Posts filed under 'TV/Radio/Media'
It has taken me a few days to calm down to a point where I can make a reasonable post about this, so here goes.
As you would probably be aware, there was another series of bombings in London the other day, luckyily these didn’t explode properly and didn’t cause much damage. Anyway, this happened on Thursday night Canberra time, during Stargate Atlantis, and as such, Channel 7 had to interupt Stargate for a news update. I have no problem with that, I just have a problem with the way they did it, there was no warning whatsoever that this was a news bulletin, instead this is what happened.
Stargate was running as per usual, the show was at a fairly tense point and there was an ad break, so far so good, but then the ad break ended and I found myself staring at a Sky News feed with no explanation or warning. It took about two or three minutes before Sky actually explained this rather cryptic series of pictures and until that time, it felt like Seven had hit the wrong button.
It is something you see all the time on TV, somebody hits the wrong button and you are watching a movie screening in Adelaide for a few seconds. Usually these problems are fixed quickly.
I understand that at 11pm Channel Seven aren’t likely to have somebody in the newsroom, but I would have at the very least expected a “Seven News Update” intro or a message on the screen saying “Breaking News In London” or something like that. If Seven had done that, people would have known what was happening and wouldn’t have been confused, and I wouldn’t have been annoyed.
I’ll repeat, I have no issue with Seven interupting shows for important news stories, I think it is important, but I would like to see them develop a method which doesn’t confuse viewers or look like a mistake.
Samuel
July 23rd, 2005 at 10:38pm
2CC’s Mike Welsh had an interview with someone from the Museum of Particularly Bad Art about their Itchyball Prize, which seemed so interesting that I thought I would mention it.
Basically, all you have to do is send them your bad artwork and the one they judge as the worst wins $2000. I have plenty of pictures I have drawn over the years that I could enter, but they require the original, and I don’t like to part with my art.
None the less, it is rather interesting and the end result should also be interesting.
I doubt that I will submit any of my artwork, but I might run a series of “Samuel’s Art” specials right here on my blog.
Samuel
July 18th, 2005 at 11:00pm
The Canberra Theatre Centre and Hutchison Entertainment (advertising at 7:30pm on Prime TV) are bringing Romeo & Juliet to Canberra…but there is an interesting twist to this version….I’ll let the Canberra Theatre Company say it: “featuring the most captivating and sensual nude scenes ever presented on a ballet stage.”
It must be the night of the nudists because SBS World News had some “lots of naked people running” thing as their top story, and then had an encore performance at the end of the news while they filled the remaining 30 seconds or so. I suppose that it is SBS, and nudity is no stranger to SBS, but Prime running an ad for nudity at 7:30?
The Canberra Theatre Company have some interesting seating arrangements for this nude play
Babies under 3 years of age can sit on their parent’s lap
FULL PRICE $79.90
PENSION – AGED / INVALID $69.90
GROUPS 10+ $69.90
SECONDARY STUDENT $69.90
I would have expected this to be in Fyshwick or Mitchell, but alas, it isn’t….not that it matters.
Samuel
July 18th, 2005 at 08:17pm
My sources for recent post Lawsie Returns were almost correct.
He actually returns to work two days before they thought, so he will actually be returning to the airwaves on Monday July 25, which is two weeks before his 70th birthday, which will be on Monday August 8.
Samuel
July 15th, 2005 at 08:26pm
Well, the One Day Internationals are over, and so is the Channel 7 coverage of cricket. Technically they didn’t cover any of it as they just sourced the cricket from Sky Sport and placed a bunch of people in a studio to make generic comments and announce that “South Australia are going to the news now.”
I must say that overall I was very pleased with the Channel 7/Sky Sport coverage of the cricket, the commentators were good, they knew what they were talking about and seemed interested in the game, which is more than can be said for the commentators over at Nine.
The Channel 9 commentators are a bunch of boring biddies. They sit there and tell you the same old stories year in year out. Tony Greig and Bill Lawry have the same old arguments year in year out. Heck, if it wasn’t for the fact they occasionally talk about the current game I would think it was a recording. Naturally they spend most of their time in broken record mode. Almost every catch is “the catch of the season”, and Bill Lawry insists on screaming “Got him…Yeah!” after every single wicket.
