Legal Beagle by Graeme Edgeler

Moral of the story: “Only get into a conversation with me about the history of television if you really mean it.”

[random comment to get this into system]

I still probably won't get it – shelling out hundreds of dollars for a satellite installation in a flat I might not be in six months from now seems a little extravagant, but now I'll feel like I'm missing out. On the Olympics in high definition too, so I'm told.

Hang tight. You'll be able to get Freeview with your standard UHF aerial from April. And you can take the box with you when you move.

Actually, you can get it now if you buy a non-branded Freeview box. All in HD too ...

For those of you with the means and desire to upgrade your actual TV set, it's possibly worth hanging on for the sets with Freeview decoders built-in.

How come no mention of PBS, which we get on Triangle Tue to Sat at 10pm( with dodgy satellite feeds thrown in for fun)
The gravitas mostly done with talking heads and an even handedness to make the BBC look like scarlet woman.

How come no mention of PBS

Cos PBS only puts audio on iTunes...

And I feel your pain with the BBC. My memories of the BBC coverage of the taking of white-owned farms in Zimbabwe still surface whenever someone herald's the BBC as less biased than alternatives. Some of the throw-away lines its reporters have throw in have also been cringingly bad...

Please TVNZ7, please get PBS's Frontline series.

ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulus will greet me. Stephanopoulus is a former aid to Bill Clinton (he was the inspiration for Sam Seaborn), and a relative newcomer to journalism, but This Week has a pedigree: on-air for more than 25 years. For those after a weekly interview and panel show in the lead-up to the November election, it will be hard to go past.

If George does gravitas, I guess I've missed it because from what I've seen he comes across as a badly over-caffeinated Sean Plunkett. (You know, the kind of crap he's not doing so much anymore, to __Morning Report's benefit). Even the partisan talking heads are easier to take on the PBS News Hour. I'd consider it an entirely appropriate use of charter funding if Triangle was handed a large wodge of cash to do a timeshare deal for the grown-up news.

If George does gravitas, I guess I've missed it

It's no Meet the Press, but when I was talking gravitas, it was more the news, than the Sunday-morning interview show. I'm not sure any of them pull gravitas on their interviews ... it would be decidedly misplaced.

ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulus will greet me. Stephanopoulus is a former aid to Bill Clinton (he was the inspiration for Sam Seaborn),

But is he as good looking as Sam Seaborn?

(Comment inspired by this thread at the Hoydens' place.

we lost World News Tonight with Peter Jennings from free-to-air television. It might have aired post midnight, but for a long time it was the news programme I least liked to miss. But TVNZ got the rights to World News Tonight and then sat on them, preferring to fill all its overnight slots with BBC World.

yeah, I used to watch it all the time at mid-day on TV3. And then chuckle when they lifted an item whole for their 6pm bulletin -- they simply revoiced the report with a TV3 reporter, but still using the ABC script. I presumed that was why TVNZ stopped screening it (they were a bit more savvy to their audience being savvy).

In a country where every fatal car accident gets a mention on the six o'clock news, it's fantastic that New Zealanders will again see network news as it is supposed to be done. And in 25 minutes.

It's worse than that - we even get 'news' about Aussie car accidents. Or Aussie weather. Or Aussie anything. Meanwhile their coverage of NZ current affairs is limited to our sporting losses or interfering with sheep.

You'll be able to get Freeview with your standard UHF aerial from April.

So those of us in areas where UHF reception is shite are shite out of luck? Shite!

So those of us in areas where UHF reception is shite are shite out of luck?

No. You'll just need a satellite.

I used to watch it all the time at mid-day on TV3. And then chuckle when they lifted an item whole for their 6pm bulletin -- they simply revoiced the report with a TV3 reporter, but still using the ABC script.

It was on at midday! :-(

Worse was when you'd see a story on one night, and then a week later it appeared on 3's evening news.

Worse was when you'd see a story on one night, and then a week later it appeared on 3's evening news.

This is how crazy it (still) gets sometimes;

You see a news item on one local channel on Tuesday night courtesy of a US news outlet. Then you see the same item on the other channel on Thursday night, courtesy of a UK news outlet. The UK story has come off the satelite, but it's pretty much the same as the US item (ie using the same US video images), just tweaked by ITN or SkyNews for British consumption!!

