Month: June 2006

Categories
BBC Two Videos: Top Gear

Clarkson’s commentary on the state of news

clarkson

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I know some people don’t like Jeremy Clarkson (I believe there was some sort of pie throwing incident), but for the few years I’ve been watching Top Gear I’ve grown to really like him. So as odd as it was, it shouldn’t have come as any surprise when he decided to use this weeks “news” section of Top Gear to make his own little commentary on the state of modern news broadcasts.

This is what you do on the news today, haven’t you been watching news bulletins? They’ll walk around with a bit of paper and then they talk to a camera, and for no obvious reason switch to another… I’m going to do the next bit like Channel Five. Have you seen Kirsty Young? She’s always half way up a staircase.

I wonder how long it will be before we see Virginia Hausegger leaning against the news desk holding a bit of paper (or worse one of those tablet PC’s)… I’m sure the ABC wouldn’t do that.

Categories
Channel 4 Channel Five ITV Videos: Broadcast News Videos: Openings

BBC is to our ABC, as ITV is to our… ?

4newsset

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5newsset

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In a week that I blogged Australia’s three commercial network and two public broadcaster news openers I thought I’d round it all out with these three commercial news openers from the UK.

I’ve already posted the BBC News openers, and while they remain my favourite I do like the Channel 4 set.

Categories
Videos: Idents

See the world like SBS. Another Inkproject.

see the world like sbs

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A simple and elegant brand promo for SBS, its by Inkproject, the same folks that made the awesome liquid series of idents.

Its brilliantly filmed with great visuals, and the white border and overlays create a really beautiful, welcoming and fresh feel, perfectly suited for everyones favourite multicultural broadcaster.

Categories
ABC1 Videos: Chaser's War

Coming to an ABC shop near you

abcnude

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In this week’s Chaser they did a hilarious bit that showed off a mock ABC nude calendar, the public’s reaction was priceless, and I was actually really surprised with the quality of the design of the calander (as well as the pictures). I got an email yesterday with this excerpt from the SMH that might imply we could be seeing more of it;

The nude celebrity calendar featured in last week’s episode of The Chaser’s War on Everything could hit bookshops next year. The calendar, which featured the faces of such ABC personalities as Adam Hills, Jennifer Byrne, Andrew Denton and Margaret Pomeranz on nude portraits, was conceived as a TV stunt, but the Chaser team is contemplating publishing it as a real calendar.

The female bodies were supplied by models, but at least three of the male bodies belong to the Chaser team – Chas Licciardello stood in for Andrew Denton, Andrew Hansen for James O’Loughiin (pictured) and Craig Reucassel posed as himself. An insider told The Guide that consensus within the ABC is that Mr December, The 7.30 Report’s Kerry O’Brien, is ‘“the hottest”. His body was provided by an ABC staff member who wishes to remain anonymous.

For more pictures

Continue reading “Coming to an ABC shop near you”
Categories
ABC1 Nine Network Videos: TV

Staging a war, Nine style (on Media Watch)

mediawatch

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First it was the Chaser that showed us the video of the Today show making a continued fool of itself, well now Media Watch has taken a look at the Tapestry of Seven vs Nine.

This video also includes the famous “Ambulance chaser” promo that Nine ran during the miners interview.

Categories
ABC1 SBS Videos: Broadcast News Videos: Openings

Public Broadcaster News

abc

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Just to complete the set I started earlier, here are the openers for the ABC and SBS News’ from last Friday night, similarly dominated by the Snowy Hydro news, although SBS not quite as much.

Categories
Channel 4 Ten Network Videos: Openings

Big Brother: Where two plus two equals five.

bbuk

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The UK and Australian opening sequences of Big Brother, is it just Australia, or do all Big Brother houses around the world get filled up with the same demographic of people? (Can’t think of a euphemism for “bogan“).

You learn something new everyday on Wikipedia, and in my attempt to bring you some sort of mildy informed commentary on Big Brother, I’ve come up with this…

Continue reading “Big Brother: Where two plus two equals five.”
Categories
Nine Network Seven Network Ten Network Videos: Broadcast News Videos: Openings

Commercial Network News (again)

7news

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9news

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10news

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Its been nearly a year since I last compared the three commercial news opening sequences, and while not much has changed for Seven or Ten (except the Rowe thing), Nine have been tinkering away.

These were all captured last night, so they all compare the same stories, and they are all dominated by the backdown of the Prime Minister over the sale of the Snowy Hydro.

Categories
ABC1 Videos: Chaser's War

The Chaser’s War on iPod (again)

chaserswar

In March this year I offered for download an entire episode of the Chaser’s War in response to a Hack story I heard that Australian’s were now the biggest downloaders of TV in the world.

This time though, I’m doing it simply because its the best show on television your not watching at the moment. Its relevant, funny and creatively confrontational. Its in an unfortunate timeslot though, so if you haven’t caught an episode yet, try it…

> iPod Download 160mb (right click + save)

The next two weeks are “Best Of’s” but it returns to the ABC at 10.15pm on the 23rd of June with a new episode.

(To watch you’ll need iTunes, Quicktime or VLC)

Categories
ABC1 Videos: Chaser's War

The Ad Road Test: No Gary No

nogarynogary

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This week they tried to recreate the success of that No Gary No Nicorette ad with some smokers on the streets…

Then they went and tried it out on Kevin Andrews, Kevin Rudd, and a dancing Peter Costello.