they can go and pay some other insurance agency the extra money to make it happen.
(Image: AAMI’s Fyshwick building at a tad after 5am yesterday morning).
***
As a general rule, I find that most reasonable people like to help other people. A decent proportion of people are nice enough to want to go out of their way to help people that they don’t know, and are often willing to pay more for a product if they think it will provide a better deal for the person who produced the product. Unfortunately, as a result, these people tend to open themselves up to charlatans who have no qualms with pretending that an expensive product is helping someone, when in fact it isn’t.
For a very long time I have suspected that the “Fair Trade Coffee” market was a scam which was, at best, not helping farmers, and at worst, making their lives worse. Until recently, this was just a suspicion which lacked proof. Now though, proof exists.
That fair-trade cup of coffee we savour may not only fail to ease the lot of poor farmers, it may actually help to impoverish them, according to a study out recently from Germany’s University of Hohenheim.
The study, which followed hundreds of Nicaraguan coffee farmers over a decade, concluded that farmers producing for the fair-trade market “are more often found below the absolute poverty line than conventional producers.
“Over a period of 10 years, our analysis shows that organic and organic-fair trade farmers have become poorer relative to conventional producers.”
(h/t Lawrence Solomon, National Post, and additional h/t to Casey Hendrickson who alerted me to the story some time back)
Have a read of the article. Lawrence, its author, is very well versed in the coffee trade and goes in to some detail about how much of a scam the whole fair trade coffee thing is, and how it discriminates against the poorest of farmers. The highlight of which, for me at least, is:
It discriminates against the very poorest of the world’s coffee farmers, most of whom are African, by requiring them to pay high certification fees. These fees -one of the factors that the German study cites as contributing to the farmers’ impoverishment -are especially perverse, given that the majority of Third World farmers are not only too poor to pay the certification fees, they’re also too poor to pay for the fertilizers and the pesticides that would disqualify coffee as certified organic.
Their coffee is organic by default, but because the farmers can’t provide the fees that certification agencies demand to fly down and check on their operations, the farmers lose out on the premium prices that can be fetched by certified coffee.
To add to the perversity, it’s an open secret that the certification process is lax and almost impossible to police, making it little more than a high-priced honour system. Although the certification associations have done their best to tighten flaws in the system, farmers and middlemen who want to get around the system inevitably do, bagging unearned profits. Those who remain scrupulous and follow the onerous and costly regulations -another source of inefficiency the German study notes in its analysis -lose out.
I won’t repeat the whole thing here, although I do implore you to read it. Lawrence Solomon’s work here is exemplary.
***
In domestic media news, Derryn Hinch continues to fight his decades-long battle for the right to name sex offenders who prey on children, despite the fact that it could very easily see him spend his final days in a jail cell.
3AW drive time host Derryn Hinch has been found guilty this afternoon of breaching suppression orders relating to the naming of two sex offenders.
AAP reports that the journalist is facing the possibility of up to five years in prison, after Magistrate Charles Rozencwajg ruled he had breached suppression orders four times on his website and at a public rally. A fifth charge was dismissed.
[..]
Hinch remains defiant over his decision to name those guilty of sexual offences towards children.
“I still feel the same way I always have… people have a right to know,” he said outside the court.
“I know what I have done. I am not sorry for what I have done. It is a good cause and the law is a bad law.
“I don’t like getting convictions. There are always risks in doing the sort of work that I do and you pay for it.”
(h/t “Big Dan”, Mediaspy)
I happen to agree with Derryn on this one. I am of the belief that people who commit sexual offences against children are sick, vile people who are beyond help. I think they should rot in jail for life or face the death penalty, however in lieu of such laws, we should have the right to know exactly who these people are. The existing laws are wrong.
I hope that Derryn doesn’t have to spend his final days in prison, although if he does, then I have to admire his courage and his convictions (moral, that is, not legal).
***
To sport, and you may have noticed that I gave up on the footy tipping again. Truth is, I’m pretty hopeless at it, and I’ll gladly accept it and move on. I just can’t see the point in continually tipping with less than 50% accuracy.
That said, I am still a fervent fan of the Bulldogs in both the NRL and AFL. Alas that means this weekend has been a pretty poor one.
Watching David Smorgon’s (AFL Bulldogs’ President) body language yesterday, I got the distinct impression that he had a heavy heart from a difficult decision, and as such, I believe that Rodney Eade’s days as coach are very limited and he will not see out the season. This is a shame, because I think Rodney is doing a good job, and it’s the players which are letting him down. Just watching Rodney’s pure frustration in the box each week makes that obvious to me.
