Merry Christmas from Viewpoint

To all of you around the world, let me wish you a very merry Christmas, and hope that your festive season will be a calm and peaceful one.

WLS TV in Chicago discover Breaking News... First Hand!

This happened Sunday Night in Chicago, live on the 10pm newscast at exactly 10.02pm. A mini van crashed into the street-side studio of ABC affiliate VLS TV.

Someone took some video from the overnight repeat and edited it into a 6 minute video of the relevant bits of the story. You can watch that below, or if my HTML skills are up to their usual standard, or if you're reading via video non-compliant RSS viewer, then the link is here.

Opera wants IE unbundled from Windows

BBC News is reporting that the Norwegian company behind the Opera browser is appealing to the European Commission to have IE unbundled from Windows, to have Microsoft follow web standards rather than creating their own, and to have other browsers pre-installed on Windows machines.

We've been in this territory before, when IE was first bundled with Windows about 10 years ago. Back then Netscape made a similar complaint to the American authorities, based on similar lines, which got them nowhere basically. Netscape went bust and became Mozilla, and Navigator, the Netscape browser, regerated into Firefox, and is now enjoying renewed success. But Internet Explorer still dominates the market.

I don't think that Opera will be successful in getting IE unbundled from Windows. However, it might just manage to get other browsers pre-installed as standard on all Windows machines. If that can be achieved, it would be a small victory, but an important one. I feel that is as much as can be possibly hoped for. IE is far too much a part of Windows these days for it to ever be unbundled. I have even less hope that Microsoft will EVER follow any standards other than their own, but allowing other browsers to be bundled with Windows, is at least an achieveable aim, and one that just might happen. Don't hold your breath though waiting...

Kylie Minogue loves the leather biker chick look

The Sun reports that Kylie Minogue seems to like her new leather biker-chick look. She's not the only one who likes it.

Kinky Gerlinky has photos of her from the Nobel prize shindig that was held recently. I have to admit I like the look too, it actually works well for her. Not everyone could get away with it, but she can.

And in just under a couple of weeks, she will be co-starring alongside David Tennant in a new Doctor Who adventure, playing the role of Astrid, a waitress on board the Titanic. The episode, Voyage Of The Damned, airs first on BBC1 in the UK on Christmas Day at 6.50pm.

Paris is a golden girl!

The Sun has a couple of pictures of Paris Hilton actually doing some work for a change, albeit posing for an advert for a champagne, but nice to see actually earning a living for once!

The interesting thing about these pictures though is that Paris is posing nude, but covered from head to toe in gold paint, ala Shirley Eaton in the Bond film, Goldfinger.

Back To The Blog!

After a period of enforced disconnection, thanks mainly to high winds, I am back, and ready to resume updates to Viewpoint once again.

The Golden Compass - anti-Christian?

CBN News has on their website a story about the new film from New Line Cinema which stars Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman and Dakota Blue Richards, The Golden Compass.

Now, being a Christian broadcaster, they have some very surprisingly un-Christian things to say about a movie and the book it was based on, describing it as a atheist, anti-christian film. Some of their contributors go further, by calling it part of a decietful stealth campaign to bash Christianity and promote athiesm.

But when you see on a daily basis just how much harm religion has done in the world, in areas like Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine, isn't it really the case that religion of all kinds have done little to help themselves and their causes over the years by the fact that there are many religions, rather than a single one. Religion is supposed to be a unifying force. Instead, it has become just another thing that divides us. And these people are complaining about a movie? I really think they need to get their priorities straight.

US Cable News Ratings: Countdown on the rise

Bill O'Reilly use to bragg about how his 11pm airing got a better number than Keith Olbermann's 8pm airing. He might not have that to be able to bragg about for much longer.

On Tuesday, MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann at 8pm had 874,000 total viewers, 273,000 in the money demo, compared to The O'Reilly Factor at 11pm having 867,000 total viewers, 226,000 in the money demo. This was reported by Inside Cable News who use live numbers only.

TV Newser, who use Live + Same Day numbers reported that Countdown at 8pm had 952,000 total viewers, 316,000 in the money demo. Compare this to the 11pm Factor having 879,000 total viewers, 226,000 in the money demo.

Not that Bill O'Reilly had bad numbers that day. TV Newser reported 2.747 million viewers watched the 8pm airing of the Factor, 471,000 in the money demo, according to Live + SD numbers, whilst Inside Cable News reported that the live numbers for the Factor were 2.71 million total viewers, 459,000 in the money demo.

Now, TV Newser have released the Live + SD numbers for Wednesday, and it makes fascinating reading.

The O'Reilly Factor at 8pm had 2.85 million total viewers and 658,000 in the money demo, some of O'Reilly's best numbers this year. At 11pm, he did very well again, scoring 1.208 million viewers, 401,000 in the money demo.

But again, Countdown at 8pm beats Factor at 11pm, with Countdown's best ever numbers. A massive 1.209 million viewers watched Countdown, 409,000 in the money demo, beating the 11pm Factor by 1,000 total viewers and 8,000 demo viewers. This is an incredible performance, by anybody's standards. More people watched Countdown on MSNBC than watched any individual programme on both CNN and Headline News and also The Big Story on Fox News Channel. Expect John Gibson on The Big Story to do his usual anti-Keith Olbermann hit job tomorrow then!

Now, Inside Cable News has also reported the live numbers, and not surprisingly, with the Live+SD numbers being so close, The Factor at 11pm had more live viewers. 1.186 million total viewers, 391,000 in the money demo, compared to Countdown at 8pm with 1.148 million total viewers, 375,000 in the money demo.

Still, these are record numbers for Countdown, the first time they have scored over a million viewers live, and against top class numbers for O'Reilly too. O'Reilly fans and Olby haters are going to hate me for saying this, but this is fair and square, a great showing for Keith Olbermann, not only against O'Reilly himself, but a great rating show. Whether Olbermann will overtake O'Reilly at some point in the future, well, who knows. If it were to happen, it wouldn't be for a few years yet, but at this point, I wouldn't rule it out.

XM / Sirius Merger could be approved imminently.

There are a lot of reports out there, far too many to link, but they all suggest, like this one, that approval for the merger between XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite radio is due to come imminently from the US Department of Justice.

This smells to me very similar to the British Satellite Broadcasting / Sky Television, which was allowed to go ahead, despite the fact that it was against the rules that BSB were told to work by by the IBA. Sky had the deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp to fall back on. BSB had no such benefactor, and most of their shareholders were worried about the upcoming 1991 Channel 3(ITV) licence process.

Sky were the 'winners' in that so called merger. They basically absorbed BSB into their company with the token changing of the name to "British Sky Broadcasting" rather than tell it like it really was, Sky basically swallowing up BSB.

The real similarity here though is that XM and Sirius, like Sky and BSB, are both losing money, hand over fist, quarter by quarter. Because these two are the only competing satellite radio services in the US and Canada, this really shouldn't happen, in much the same way that BSB and Sky should not have happened. But you know it's going to. History says the merger will go ahead, the market says the merger will go ahead, my head says the merger will go ahead, but my heart does not want it to. I cannot abide the creation of a monopoly by a market that is supposed to favour competition.

The shareholders have voted for it, now we wait for the confirmation from the DoJ that, as we expect, this merger will happen, despite what we know to be in the better interests of everyone. If the market is so good, then let the market decide, and if the market decides that neither should survive, then so be it.