Televised Revolution

Mollie Sugden passed away yesterday. She was best known for her performance as Mrs Slucombe on the UK double-entrendre heavy Are You Being Served.

The woman knew how to deliver a pussy joke like no other. Bless her.

The dude ranch has been infiltrated by a skirt this week. That’s right, one of them there women-folk.

This week on the Televised Revolution podcast, Dan and Simon are joined by Nat as they discuss all things TV and Televisual. On this weeks show:

*The death of Michael Jackson and the ensuing TV coverage.
*Channel 10 is less profitable.
*Channel 9 signs a deal with Warners.
*The Chaser return. With Ray Martin.
*Channel 9 streams the Today Show.

And that’s just the beginning of this weeks discussion. It’s the week where Simon questions just how fresh Dan is and so, so much more.

 

 Televised Revolution Podcast #72 [53:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

So, yesterday Michael Jackson died. And then the media killed Jeff Goldblum.

With the news breaking yesterday morning regarding the death of Jackson, somebody online decided to trot out the oft-used celebrity rumour death that Jeff Goldblum had fallen to his death from a cliff in New Zealand. This was very much not true.

Jeff Goldblum is alive and well.

Apparently, however, reading a Tweet online, or a random email from a viewer is enough of a source for The Today Show staff to consider it legitimate news. The Today Show then ran with these ‘unconfirmed’ reports about Jeff Goldblums death. One can only question how The Today Show had the time to pull file footage of Jeff Goldblum, but did not have the time to check their sources.

The footage (courtesy of Crikey.com.au and YouTube):

Pt 1 – Lets Kill Jeff Goldblum:

Pt 2 – It’s okay everyone – Jeffs alive:

Pt 3 – Gosh, reporting celebrity gossip and news sure is confusing

To be fair, many other news organizations ran with the same ‘news’. That’s still not an excuse.

Sometimes soldiers say f**k.

There was an incident that went to air on The 7:30 Report that made my ears prick up. It was one of those great moments of art being imitated by life.

On Tuesday night The 7:30 Report aired a news story in which they beeped out some soldiers using the F-word when being shot at by an RPG.

Yesterday morning ThePunch ran a criticism of the ABC opting to beep out the word. The liberal viewer in me would have had no problem with the F word not being beeped, but the realist in me can understand why the producer or reporter for the story opted to beep out the word. I’d much rather they didn’t, however.

What interested me about this was the immediate recollection I had to an episode of the US television series Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. During their Christmas episode (one of the true stand-out, great episodes from the show), there is a sub-plot in which the head of the fictional TV station in the show, NBS, is dealing with the fallout from an incident on their news. NBS has been slapped with a $73 million fine by the FCC after a soldier says the F-word when an RPG explodes over his head on a live news broadcast.

Obviously the Studio 60 story was fictional and exists in a more conservative media than the very real 7:30 Report, but if you can look past that, it’s interesting in thinking about this as a legitimate issue for newsrooms and the impact it can have for an organization at large.

She’ll never really be remembered for the work that she did, which was largely inconsequential. Hopefully she won’t be remembered for her eccentricities later in life. She will, however, probably be remembered for this poster. Farewell Farrah.

It appears that Bruce Paige is set to conclude reading the Brisbane Channel 9 News earlier than planned.

I guess we’ll know much sooner as to whether there is any validity to the rumors Paige is to sign with the ABC. Televised Revolution believes this to be unlikely.

It’s also interesting to note that weekend news reading will be handled by Heather Foord and Eva Milic. Can anyone recall another Australian all-female newsreading team? It’s awfully progressive for Channel Nine.

Channel Nine weeknight newsreader, Bruce Paige, has decided to bring forward his departure date from the Network by a fortnight.

Last week Bruce announced he would end his almost 20-year stint at Nine’s news reading desk on July 10. However, this week he sought management support to finish early and will now read his final bulletin this Friday, June 26.

“Saying goodbye is never easy and it has been very trying for my family while I have wrestled with my retirement decision. So, now that it has been made, for their sake and mine I’d like to get on with life after television sooner rather than later,” Bruce said.

“I’ve been so overwhelmed by the kind words and generous feedback I’ve had since I announced my decision. I’ve had time to say my farewells to my Nine family and to our loyal viewers – now it’s time to say hello to the Paige family, our friends and life beyond reading the 6pm news.