Regular readers of The Chronicle in Canberra would probably know that local media personality Rod Quinn said similar things about the channel 9 cricket coverage in his column in the late 90’s. Unfortunately, things haven’t changed in this time, there are a couple “new” faces, and Ritchie Benaud doesn’t host on his own any more, but ultimately the same old formula wins out each and every year.
Channel 9 also have a fetish for providing you with a lot of ads, not just between overs, but between balls. They are constantly trying to flog $500 (plus postage and handling) pieces of junk. Most of these items are bizarre line drawings with bits of paint splattered on them that, according to the channel 9 personalities at least, are “fantastic artworks depicting (insert semi-famous non-event here) by renowned artist (name of somebody nobody has ever heard of) , exclusive to the channel 9 cricket shop.”
A typical rundown of one of these ad break overs would be as follows:
Return from ad break
Commentator “Good delivery and a dot ball…Now here we have some artwork (blah blah blah blah blah)”
Commentator announces that the batsman got a half century and continues with advertising
“and it is by renowned artist……And it can be yours for only $599 plus postage and handling without a frame, or $699 plus postage and handling with a frame”
Commentator announces third ball of the over and reads the score
“It is a limited edition of 500, all are personally signed and numbered, call 1900 xyz xyz now for your copy of this limited edition, but hurry as they will sell fast”
Commentator announces fourth ball of the over and declares that it was a “swing and a miss”.
“You can also buy this fantastic artwork by (name) on our website (Veeeeery long URL) or visit (domain name) and click on about 20 links”
“Oh, that was a good delivery…(score)”
The commentator then recaps the important details of the picture or whatever other item they are trying to flog, announces the score at the end of the over and goes to an ad break.
It is worth noting that on most occasions, the item which was supposed to sell quickly is usually on offer again the next week with most of the limited edition still for sale.
Channel 9 also manage to ensure that any trivial event (usually a missed catch) is replayed and talked about ad nauseum for the next hour. It usually takes a couple overs for the current commentators to get over it, and then when the next batch of commentaors arrive, they have to talk about it……the bloke dropped the ball and wasn’t really going to catch it anyway, get over it!
Channel 7 haven’t stooped to such levels, their commentators haven’t managed to jinx every potential catch with the channel 9 line “Oh he can’t possibly drop this one, he is the safest catch on the field and…….OOOOOOOOHHHHHHH NOOOOOO, he dropped it, how did he manage that?”
In fact, it comes as no surprise to me that Sky Sport (who I believe cover cricket for most of the year) have a commentary team who are capable of covering the game, after all, these commentators do it all year, not just for a few weeks during the summer. I would personally be in favour of Sky Sport covering the Australian cricket season and selling free-to-air rights to one of the local stations.
I must, however, point out the two things that disappointed me about the Channel 7 coverage. My first minor complaint is that, due to cricket occurring on Thursday nights, it took the place of Stargate Atlantis, not to worry though, I got my dose tonight. My second, and much more potent complaint is Tony Squires. It has got me beat as to why Channel 7 hired the idiot in the first place, he is a pure, plain and simple pain in the neck who thinks he is funny. I can only assume that Bruce McAvaney was on holiday or didn’t want to be awake past midnight or something like that as he is truly the best sport commentator that Channel 7 have.
On that note, I hope that the AFL have learned their lesson, Channel 9 love NRL and have extended their contract, and in the process extended the number of games they will cover. Whilst I have no problems with more NRL on free-to-air TV, I do have problems with Channel 9 slotting in the AFL after two Friday night NRL games. Channel 10 have managed to uphold a sense of decency with the Saturday AFL coverage, but ultimately, nobody comes close to the professionalism and excellence of the Channel 7 AFL coverage. Lets just hope that the AFL don’t just blindly grab the highest bidder for the AFL TV rights, because if they do it will most likely end up in the hands of Channel 9 and Foxtel, whilst the new (and somewhat unofficially announced) partnership of channels 10 & 7 get left dangling a smaller wad of cash with better coverage.
It is no secret that since Channel 9 took over the AFL TV rights, AFL ratings and support in New South Wales have dwindled, this is because it receives no exposure on Friday night, very few people want to wait until midnight to watch a game of AFL, especially when it isn’t their favourite sport. Channel 10 have suffered as well, they have been trying to promote Saturday night AFL, but without the weeknight exposure, the Saturday night coverage has been a ratings disaster, which in turn makes Channel 10 less likely to run it at a decent time of the night because low rating programs don’t rake in advertising dollars.
