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Borat talked to David Koch this morning on Sunrise at 7:50am. They chatted about breakfast television, being a sex symbol, and Melbourne Gibson. Its a shame it couldn’t have been live in studio, would have been good to see him interact with the whole gang.
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You’ve probably already seen the teaser trailer, but last night in the States on Fox, and tonight on Channel Ten in Australia a new trailer for the Simpsons Movie was released.
Enjoy it here in all its watermarked glory.
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Apparently the ABC is registering something like 1.6 million podcast downloads a month, the compares to the 3.5 million the BBC does, and considering the enormous difference in reach of the two broadcasters you’d have to say that is pretty impressive.
No doubt adding to an increase in that number is the new shows being added to the ABC burgeoning vodcasting venture. What started as just The Chaser’s War on Everything and JTV, has since grown to include Lateline, Lateline Business, Dig TV, and as of this week Media Watch and the new ABC2 show Good Game.
What’s next for the ABC though? At the Movies, Four Corners, News, Enough Rope, or hopefully all of the above.
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SBS has animated the benefits of it, the ABC gave it a shot too, and Penelope Keith has hawked it to the British public, but I think the Digit Al series (part one here) featuring the voice of Matt Lucas has been the best concieved of the ideas in trying to get people to switch to digital television.
But even the best concieved of ideas isn’t going to get people converting if there isn’t anything to watch, sadly thats a problem that Australia and not the UK has to face.
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Jack and Bobby is a high concept drama about “two brothers, one of whom grows up to become the President of the United States and one of whom dies before his time”. It’s from the producer of The West Wing, and was broadcast on the teen centric WB Network (now The CW) in the US for one season in 2004.
Its only the second US drama I can think one of a few US dramas to air on the ABC in recent years (Carnivale and Angels in America miniseries), and unlike its grown up counterpart The West Wing, it got no promotion (that I saw) and has been placed in the 11.40pm Monday night timeslot.
Its my understanding the show was probably acquired in a deal when the ABC got The West Wing, I’m not sure if the ABC just isn’t that keen on it, but I can’t understand the total lack of promotion, and if it wasn’t for my prior knowledge of the show I doubt I would have even noticed it in the TV guide.
Having only seen the first episode I’m yet to make my mind up, it is interesting though the mental weight I’ve placed on the show purely because its airing on the national broadcaster, and while the timeslot may show the ABC doesn’t have much faith in it, I think it might just be interesting to see where this of-course-now-cancelled show takes us.
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UPDATE: The Kooks sing MGMT with their version of Kids (2.7mb).
I love cover versions of songs. Good ones can be awesome and I think the reinterpretation of an existing text is something that has so much potential, whether its music, literature, movies or television. The above video is this week’s like a version from triple j with Ben Folds doing a piano and percussion heavy cover of The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’.
Random and sometimes surprising covers often turn up on Hype Machine, so check it out. Along with the Ben Folds cover mp3 here is some tracks I’ve stumbled upon lately.
> Ben Folds sings The Postal Service with Such Great Heights (5.1mb)
> David Gray sings The Killers with Smile Like You Mean It (3.3mb)
> Mystery Jets sing Bloc Party with The Pioneers (4.4mb)
> Editors sing Gorillaz with Feel Good Inc (4.1mb)
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The Chaser may do a good job putting A Current Affair and Today Tonight in its place, but nothing is quite as fun as the crap these two shows come out with themselves.
So with Naomi Robson being deported from Indonesia while trying to save Wa Wa from cannibals, lets have a look at how the two rival networks covered the event.
And be sure to see the story following the Wa Wa report, its good to see so much diversity.
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Like I’ve said before Canberra only gets the SBS EPG, but on my recent night in Sydney I managed to capture Nine’s new guide, and Seven’s as well. Ten’s remains embarrassingly out of date so I didn’t bother with it.
Update: In answer to my question; Sports Night is the closest thing I’ve found to a multi camera show that became a single camera show.
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I’ve been watching How I Met Your Mother lately, and for some of its lameness, it is kind of a cool show. But where does the lameness come from? It’s the four cameras filming it, and the studio audience watching and laughing at it.
Which got me thinking, why has a traditional multi camera sitcom, like How I Met Your Mother, never built a “fourth wall”, lost the studio audience and just matured into a single camera sitcom.
I know Scrubs did an episode that parodied the traditional sitcom by filming part of the show in front a studio audience, I would just love to see it done the other way round, I think it would be a fascinating evolution for a show to change that dramatically, and a chance for a show like How I Met Your Mother to grow a little, and give the writers and directors a chance to expore different aspects of the story.
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Last week I mentioned how the ABC was starting to watermark HD programs. Well, in the space of a week they’ve decided to change the watermark a bit. I’m starting to think maybe the ABC should come up with a HD brand, like the way the BBC have.