And yes, I am often left wondering what the definition of 'news' is when you see items a week later (on either channel).

BTW - The US media are crediting the Drudge Report for 'breaking' the Prince Harry in Afghanistan story. This despite Drudge themselves crediting their sources. Obviously their world view does not include the German and Australian magazines that did it first in January ...

and then a week later it appeared on 3's evening news.

I don't know what network it came from, or how old it was, but one 3 news story (probably on a Sunday) belonged in the early eighties: apparently, they make a lot of music instruments in China! Especially violins!!!

BTW - The US media are crediting the Drudge Report for 'breaking' the Prince Harry in Afghanistan story. This despite Drudge themselves crediting their sources. Obviously their world view does not include the German and Australian magazines that did it first in January ...

That's not the half of it. An American blogger has dug up all the stories that blew the gaff last June.

Hang tight. You'll be able to get Freeview with your standard UHF aerial from April. And you can take the box with you when you move.

Plus, from next year aren't TV's going to have the decoder built in? And aren't PS3's and no doubt an increasing number of entertainment devices going to have the decoder built in?

So eventually, you'll just have it by default.

Whats worse is when you read a feature article from an international outlet on the internet, and months later it turns up in the Herald, Dom or SST.

Whats worse is when you read a feature article from an international outlet on the internet, and months later it turns up in the Herald...

Example: The Herald ran the story this week of one Carlos Camejo waking up while on the autopsy table in Venezuela, which seems to date from last September.

Worse still...

Although I havent seen it for a couple of years..

I twice saw email junk rumors, easily de-bunkable at www.snopes.com presented as fact in those little 1 or 2 paragraph side articles in the last column ... some six months or so after I first saw them in my email box.

You know the type of thing.... forward this hoax virus-warning to all your friends :)

standard UHF aerial

Increasingly few houses have a usable UHF installation these days. And they aren't that cheap you know - I was looking at $250 to install one, so I went for the option of (basic) Sky instead.

network news junkie

I'm the opposite. I'd reckon a one hour news program has maybe 1000 words of content in it, which would take me less than 5 minutes to read. So I'd rather get me news in text form (web or newspaper in cafe) than listen to a smarmy older-but-still-allegedly-attractive person read it out at length.

If we had Paxman or somebody similar kebabing politicians, I'd watch that, but I don't. (in fact, I don't have the choice - having classed a TV as a waste of money).

I'd reckon a one hour news program has maybe 1000 words of content in it, which would take me less than 5 minutes to read.

I'll start with the obvious question then. Why would you watch a one hour news programme?

Sport ... weather? Not news.

I'm pretty much not talking about New Zealand here either. In recent occurrence I'm talking Katie Couric hosting the news from Iraq over a week, and spending the first 15 minutes of each 22 minute newscast on Iraq. You get something you don't get from the Internet or a newspaper.

It's finally back. Peter Jennings may no longer be with us, but World News with Charles Gibson will air nightly at 5:10 and 11:35. In a country where every fatal car accident gets a mention on the six o'clock news, it's fantastic that New Zealanders will again see network news as it is supposed to be done. And in 25 minutes.

Don't get too excited. Just this week Charlie "Mr Trustworthy" Gibson said categorically that there was only one billboard on display in Moscow in the lead-up to the weekend's election, by way of saying that it wasn't a free election.

Any number of news items on France24, the BBC, and Russia Today during the previous two weeks had clearly shown billboards for other candidates. Not that those candidates were likely to win, but when the promo for your show says: "You have to be fair, you have to be credible, and you have to get it right", you kind of have to live up to it, don't you think?

Also, Schieffer is retiring this year, so enjoy him while you can!

Sport ... weather? Not news.

definitely - as that means that it's only 20 minutes, and if you're lucky you've had dinner with the family and can watch the sports news with the other males of the household.

20 mins is still five times longer than it would take to read the same information off a screen or a sheet of paper.

I don't fully buy that US network news is that much better. Sure, seeing somebody out in one of Americans failing colonies has more of an emotional impact than reading a dry set of facts, but at the end of the day, you're looking at propaganda. It's easier to filter that off paper than off telly, in my view.