Give the Channel 7 & 10 partnership the rights to the AFL and the game will flourish again. And thankyou to 2GB and 3AW respectively for providing such fantastic radio coverage of these sports…It wouldn’t be the same without you.
I look forward to more Sky Sport coverage of cricket (this time it is The Ashes tests) through SBS in the coming weeks. I wonder how Les Murray will go at cricket discussion, he is very knowledgable about most sports, so he should be fine….bring it on!
Samuel
July 15th, 2005 at 12:30am
My sources are informing me that John Laws will take the golden microphone out of its case, give it a light dusting and then make good use of it for a return to the airwaves on Wednesday July 27.
If my sources are correct then this is good news.
Samuel
July 14th, 2005 at 09:11pm
Until 12:05 when I find out if John Kerr is still hosting New Day Australia on 2UE, 4BC, 2CC and many other stations around Australia.
You can hold your breath too, either by listening to your local New Day relay station, or listening online via the 2UE website, or the 4BC website. I think the 4BC stream sounds better…but it uses more bandwidth.
Samuel
June 19th, 2005 at 06:39pm
Well, Stuart Bocking doing his Saturday night show last night said that John Laws had an back operation during the week and is now at home recovering, he also said that they are expecting Lawsie to be back at work “soon”.
In the meantime however, John Laws has attacked 2UE and is threatening to quit. He spoke exclusively with the Sunday Telegraph which suprises me as he always seems to have tongue in cheek when reffering to it and it’s weekday version, The Daily Telegraph, as a “fine journal”.
The Daily Telegraph story can be read here and is also reproduced below.
Laws attacks 2UE
EXCLUSIVE by TONY VERMEER
June 19, 2005
BROADCASTER John Laws feels he is being wasted by 2UE and is threatening to quit the Sydney radio station.
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Frustrated: Talk show host John Laws recuperating at home in Woolloomooloo |
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In a stinging attack on 2UE’s management, Laws accused the station of being too Melbourne-centric and neglecting its Sydney interests.
“It does sort of bother me that with what is a great radio station by any standards, these people think they can run it from Melbourne,” Laws said.
“Well you just can’t bloody well do it.”
Laws said too many spending decisions at 2UE need approval from Melbourne head office and not enough is spent on promoting the Sydney station which he regards as the jewel in the company’s crown.
The radio legend, who is in the middle of one of the worst ratings slumps in his 53-year career, said although he feared quitting radio because it gave him a reason to get out of bed each day, he felt he was being “wasted”.
He said if he is not “captain” then he does not intend to stay aboard the sinking ship.
Once the top-rating Sydney station, 2UE is now in eighth place and Laws, who dropped 49,000 listeners in the latest ratings period, admits that for the first time in his career he is worried.
Laws wants more independence for 2UE, which is owned by Melbourne-based Southern Cross Broadcasting, more money for station promotion and more “mongrel” in station management.
“I’d certainly want to be looking at all my options, because if I’m not the captain then I’m not going to stay aboard the sinking ship, but if I thought better about that situation then of course I would (stay),” Laws said.
“It’ll depend a lot on what goes on in my head but at the moment I just feel that I’m being wasted and the radio station is being wasted.”
Laws spoke to The Sunday Telegraph at his palatial Wooloomooloo harbourside apartment only hours after being discharged from St Vincent’s Hospital.
Last week he underwent a three-hour operation to relieve chronic back pain that has dogged him for more than a year. He will spend six weeks recovering.
The time away from the microphone has given Laws plenty of time to mull over the decline of the once top-rating 2UE – now lying eighth in the Sydney market and five points behind talk rival 2GB.
In the last survey, Laws dropped to fifth place. And he acknowledges that although he has been in slumps before and recovered, this time he is worried.
“It probably feels different because of my age. I probably wonder how many times can I keep bouncing back again,” he said. “There’s got to be a limit I suppose. And also I’m probably just a little grumpier.
He said Southern Cross managing director Tony Bell was “too nice to be in radio”.
Laws is contracted to 2UE until 2010 but can walk away any time he likes. He just can’t work for another station.
He turns 70 in August and admits he has been thinking about his future – thoughts sharpened by the back pain, his frustrations at 2UE’s decline and a feeling that the fun has gone out of radio.
“Never before in my life have I thought ‘Oh Christ, why am I doing this? I’ll take six months off.’ But I started to think like that,” he said.