As far as I can see, the Dogs had a great chance at winning the Grand Final last year with a team which could not physically last beyond the year. The chance was squandered by the powers that be when they sacked Jason Akermanis. Jason provided the team with the extra option on the field that they needed, and were never able to fill once he left. Rodney Eade tried to work around the loss, but it simply wasn’t possible.
This year, be it through injury or an aging lineup, the situation is worse.
I strongly believe that Rodney could build up a great team within a few years if given the chance with some new talent in the side, and that this is our best shot at a flag in the coming years. A rebuilding phase is needed, but sacking Rodney is a bad idea at this time. I do hope that I misread David Smorgon yesterday.
In the rugby league’s version of the Bulldogs, it is reported today that coach Kevin Moore has lost the support of the board. I can’t say that I’m surprised. I’ve never been a big fan of Kevin Moore as a coach, and I don’t credit him with much of the success the club had in 2009 as I see a lot of that as being the result of board decisions and good players rather the coaching decisions. Kevin is one coach who I won’t miss should he happen to leave.
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Some audio for you this morning which will touch the hearts of animal lovers everywhere.
Mark Levin, a great radio host and constitutional lawyer in America (we’ve discussed his work here previously), is a dog lover. Sadly his best friend, the lovely dog Pepsi passed away a couple weeks ago. Mark took a week off to mourn the loss and spend the time with his devastated family. I was very saddened when I heard about the loss (Mark mentioned it on Facebook before disappearing for a week) and sent a card to Mark which apparently arrived on Friday. Many thanks to the nice people in Landmark Legal Foundation’s Virginia office for passing the card on to Mark.
When Mark returned to work on Tuesday, he devoted some of his show to explaining what had happened, and just how much Pepsi meant to him. I cried when I heard it, and I gave Nattie a really big hug when I got home. The audio moved me so much that I have to share it with you, with thanks to Citadel Radio for the audio.
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/MarkLevinPepsi20110531.mp3] Download MP3
Mark, whose two other dogs Sprite and Griffen were shelter dogs whom he and his family rescued, is very passionate about rescuing dogs which have been abandoned. To that end, he and his family have set up a special fund, “Pepsi, Griffen & Sprite’s Legacy Gift” to help dogs who have been abandoned for one reason or another. All proceeds of the fund go to the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation who provide dental services, surgery, heartworm treatments, diagnostic testing and more for dogs who would otherwise be overlooked in crowded shelters. I know that Mark contributes greatly to the fund, so I simply ask that if you are at all interested in helping out and can spare a few dollars, please consider donating. I know that you will make a dog somewhere very happy if you do.
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And that’s it for this week’s rather large Sunday Bits (3,500 words or thereabouts). I visited the Captains Flat weather radar during the week, so you can look forward to some photos from that trip soon.
You had a correspondent a little while ago who was a bit concerned about those ads about the live export of animals being quite graphic, and was concerned that they might air at times when children are likely to be watching. I’d like to allay those fears to an extent for you.
The ads have been rated “M” which means that they can only be broadcast at certain times of the day. To quote from the Television Industry Code Of Practice, M rated ads:
“May be broadcast during the following hours, except during P and C programs or adjacent to P or C periods:
• Weekdays (schooldays):
• 8.30pm–5.00am (see Note 1)
• 12 noon–3.00pm (see Note 2)
• Weekdays (school holidays) & Weekends:
• 8.30pm–5.00am (see Note 1)
Note 1: not in G or PG programs or sport starting at or continuing past 8.30pm. If the program continues past 10.30pm, this restriction ceases to apply.
Note 2: see Clause 2.10.3 of the Code of Practice for time zone difference adjustment.”
So the absolute earliest time that these ads can be shown is 8:30pm, except on school days where they might be shown between midday and 3pm as well.
And in regards to the call you had about global warming from the guy who just droned on and on, I think he came up with the analogy of the week. 0.05% of carbon dioxide is a very dangerous thing because, in this country at least, that’s the cutoff point to be chanrged with drink-driving. Based on his logic, I should ensure that I don’t fill more than 0.05% of my mug with milk when I make coffee, lest the cows explode.
Fair dinkum! I’m just going to assume that he was sleep talking, which is why he was rambling incoherently. Regardless, I got a really good chuckle out of the way you handled him.
Some fantastic news from the Ten Network today, confirming what has been believed to be happening for some time. Andrew Bolt, the Herald Sun columnist, MTR1377 presenter, Ten contributor, and former ABC TV ‘Insiders’ contributor and Nine contributor, is expanding his role at the Ten Network. No longer will he be relegated to the utterly ridiculous role of being the guy at the end of the desk making Twitter-length observations on The 7PM Project (one wonders if they use this format because they think that their core-demographic won’t understand anything longer, or because they think their core-demographic is so obsessed with Twitter that they won’t listen to anything longer), Andrew will now have his own show on Sunday mornings on Ten.