“For that reason, I’ve decided Friday night’s 6pm bulletin will be my last. Extra will go to air for the last time that night too, so it seems fitting to bid adieu together.

“I know Nine News will remain in good hands with Andrew Lofthouse and I wish him, Melissa and the entire team the very best of success – they are true professionals and I have enjoyed working alongside them all.”

Nine Director of News, Lee Anderson, said he understood Bruce’s decision not to prolong his goodbyes.

“This has been a momentous time for Bruce and his family and no-one would begrudge them a chance to get on with exploring new horizons,” he said.

“We intend to make sure our Friday night news bulletin contains a fitting send-off for someone who’s been such a big part of Nine Brisbane News for almost two decades.”

Mr Anderson said Andrew Lofthouse and Melissa Downes would officially begin their full-time reading partnership at 6pm on Monday June 29.

The Australian have today provided some detail on Channel 9’s plans for a digital multi-channel. Already we knew that Ch 9 has planned to launch an entertainment station with a youth focus, probably to be known as “Go99!”. What we didn’t know was that the foundation for the new station would be largely formed by the output deal Nine has now signed with Warner Bros. Rumors had strongly sided with the notion that Channel Seven were gunning for the contract quite heavily.

In signing the new content deal, worth an approximate $500 million, Channel 9 will be able to broadcast popular buzz shows like Gossip Girl and Sex & The City, along with shows like The West Wing and HBO series.

The long-term viability of a channel based on entertainment (re: primarily scripted) content is dubious as most of the content is available on DVD, or can easily be downloaded. That said, at least now Australian television may finally get to see The Wire in a decent regular timeslot.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25668044-7582,00.html

Nine signs $500m Warner deal to launch youth digital channel

Jane Schulze, Media editor | June 22, 2009

THE Nine Network has struck the largest US output deal in local broadcast history and will use it to confront rival Ten’s long-standing stranglehold on the young TV audience with a new youth-focused digital channel later this year.

Nine has renewed its output deal with Warner Bros, held since 1992, in a deal that starts when the current contract expires in 2011 and could be worth up to $500million over its five-year term.

Nine chief executive David Gyngell told Media yesterday the new channel would enable Nine to offer advertisers access to both the broader audience of its main Nine channel and a younger audience.

Apart from TV programs, Nine’s parent company PBL Media (which is mostly owned by private equity group CVC Asia Pacific) has also secured the online and mobile rights to the content, enabling its 50 per cent-owned Ninemsn to enlarge its online catch-up TV service.

“We will have hundreds of thousands of hours (of programs) which will help us launch the second channel,” he said.

“And while it’s not ideal from a shareholder’s point of view, from an opportunity point of view we feel the best place to target advertisers is the younger demographic, so we will be launching a younger-focused entertainment channel.”

Mr Gyngell said Nine would initially sell advertising on the new channel as a secondary product, meaning advertisers must first buy ads on Nine before they could buy ads on the new channel. “We are definitely going to be combining our audiences and bundling our approach to multi-channelling and optimising the numbers across both channels,” he said. “So you are going to need to buy the primary channel to get the secondary.”

He said this enabled Nine to target advertisers such as Pizza Hut and Coke, which often preferred younger audiences. The news came as Nine last week suffered the ignominy of placing third in the TV ratings. Nine scored only 25.2 per cent of the national audience, while Seven won the week with 27 per cent and Ten’s hit programs Masterchef and Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation pushed it into second place with 25.8 per cent of viewers.

Nine’s digital channel will directly compete with Ten’s younger focus, although in recent years Ten has expanded its target audience to include the 25 to 54-year-old demographic.

It is the second digital channel to be announced by the commercial TV networks (Ten launched its digital sports channel ONE HD in March) and means Seven is the only network not to have announced its digital plans.

A Seven spokesman said yesterday: “We’ve determined our approach. Next decision will be timing on launch.”

Mr Gyngell said Nine’s output deals with Sony and Village Roadshow would also provide content for the new channel. “So we have the rights from all our US suppliers to build another channel, which we haven’t been able to do before.

“But it’s certainly very valuable to certain advertisers in niche markets, so I think we will be able to commercialise Warners better than we ever have before.”

Mr Gyngell said that in previous years Nine had onsold some Warner programs to the Ten Network and to pay-TV group Foxtel as there had not been room for them in Nine’s schedule. “But now we can use these quality shows in prime time as we have two places to play them. And it’s complementary to our advertising commitments as we now have strength from 16 to 65-year-olds.”