Monday Morning Wrap Up #3: 13th October 2008

Hello? How are you? I’m fine.

What news broke over the weekend? Well I’m glad you asked….

#1: Analogue to digital TV switchover timetable to be announced [The Australian]

THE timetable for a region-by-region switch-off of analog television signals throughout Australia is expected to be announced next week. A report prepared by the Government’s Digital Switchover Taskforce has been presented to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and enabling legislation is expected to he passed during this week’s sitting of the federal parliament.

I really don’t know what to say here. It is so far away, everybody will have forgotten by then. Don’t invest in a Digital Set-Top Box, do like I did, invest in kittens. They just keep getting fluffier and fluffier.

#2 McCain to go on Letterman October 16th [THR]

John McCain has successfully negotiated a cessation of hostilities with David Letterman. The presidential candidate is going to have a diplomatic sit down with the late-night leader Oct. 16.

This should make for some pretty good telly!

#3 MIPCOM is currently being held in the French Riviera, the largest media buying event in the world.[THR]

CANNES — How quickly and how widespread the effects of the global financial meltdown would ricochet onto the French Riviera was the question this weekend as a record number of TV execs and producers poured into this French city for the five-day worldwide sales bazaar known as MIPCOM.

Wiki for MIPCOM: “It is essentially a content event for co-producing, buying, selling, financing and distributing entertainment content. It provides the people involved in the TV, film, digital and audiovisual content, production and distribution industry a market conference and networking forum to discover future trends and trade content rights on a global level.”
If you want to hear what the “biz” is saying and want to read some of the often questionable statements execs make, I thoroughly recommend the THR MIPCOM 2008 page.

#4 “SEVEN Network chief executive David Leckie is already claiming victory in next year’s TV ratings — six weeks before the current season even ends — and has lashed out at rivals who criticised him when he was in a coma earlier this year.”

Plummeting international share markets did not deter Mr Leckie from going public with inflammatory comments made to advertisers last week, including calling Ten the “pocket-money generation” network, and suggesting Ten chief executive Grant Blackley was “no good”.
The mercurial network boss said Nine would be “f..ked” next year without high-rating shows from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay; called its success this year “a fluke”; and said it would need to find 110 hours of television to replace its 7pm sitcom Two And A Half Men.

Careful David…..