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I don't often comment about television advertisements, but in this case I couldn't resist...

Everyone's ABC (unless you're interested in politics)

Right now it's Saturday night, the night of the SA and Tasmanian elections. Posting here from Victoria there is exactly one outlet to view coverage of this election - Sky News.

The ABC has four different channels which they could use, ABC3 is all kids programming and ABC1 and 2 are currently pandering to the nursing home demo, they would surely be covering these elections in their respective state markets - so why not show that coverage on ABC2 or even the HD channel?

ABC Managing Director Mark Scott has been carpet bombing the media for the past year about his ambition to create a 24 hour News Channel to compete with Sky news - but he can't even give people out of the state an opportunity to watch election night coverage on two very precarious and interesting contests?

The results of these elections will have national implications on the continuing viability of COAG, not to mention the affects on Kevin Rudd's mooted commonwealth takeover of state hospitals. It's not difficult to imagine that there would be people outside of SA and Tasmania interested in following the count.

Epic Fail Mr Scott, when a cable channel run on a shoestring budget does a better job than the well-funded ABC - you've got real problems.

Memories of Pete and Tina

Tuesday 12 May 2009
Just look away now! Those numbers are horrible!

No not the federal budget! I’m talking about the paltry 889,000 who turned out for the second episode of HomeMADE.

This is no cheap and cheerful show , described as “The Block on steroids” it’s a home renovation competition where designers compete in teams making over neighbouring houses each week. Apparently the competition runs for 8 weeks, so we’ve just had week one.

Now I’m not keen to diss on a show that gets over a million viewers, as this program did on Sunday night, but last night 131,000 people abandoned the show for the alternatives on other networks, a sad, sad result more reminiscent of the HotHouse than the Block.

Elsewhere Talkin ‘bout Your Generation proved it wasn’t a fluke only down 48,000 week on week, by contrast Seven’s The Zoo was down 154,000 on last week’s Lion special.

The ABC had a decent hour at 7.30 with the Federal Budget Speech and the Kerry O’Brien afterparty pulling a decent crowd, although both were (puzzlingly) outgunned by the preceding news bulletin, I guess once you’ve the gist of what’s going on you don’t need to listen to a politician talking out his arse for 30 minutes with the constant chant of “hear, hear” in the background!

Happy Election Day Queensland

Tonight two big nerd events will be competing for my attention on Cable TV, the final episode of Battlestar Galactica due to start on SciFi (132) at around 9pm and the Queensland State Election which is also notable for sci fi geeks because the Borg is one of the candidates...

Here's a very dumb video I made back when they formed the LNP


All obtuse sci fi references aside the end result of the Qld election will be fascinating - is Qld destined to be a one-party state (much as it was under Sir Joh all those decades ago) or will we see one of the biggest come from behind swings in the history of elections in this country!

Anyone in Queensland reading this blog remember to vote well and vote often, I hope your chosen candidate gets up!