TV Newser is reporting the worst kept secret of the week. Christiane Amanpour is leaving CNN to join ABC News in the US as anchor of “This Week”, the weekly political and public affairs programme.
This will mean that Amanpour will finish at the end of April before Christiane takes over on This Week in August.
When Amanpour does finish, CNN should move Connect The World to 8pm, and put World One on at 9pm, before Back|Story at 10pm, all times are UK by the way.
OFCOM has repeatedly had problems regulating the kind of sexy phone in channels that appear on Sky in the 900s section of the EPG.
Just recently, OFCOM fined two companies for broadcasting sexy material straight after the watershed on FTA channels. Now, bear in mind, the watershed is 9pm. By OFCOM’s own definition…
“…The watershed only applies to television. The watershed is at 2100. Material unsuitable for children should not, in general, be shown before 2100 or after 0530.”
It was material unsuitable for children, and it was broadcast after the watershed, yet they were still fined.
Additionally in the same Broadcast Bulletin, OFCOM found the channels in breach on about 10 separate occasions, despite the fact that only 1 of these occasion actually contravenes OFCOM’s own rules about R18-strength material. All other incidents related to material comparable to those seen in movies rated 18 by the BBFC.
This is why I find the whole business of regulation these days to be totally out of sync with reality. We see more violence on television dramas and movies than we see sex, and sex is regarded as the more corrupting, yet there has been many occasions when words encouraging violent acts have brought those acts about. That’s called Incitement, and its against the law. Yet the right wing will say, “NO, sorry, you can’t encourage someone to commit a violent act.”, yet in the same breath, they will say that the depiction of sex is a “…corrupting influence…”. There’s only one thing to say to a viewpoint like that.
“THAT’S A TOTALLY HYPOCRITICAL AND NONSENSICAL VIEWPOINT. The facts do NOT back up your views.”
But then the right wing doesn’t seem to let facts get in the way of their own delusions.
In OFCOM’s case here, they are trying to walk what they consider to be a tightrope, when in fact, beneath that “tightrope” is a canyon the size of the Grand Canyon, with the pro-censorship brigade on one side, and reality (and just about everybody else) on the other. There’s no fine line between the camps, there’s a huge gap, and you’re NEVER gonna satisfy the pro-censorship camp, so don’t waste your time trying to.
Besides which, the Virgin Media, Freeview, Freesat and Sky platforms all have a facility called PIN protection. Basically, you can block access to programmes and channels you don’t want kids to watch by setting a PIN.
This smacks of censorship by stealth, and to be frank, it is not OFCOM’s job to be am self-appointed censor. That the BBFC’s job. And if material is shown that IS comparable to material shown in films that have been rated by the BBFC as 18, then OFCOM HAS NO BUSINESS TRYING TO CENSOR IT.
This morning I woke up to new graphics and a new ident for CNBC Europe. I first noticed the new look on Squawk Box Europe this morning. They are using a new (to me) font, which may have been specially done for them. Italicised, it closely resembles Crillee, which was used for credits and titles in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The new graphics are airing on Worldwide Exchange, so perhaps US viewers can now see them. I certainly seem to be ahead of the pack on this story, nobody else seems to have noticed, and no reporting on this was done last week, so I must guess that I’m first with this news.
The new font is being used on the ticker, lower thirds, and full screens. The hotboards have also been redesigned. Everything looks far simpler, and less extravagant.
I hope to have some caps up shortly.
Yes, you read that correctly. I am actively suggesting that RTE puts their online news channel, RTE News Now, onto Astra 2 alongside their other channels, but with one notable difference. Whilst RTE1 and RTE2 are on the Irish Bonus Pack, and not available to UK viewers, they should put RTE News Now free-to-air on both the Sky platform and the Freesat platform.
All this would be though is a precursor to the eventual launch of the long planned RTE International. RTE said they hoped to launch it by the end of 2009, but that obviously hasn’t happened. So far, no word on when RTE International will launch.
Also, a word of advice to RTE about RTE International. Don’t immediately worry about creating a whole new news service for it, you don’t have to do a “BBC World News” straight off the bat. Get the news bulletins that air on RTE1 and RTE2 onto the channel. Get an RTE News: Breakfast programme to air between 7am and 9am. The fact that RTE1 doesn’t have a breakfast news programme is shameful, and getting more shameful every week, that such a programme fails to launch.