But Laws, who still commands a vast regional network audience, later adds that he doesn’t want to retire while he’s down. Laws believes he can claw his way back against rival and former protege Ray Hadley.
“I’m not scared about (retirement),” he said.
“But I would be concerned that my life would feel empty, that I would feel I wasn’t needed. That’s the deal about living. You’ve got to feel needed to get out of bed in the morning.”
Story courtesy of The Sunday Telegraph
Samuel
June 19th, 2005 at 05:39pm
I am now hearing conflicting reports about whether Stuart Bocking is staying with John Laws and Saturday Night Live or not, whether John Kerr is continuing to host New Day Australia or not, and whether George Gibson and Warren Moore and staying the places they are currently in or not.
I’m thoroughly confused now!
Samuel
June 15th, 2005 at 07:52pm
As mentioned in post “Movements at the station?”, Stuart Bocking, producer of the John Laws morning show, co-driver & presenter of Saturday Night Live is said to be leaving the show.
The Daily Telegrpah seem pretty sure that Stuart is taking over the New Day Australia program from John Kerr who is currently on holidays…I don’t know if John Kerr know’s about any of this though as he is overseas. The Daily Telegraph reported on Saturday that:
2UE Drive Presenter Steve Price had a go at former John Laws producer Stuart Bocking (the man set to replace John Kerr on the midnight-to-dawn shift) after news broke Kerr would be punted from his job, despite being overseas while the decision is made. A 2UE source says the two had an argument in front of other staff, with Price getting stuck into him for taking the new job before Kerr even returned from overseas. Price yesterday denied the incident. “I’ve never said a bad word to him in my life,” he said.
I continue to hope that this is all just flying rumors, but I don’t think I can hold my breath on that any more, especially now that radioinfo.com.au have picked up the story.
Daily Telegraph Story here
Samuel
June 13th, 2005 at 08:28pm
I received the following description of what is happening at 2CC (and partially, 2UE) this week.
Mike is doing Mike’s job while Mike is doing Mike’s job and Tim is doing Johns job while John is off with a bad back but John is still doing his job in the afternoon.
It is quite correct as the person who sent it points out:
I’m sure the only people the station’s know are named John and Mike
By the way, did I inform you that on top of all of this, George is filling in for John who is on holiday.
Samuel
June 10th, 2005 at 12:51pm
Ah yes, a very busy day indeed.
I got to Dickson College just after 9am and had Maths, at 10am I started on the organisational stuff I had to do for the open night, then went and fixed up the screensaver script on a Linux computer in the library.
The Linux computer runs a screensaver which receives text input from an application (in this case a simple echoing script) and displays it on the screen with effects. The script it runs is called screensaver.sh and contains a number of messages about the library and the college. It was considered to be a good idea to have a special set of messages running on open night, so I made a backup copy of screensaver.sh which I named screensaver_old.sh
I then went and wrote a set of open night messages and named it screensaver_open_night.sh
I also needed a screensaver script that didn’t advertise the open night, which would become the script after the open night, this was named screensaver_normal.sh
A cron job was then used to automatically copy screensaver_open_night.sh to screensaver.sh at 6pm (This made the open night script the active screensaver script) and another line in the crontab file copied screensaver_new.sh to screensaver.sh at 9:30pm so that the new normal screensaver would be back in operation when people come in tommorow. I still have to clean off the excess files by hand, but I felt it was better to leave them all there just in case something went wrong…which it didn’t.
Having all of this automated not only impressed and excited the library staff, it also meant that I didn’t have to change scripts before and after the open night.
After this I went and checked in with my boss to remind him that I was busy with open night preparations, he understood and spent a few minutes outlining the work he wants us to do over the next few weeks.
I then went to find one of the deputy principals to confirm what time he wanted the laptop and projector setup in the hall…he was however on class at the time, so I went back down to the library where I was informed that the screensaver was spitting out “Unexpected EOF” messages…It then occured to me that I forgot to fix the missing quotation marks I had spotted earlier, five minutes later it was fixed.
I then went around to media to arrange a time to set all their wallpaper to the same one (preferably a custom made Dickson College Media wallpaper), we arranged to do that after I had finished in the hall with setting up and having a practice run of the speeches.
Then I had class for an hour and then went and saw one of the deputy principals and arranged to do the hall setup and practice after Lunch. After this I was about to have lunch when an occasional colleague showed up, this took up half an hour after which I was able to have Lunch.