The Bolt Report will premiere on May 8, and will air at 10am. The show will provide a lead-in to Ten’s existing Sunday morning show Meet The Press which moves from its existing 8am timeslot to a 10:30am timeslot.
The timing for the decision couldn’t be better. Earlier this week, Nine’s veteran journalist Laurie Oakes announced that he will relinquish his role of providing the Sunday morning interview for Weekend Today…and quite frankly, whoever takes on this role (if anyone) will not have the same clout and respectability of Oakes, so Oakes’ departure from Sunday television leaves a void…Seven don’t have a serious political discussion or interview program on Sunday morning (they do muster up the occasional interview on Weekend Sunrise, but it is very unusual, and it only works when Andrew O’Keefe isn’t it “silly mode”) so that just leaves ABC TV and Ten.
ABC’s Insiders continues at 9am sans Andrew Bolt, but will presumably still keep other conservative commentators such as Piers Akerman and Gerard Henderson, and it’s a well-known fact that people who watch Insiders and hate the likes of Bolt, Akerman, Henderson and co. are more engaged in the program when they are on…so presumably the plan is to get people to switch over from Insiders at 10am to Bolt at 10:30 and then probably stick around for Meet The Press at 10:30.
It strikes me as clever programming, and Ten have seen that Bolt engages the audience on 7PM Project regardless of their opinion of his views, so this could very well be a winner. At the very least, it puts Ten’s political programming on at a more sensible time…Meet The Press was wasted at 8am up against the unstoppable fluff machines of Sunrise and Today. Ten are much better off counter-programming with youth-oriented music programming in the early hours and putting the serious stuff on at 10am after the adults have finished watching the news (and news-esque) programming on the other channels.
I’m looking forward to The Bold Report, and will make sure that I don’t miss a second of it.
The first one I can understand, and that is that they only report on details of a small minority of things which the police deal with each day. They probably have some very good reasons for not reporting on a lot of their activities, and I fully accept that, none-the-less, it still annoys me that a lot of newsworthy stories never see the light of day as a result.
The second one I really can’t get my head around, and that is the general ignoring of regional areas. With occasional exceptions, New South Wales police media in particular, tend to ignore stories outside of metropolitan and coastal areas, and the few areas in between such as the highways. There’s a great example this week.
Here in Deniliquin there was a home invasion on Monday. The local police media rep has obviously talked to the local media about it as the local radio news had the details this morning, so I’d expect the next edition of the local paper on Friday to also have the details, however the main New South Wales Police Media office in Sydney has not said a word about it. It’s funny in a way that if there was a home invasion in Sydney, it would be front page news and be leading TV and radio news bulletins all day, but a home invasion out here in Deniliquin, whilst it should receive some coverage in national news bulletins, has received no coverage outside of the local area due to the fact that the Police Media unit in Sydney couldn’t be bothered to report the story.
It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last, but it bothers me that the police media unit shows such little regard for the regional areas. I don’t understand why they don’t seem to care about areas outside the urban fringe, and I can’t wrap my head around it no matter what angle I attack it from. Perhaps they suffer from the same problem which many regional people see in the New South Wales government, that in many cases, the government treats areas outside Sydney as being second-class citizens.
This is quite peculiar. Nine Melbourne have been found to have breached the electoral advertising blackout in the leadup to last year’s Victorian state election, however the Australian Communications and Media Authority has not mentioned anywhere in its findings which ad it was or which party or candidate’s ad it was which aired.
The story, according to ACMA’s press release, is that during Getaway on the Thursday before the election, an electoral advertisement aired due to an error in Nine’s traffic scheduling which was in the process of being moved to Sydney at the time. ACMA (as seems to be their usual action) have not done anything about except acknowledge that it happened as, according to them, “there are no previously recorded breaches of this licence condition by a Nine Network licensee” and ACMA will simply just monitor them for future breaches.
The identity of the person or group who made the complain to ACMA is unknown as ACMA have not published this detail, however the complainant does make a good point, which is published in ACMA’s investigation report:
The airing of the advertisement gives […] a clear advantage over all other parties into a prime time viewing audience across the whole of Victoria.
With such a close election result 45 seats to 43 and with many thousands of voters making up their mind during the blackout period, airing such advertisement may have influenced the result in one or more seats and potentially impact on whom was ultimately elected to govern Victoria for the next four year[s].
This is an advantage that cannot be undone or matched.
(edits to this quote were made by ACMA in their published report)
With the exception of the claim that the ad aired all over Victoria (no such claim has been made against Nine’s regional affiliate WIN and it is therefore safe to assume that the ad only aired in Melbourne), the point is correct, the airing of this ad may have influenced votes in key seats. The question is though, for whom was the ad spruiking?
