Month: June 2007

Categories
ABC1 Web Misc

The new abc.net.au/tv launches.

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The folks behind ABC Online have been busy. A new ABC News site is due to go live any day now, and as of this morning there is a new ABC television portal.

With an emphasis on video (in user friendly full screen flash), and more full episode downloads including The Einstein Factor and The New Inventors, the ABC is taking some positive steps towards the promise of TV 2.0. The site encourages you to watch previews of upcoming shows and participate in a newly opened forum.

Check it all out for yourself right here.

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Seven Network Videos: Chaser's War

The Chaser “often funny” says Today Tonight.

Update: Check out the Chaser’s lastest run in with Today Tonight here.

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Update: Watch the Today Tonight story in full here.

Update 2: Watch the The Chaser story in full here.

First it was A Current Affair with their puff piece about The Chaser’s War on Everything. Now, it looks like Today Tonight are about to get nasty. The video is a teaser for tomorrow nights story exposing what Anna Coren calls The Chaser’s “fake street cred”.

Today Tonight asked The Chaser if they could shoot a story by coming along with them for a stunt. However, when everything didn’t go how the TT reporter James Thomas hoped for, it would appear they’ve decided to take this angle for the story.

I will post the story in full here after it airs tomorrow night, along with what The Chaser have to say about it on their show too.

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S4/C (Welsh) Videos: Idents

S4/C’s Infinite Loop.

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What do you get when there’s a break in the schedule of television early in the morning? Infomercials? Test patterns?.. Not if you live in Wales. This loop, created for S4/C by Proud fills those gaps with a serene and mesmerising flow of five lines.

Its the kind of thing you’d expect to see projected on the wall in a big dark room at Georges Pompidou, not on early morning television in Wales. In fact, if it wasn’t on TV, we’d probably all call it art.. which it is, just like S4/C’s stunning idents collection.

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Channel 4 Videos: Idents

Channel 4 and 20 Questions… interrupted.

Download the whole H264 bunch in one swoop here (56.3mb *.zip).

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Channel 4 relaunched five of their 20 questions idents last week. I say “relaunched” because they mix original footage from the idents, with set-ups done with various celebrities.

As for whats in the videos above, here’s a bit of a rundown:

1 – Dermot O’Leary telling us about his first car.. just as something happens to it.

2 – David Threlfall struggling to answer the question ‘what would change if you could start over again’.

3 – Alan Carr on the plight of the third world.

4 – Justin Lee Collins and a burning house.

5 – Alan Dale and an Australian fan.

6 – Russell Brand getting hit by a comet.

7 – Charlotte Church is a robot!

I’ll add any more of the ..interrupted idents here if I can get them. But for now check out the rest of the “normal” versions here.

Categories
ABC1 Videos: Chaser's War Videos: Promos

First Tuesday Porno Club

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Jennifer Byrne talking porn with Richard E Grant and the gang from The First Tuesday Book Club. I’m all for the analysis of popular culture, and mainstream texts, I guess I just thought television would be ahead in line to pornography.

This is the kind of Chaser stuff I love, and while I doubt we’ll be seeing this show on the ABC anytime soon, I think any accessible critical discussion about media or culture, be it literature, television or porn, is a good thing.

Download the whole episode from the official vodcast or just get it off me.

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BBC Four Videos: Broadcast News Videos: Openings

Find out why The World is no more.

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Late last month, the only news program in the UK to focus solely on international news got a shake up. It went from being The World, in the first video, to World News Today in the second video, and is now hosted by Zeinab Badawi. The show is described as:

unashamedly serious; but that doesn’t mean it’s not engaging or stimulating.

And it probably fits in very well on BBC Four where it airs. Why the change you ask? Well you can read all about why from the BBC itself which blogged about the changes here, in a brilliant example of openness, that kept the viewer in the loop for once.

Not getting BBC Four, or living in the UK, I haven’t seen either shows, all I can say though… is I’m glad they kept the wood flooring.

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SBS Videos: Promos

The Big Love at SBS.

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The HBO drama Big Love starts on SBS tonight at 8:30pm, and while its up against Life on Mars and Grey’s Anatomy among other things, it will be interesting to see how it goes. Like the Chaser, it may bring a new audience who would otherwise not be watching television, as opposed to eating away at another networks viewers. As you’ve probably already heard in the promos above, or seen in the print ads that appeared in today’s papers the show stars Bill Paxton as a practicing polygamist living in Salt Lake City.

SBS is really growing on me of late, and I’ve already gotten over the fact they have in-program advertising. The Indonesian News was never going to be a draw card for me on SBS, but programming like Top Gear, the new News, and now potentially Big Love, the Special Broadcasting Service is becoming a bit of a More4, and hopefully a good environment to foster alternative programming that isn’t getting shown elsewhere.