At 2pm it was time to setup the hall, a laptop, a projector, and couple extension leads and…whoops, another extension lead to make the required length, then some audio problems and finally the pratice run of the speeches.
By the time this was over it was close to 4pm and I felt that it was a good idea to have my afternoon tea, and then have an early dinner as I wouldn’t have time later…so I sat down outside with my thermos, my mug and my radio and had afternoon tea, and then walked to Dickson and had an early dinner.
By this stage I felt like calling 2CC’s Mike Frame and voicing my objections to this new arboretum that is planned for Canberra (see www.the-riotact.com for more details…or stay tuned, I’ll have more details in a future post), rather than wasting mobile credit, I fed a pay phone and found that Telstra have made it possible to send text messages from them, not that I cared, I just wanted to make a call, which I did.
After this I went back to the college (It was around 5pm) and found a job I could do…I sat down and answered the numerous phone calls regarding what time the open night begins, one of these callers seemed to recognise me, perhaps as a 2CC caller, or perhaps from here…I don’t know, it is a mystery. I also had other receptionist duties during this time.
At 6:30pm (after having a cup of Milo) I went around to the Hall and turned on the projector and laptop, I then started the first slideshow, which was a looping set of various pictures of the college and it’s events. I then went back to the front office and continued my phone answering and receptionist duties.
At 7pm I went back to the hall and took my seat at the table with the laptop and projector (I also unofficially declared myself to be the “Technical Producer” of the speeches). I spent the next 10 minutes looking through the script for the main speech, and pretending to cross reference it with the other papers I had, which I thought made me look much more busy and important. At about 7:10 I was quite annoyed with the loud music from the Jazz band playing in my ear, they were good, but they were far to close to me, so I pretended to find a note on the desk, busily and frantically checked other papers, got up, took some paper with me and escaped the hall for a couple minutes and then came back in and continued to examine the papers.
By this stage I was doing plenty of watch checks as we were supposed to start the speeches at 7:15pm, and eventually got the nod from one of the deputy principals and changed to the main overhead presentation, which I ran as the speeches went on.
After the speeches (and a public thankyou from one of the deputy prinicpals) I packed up the laptop and projector and took them back to their locations, I also moved a TV & DVD on a trolley which were playing some footage from a dance class into the main congregation area. I spent the rest of the night assisting in various places (and confirming that my screensaver scripts were behaving…which they were…It’s Linux, it just works). I then got a lift home with a teacher who lives near me (hooray, no Action FlexiChaos), checked my email, got a cup of coffee, sat down and watched Stargate Atlantis.
Unfortunately, Steppy the pedometer is slightly clunky and I really didn’t have time or space to take him with me today, and as such, there is no stepometer for today….it would have been right off the scale anyway, their was barely any time when I wasn’t walking today.
Samuel
June 9th, 2005 at 11:38pm
I am hearing rumors of a shake up at 2UE, according to these rumors the producer of the John Laws Morning Show, co-driver Stuart Bocking may be leaving the Lawsie show and his own Saturday Night Live program to take up the New Day Australia program…it is unclear what would happen to John Kerr, but if he did have to move, it would be nice for him to be able to take Saturday Night Live, although I’m not sure it would suit him….better then being forced out of the station though.
Personally I like things the way they are, I want Stuart to keep doing what he is doing, I want John Kerr to continue to host New Day Australia, it works nicely, and besides, how would Lawsie explain the absence of the co-driver?
I don’t think Stuart is a suitable choice for overnight radio, and I don’t think John Kerr is a suitable choice for Saturday Night Live, they are both great presenters, but they fit their current roles quite nicely.
Samuel
June 6th, 2005 at 11:37pm
It seems that I run into crazy people almost every day, on Friday while I was sitting down listening to the radio a woman passed by me and stared at me the entire time she was walking past, in fact, I would go so far as to say she was gawping at me, or as answers.com puts it “look with amazement; look stupidly”
Oddly enough, it happened again later that day as well…I can’t find any reason for this gawping, unless I my head had momentarily turned bright orange with lime green polka dots…which it didn’t.
Strange strange people.
Samuel
June 5th, 2005 at 09:14pm
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy bithday dear Samuel
Happy birthday to me
Well, as expected, I rang John Kerr, and I have kept an mp3 memento of the call, and some other edited June 2 specific parts of the show. The mp3 is 1.9MB and can be downloaded from https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/18thbdayjk.mp3
Samuel
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:45am
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