While the advantage gained via the airing of the ad should be irrelevant to the investigation of whether the ad aired, the information about whose ad it was, is information which should be made publicly available so that we, the people, can know what the likelihood is that the result of the election may have been different had the ad not aired, and the information may also be useful if such an infringement of the rules occurs again in the future, especially if the same person, party or group is advantaged in the future.
Personally I don’t care for the advertising blackout period, especially seeing as it only applies to broadcast media and not newspapers or the internet, but as long as the rules stands and it was broken, we should be told who was advantaged by the breaking of this rule. At the moment, it’s like having a person convicted of murdering someone after being hired by someone else to do it, without the name of the hirer being released.
I’ll be contacting ACMA about this matter.
Update 8:11am: ACMA have replied to say that they will have answers to my questions shortly. I’ll keep you posted. End Update
Update 1:30am Saturday: ACMA got back to me yesterday afternoon to confirm that the ad in question was for the Labor party, so on the bright side the ad wouldn’t have caused a different party to be in power, but it may have affected the outcome of a seat or two.
ACMA also confirmed that the complaint was about the ad airing in Melbourne, and not all of Victoria as stated by the unnamed complainant. They have not received any complaints about the ad airing outside of Melbourne, but also can not definitely state that it did not air…this is perfectly normal as ACMA can only act on complaints, however given that there has not been a complaint, it’s probably safe to assume that WIN did not air this ad.
ACMA dodged my question about whether, hypothetically speaking, a future similar breach in favour of the same party (bearing in mind that I did not know which party the ad was for when I asked the question) could provide grounds for investigating a potential intentional bias, but I can’t say that I blame them…a direct answer there could have very easily been taken out of context, and the answer to one of the other questions stated that the airing of this ad was a genuine mistake.
The full text of the questions and answers is below, and I thank ACMA for their prompt responses to my questions:
Q: Firstly, I can not find any reference in the press release or the published report as to whose political ad it was. This information seems to be relevant given the complainant’s statement that “airing such advertisement may have influenced the result in one or more seats and potentially impact on whom was ultimately elected to govern Victoria for the next four year[s]”. Does the ACMA know whose political ad it was which aired and, if so, is the ACMA able to release this information?
A: the relevant election advertisement was an ALP advertisement which was not broadcast through any action or fault of the ALP but through an error in GTV 9’s traffic system as stated on page 4 of Investigation Report Number 2526
Q: If not, why not?
A: (not provided, as irrelevant based on previous answer)
Q: If a complaint is made against GTV9 in the future about electoral advertising airing during a blackout period, and if the ad which airs is for the same party, group or candidate, will the ACMA potentially have grounds to investigate whether the airing of the ads shows an intentional bias?
A: as stated in the Media Release, the ACMA will monitor any future complaints to ensure compliance with the rules
Q: If so, and assuming that the name of the group/party/candidate responsible for the ad has not already been released by the ACMA by this time, will the ACMA then release this information?
A: (again, not provided, as the question is irrelevant after the last answer)
Q: The complainant’s statement in the investigation report mentions that the ad aired across all of Victoria, however only GTV9 is mentioned in the report, not their regional affiliate WIN Television. Is the ACMA in a position to confirm whether or not any complaints of a similar nature have been made against WIN Television and, if not, whether the ACMA can clarify that the offending advertisement only aired within the Melbourne broadcast area?
A: the ACMA did not receive any complaints about the broadcasting of this advertisement on Win Television Vic Pty Ltd (VTV)
the ACMA is not in a position to confirm whether this advertisement only aired within the Melbourne broadcast area – this is a matter you may wish to pursue with the broadcaster End Update
The transmitter, which is located within the compound of the water tank on the hill behind Orange Thorn Crescent, receives transmissions from Tuggeranong Hill and then retransmits them across the area which is in the shadow of Tuggeranong Hill. The transmitter site is not large enough to accommodate analogue and digital transmission equipment at the same time, so the analogue equipment has to be removed before the digital equipment can be installed. According to workmen who were on-site yesterday, this should take about a week.
Some residents in Conder and Banks are able to receive transmissions from Tuggeranong Hill, especially those which are closer to the relay station than to Tuggeranong Hill, as they are in an elevated position which is not in the shadow of the transmitter site. Others in the valley put their antennas on large polls to receive signals from Tuggeranong Hill. It is interesting looking at some parts of Banks and Conder and seeing almost every house have an antenna which is pointing in a different direction to the antenna of their neighbour, especially in areas where reception from the Banks Water Tank would be clearer but people have gone to the extra effort to try and receive digital signals from Tuggeranong Hill. The people who use the Banks transmitter may very well decide to try and get a signal off Tuggeranong Hill when they turn on their TV this evening and find that they are no longer receiving a signal.
