Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Steve Barnes,
So, if you live north of Whangarei or out by where Islander lives, you will need a satellite dish and a satellite decoder (more expensive than a terrestrial one) and someone to set up the dish, they are buggers to get right without the right equipment.
Or if you have an existing Sky dish you get a $99 Freeview satellite decoder and plug it in.
I have a sneaky feeling that National scuppered that number.
I’ll check that out for you.
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Andre,
I object to paying $450 for “Freeview”
Freeview HD decoders regular come down as low as $130 now. For $450 you can get a whole new Freeview-integrated TV.
It is not just that they are cancelling TVNZ7… it is that they are making a billion dollars of working equipment obsolescent on behalf of TV and Freeview machine manufacturers…
Well, no. Staying with analogue broadcast simply wasn't an option. It doesn't do justice to the programmes, broadcasters can't even but the equipment any more and it ties up a buttload of spectrum with an old technology that already accounts for a minority share of viewing.
I gather there will be public assistance for the purchase of Freeview kit for the stragglers, come switchover time.
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Hard News: Schnapp Election, in reply to Sacha,
Honoured to be noted – thought the subject matter might cause some pause :)
Nah. We seem to have a liberal brief :-)
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A catch-up of top tweets:
Yesterday’s winner was:
@kebabette: Guyon: n. slang The physical manifestation of political excitement. As in Leonard Cohen song “Don’t go home with your guy-on” #zumwohl
Top contenders:
@kaupapa: Mass poisoning for those playing the “actually” drinking game #johnkey #votenz #zumwohl
@rorymccourt: Sean Fitzpatrick from Liberterianz spends 3 minutes showing the audience how to find their idealogical G-spot #tawadebate #nzvotes #zumwohl
@Lol_Nats: If I had a swig of booze for every time John Key said actually, I’d be more drunk than I already am now #zumwohl #nzvotes
@N_BenWilson_Z: Future Investment Fund. Because we don’t know what assets we want, but we do know that we don’t want the assets we have! #votenz #zumwohl
Feel kinda bad I couldn't bust out a bottle for Ben and Sacha too. It’ll happen.
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Hans Versluys,
Re: cumulative viewing figures. Not sure where you get those figures from but according to Nielsen cumes TVNZ 7 averages 1.16m a month in 2011 (highest: Oct 2011 1.41m). Maori TV averages 2.01m (highest: Sep 2011 2.64m). Highest rating Sky channel is The Box at 1.4m a month (UKTV averages at 1.26m)
From the Save TVNZ 7 release. I may have misinterpreted what they were saying, but that's very different from the figures in that release. I've already annotated the original post thus and I'll add the correct cume figures now.
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Myles Thomas,
Of your suggested funding ideas, the best is number 2: a local production levy on Pay TV or just all commercial TV profits.
Which would help with production costs -- but I don't think it would fund a whole channel. Depend on how hard you sting them, I suppose.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
For those of us in Auckland, there's a send-off for Eric at Tabac, on Wednesday 9 November from 7pm till 10.
"The Right Hon Harry Ratbag Esq will be our DJ on the night.," says the official communique.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Steve Barnes,
I got a bit angry last night, I heard John Key referring to people on a benefit as “Those People” and solo mothers as “Them”, a bit of othering going on there eh?.
Goddamn otherfuckers.
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Gary Hutchings,
Although, not to iOS users.
They have been promising live streaming through their iphone app for over a year now, but so far nothing has come of it.That would be the funding freeze at work.
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Hard News: Ante Up, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Of course, this would piss off the 95% of the population who aren’t ubergeeks and would just like to watch telly. This could be dealt with by holding future elections with an opensource voting system based on linux command lines and OpenSSL.
Cunning!
But seriously, broadcast still has a serious place. It scales really well.