Category Archives: TV

Channel 7 Fail As An Olympic Broadcaster

Sport, TV

Channel Seven secured the broadcast rights for the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Australia and to mark the event, Channel 7 essentially blocked out all other shows over the two week period while the Olympics were on to broadcast it continuously.

I couldn’t believe that while broadcasting the Olympics close to 24 hours per day, that they managed to show so little of the sports on offer. If you look into that just a little bit, it becomes clearer quite quickly:

  • If you replay the same three rounds of the diving five times in one day, a lot of time is burnt that could have been spent diversifying what they were showing.
  • If you interview the same athlete four times, ask the same questions and and expect to get different responses – as the saying goes, it is the definition of insanity.
  • If you re-interview the same set of athletes on different shows, continue to ask the same questions in point 2 a different way and still expect to get a different response – you get the point.
  • Promote only the sports that have an Australian in it
  • Promote only the sports that have an Australian in it and result in some sort of achievement
  • All but flatly ignore the effort and dedication put in by every other athlete that did not get a medal or break some sort of record
  • Televise two rounds of a given sport (see point 4) then ignore it if/when point 4 ceases to be relevant
  • Continue to replay the same event over and over again, hang on – I mentioned that in point 1
  • Fill time in my promoting yet another bullshit excuse to interview more athletes, hoping to get the tear jerking emotional response which you didn’t receive the last 3 times you interviewed them; meanwhile not showing the vast array of other sports available.

The Olympics are about pitting the worlds greatest athletes against one another in a competition that comes round once every four years. It will clearly come as a shock to Channel 7 that it is not about continuously interviewing and re-interviewing the same athletes and showing the same heats of the same sports over and over again.

I suppose we should be happy that Michel Phelps and Usain Bolt aren’t Australian or we’d still be hearing about it.

Pamela Anderson, PETA & Publicity

News, TV

Pamela Anderson is in Australia this week for a brief stint in the Big Brother house. I learned quite a few things about Pamela Anderson that I didn’t in her time in the house, for instance she is a strict vegetarian and an advocate for PETA.

As I’m trekking to work each morning, I listen to 102.9 Hot Tomato with Luke and at the moment a shifting set of co-hosts while they re-establish their morning crew. The current female that is on the morning show, made a statement that she doesn’t feel that Pamela Anderson is really a supporter for PETA because she accepted the job for Big Brother, however KFC are one of their major sponsors.

The discussion continued and Luke’s point of view was that it was a job, regardless of who was supporting/sponsoring the show. He felt that she has, in his terms, serious ying yang, because even though KFC sponsor the show, she was willing to put her case forward. The female said she shouldn’t have taken the job and that should have been her form of protest.

I don’t agree with that at all, I think she would have received orders of magnitude more press because she took the job, pressed her point and created a media feeding frenzy. Consider for a moment if she had turned the job down, if it even made the evening news, it would have been a one line quip that Pamela Anderson was asked to enter the Big Brother house but turned down the role due to conflicting interests in sponsorship. There wouldn’t have been more said about it and it certainly wouldn’t have been mentioned repeatedly.

What do you think, should she have taken the job and in which case do you think would have gathered more press ?

Continental Three Thirtyitus TV Advertisements

Advertising, Food, Humour, TV

Continental started airing TV advertisements last year for their soup range and the theme of the ads was something they termed three thirtyitus. According to Continental, three thirtyitus kicks in at about 3:30PM when your brain starts to slow down, you start thinking less clearly and silly things happen.

So far I’ve found three of their advertisements on YouTube:

In the latest creation, a customs officer is searching a users baggage and is pulling out all sorts of interesting stuff from the bag like numerous bricks of cocaine. Paying absolutely no attention to the bricks of cocaine, the customs officer finally pulls up the user because he is carrying a multi-purpose utility; he flicks open the knife on it – which of course is tiny, and informs the user that this is unacceptable and he’ll need to confiscate it.

I’ve been unable to find a copy of it on YouTube so far, so if someone happens to find it – let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

Australian Idol 2007 Winner, Natalie Gauci

TV
Check out my early predictions for 2008 Australian Idol.

The 2007 Australian Idol contest is over for another year and Natalie Gauci has beaten Matt Corby for the Australian Idol title for 2007.

I’m pleased that Natalie Gauci and Matt Corby made it through to the final. While neither of them have had a completely smooth ride through the competition, they persevered and took on the criticism of the judges where they could to improve their performances. More than that though, they continued to improve each week – which is a key to remaining in the competition as can be seen by Carl Riseley.

Matt Corby is an incredibly gifted young man, however I don’t think he is ready to take on what would be thrust upon him just yet. While I fully expect that he’ll get a recording contact with someone, whatever time lapses between now and then will be time well spent. Contrast that against Natalie Gauci and she has taken pretty much constant criticism and has risen above it at every step of the way. It takes a certain amount of maturity to be able to wear that level of criticism week in and week out and not let it effect you.

From what we’ve been told and seen so far, Natalie Gauci is a talented song writer. I hope that with her new found success via Australian Idol that she’ll be putting that onto the Australian airwaves sooner rather than later.

Streamed Directly From The U.S

Advertising, TV

Channel Ten are pushing new advertising bandwagon at the moment:

Streamed directly from the U.S

The television network are promoting this little catch cry for all of the new TV series they are airing at the moment, such as:

Apparently, streaming the content directly from the United States some how makes the content better. I haven’t quite got my head around how that works just yet but if and when I do, I’ll be sure to make a note of it.

I realise that it is nit picking and that the average Joe wouldn’t notice or give a damn, but for some reason I find it a little frustrating. It’s as if Channel 10 have cottoned onto this new fangdangled ‘internet’ thing and thought that combining a new cool word or phrase with their advertising would some how make it hip and happening.

The reality of it is and they say so in their own advertisement, that we’re still seeing it with a few days delay. That begs the next question, since we’re not seeing it the same day that it is airing in the United States and that it isn’t being steamed directly from the US and aired in Australia – why couldn’t they simply ship a copy of the new series the traditional way?

That’s right, I forgot – the shows are better because they are streamed directly from the U.S!

I love advertising.