Don’t forget that you’ve got until midnight on Sunday (30th September) to enter into the Crumpler Beanbag Competition.

If you know a great way to get your link clicked on a lot in the next 24 hours then go ahead and do it. You could be sitting in front of the tube in Crumpler comfort.

Back from our break and ready to wow you with talk of television.

• The US fall lineup rears its head again and this week we look at Tell Me You Love Me and Kid Nation
• We examine the Australian networks new “Fast Tracking” programming
• Revisiting the controversy of our last Quiz and creating new controversy
• Crap TV seems ever present as long as Channel 7 refuse to program properly
• and there’s also lots of Pork and News to keep you going for another week.

That’s episode 103 people. We’re glad to be back.

Get it now:

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• Direct Download

And let us know what you think.

In the interests of giving new visitors on the blog a bit of a taste of what’s to come in the podcast, we’ve decided to make a little preview for the show that you can listen to right here in the browser, without having to subscribe to the feed.

Click the play button on the bar below to listen now.

Any time you want to hear the preview, use the player on the left.

In a move that shows that TV networks might actually, finally, understand the way the world works, this was reported in the New York Times:

NBC Universal, acknowledging that viewers are increasingly moving away from traditional television viewing, announced plans today for a service that will make popular NBC programs available to download free to personal computers and other devices.

Then again, it says that the files will expire after seven days which means there’s some kind of ridiculous DRM present.
What do you think? Will this be another horrible failure? Has anybody been following the iTunes store debacle?

NBC to Offer a Free Video Download Service (NYTimes)

This came in a Seven media release this afternoon:

Tonight on Australia’s number one public affairs program, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd opens his home and
sits down with host Anna Coren for an intimate interview.

During the very candid interview, the man who wants to be Prime Minister talks to Coren about his family,
the opinion polls…and what happened when he was stuck on a plane with John Howard last week.

Anna Coren - at home with Kevin Rudd - Today Tonight exclusive tonight, at 6.30pm on Seven.

Make of that what you will (and I’m sure you will).

Some good news and some bad news but mostly all boring news coming out of the US with this morning’s Emmy Awards.

You can see the whole list courtesy of Variety.

Discussion questions will happen after the jump (in case somebody’s waiting till later for some reason).

(more…)

The Herald Sun this week reported on Channel 9’s end of year line up, under the somewhat humorously banner: Nine’s Rating Charge. It referred to a mess of new Nine shows including the ridiculously over the top Damages, Burke’s Backyard Spring Special (I assume Nine are hoping Burke has somehow traversed the divide from old and past it to retro cool in his time away), Surprise, Surprise Gotcha (hohum, a celebrity prank show), The Singing Bee (karaoke) and a bunch of lifestyle rubbish including: Girl’s Of The Playboy Mansion (already screened on Pay TV), RFDS (about the Flying Doctors), The Gift (about organ donation), and Dirty Jobs (about crap jobs people do).

With the exception possibly of Damages that group has the freshness of week old garbage at best.

To borrow a bit of football parlance I think it’s about time Nine started ‘tanking’. 2007 is over, start thinking about 2008. In the meantime, try some different ideas, blood some new players.

Here are some things they could try:

*Give shows more than one of two eps to find their audience. ER has disappeared from our screens already. It was always going to struggle up against Californication.

*Weeds is funnier and more irreverent than Californication and could easily be just as much a hit here. Nine could give it a proper run, showing an entire series or two, unedited, in a consistent timeslot with a bit of promotion.

*Why not use the HBO output deal to give Flight Of The Conchords a run? (Same rules apply as for Weeds) Or the new relationship drama Tell Me You Love Me.

I know none of these ideas will help Nine win the rating the rating but neither will this steaming pile of guff they are serving us.

EDIT Channel 9 are apparently going to screen series two of Weeds from Oct 1st at 10:30pm… Whether this means consistent, unedited and promoted screens remains to be seen.

If you’re ISP throttles your peer-to-peer traffic and hinders you from getting at all that wonderful TV, you might want to have a look at this article from Wired.

Apparently there are ways to get around the problems.

via LifeHacker

News this morning that Mercedes Corby is planning to sue Channel 7 will no doubt see the network tied up in another useless court battle.

via The Age

Arguments aplenty in this week’s instalment as we examine The Chaser’s APEC stunt, look at local hero Chris Lilley’s new production Summer Heights High, go slightly further a field for the New Zealand via New York lunacy of Flight of the Conchords and dissect a doco on the Human Brain.

Plus when we get sick of arguing with each other then we pick fights with those who have been kind enough to write and can’t answer back in Letters.

Don’t just sit there reading - write in to the Quiz for your chance to win some Crumpler coolness.

102, tomorrow’s podcast today.

Oh, and thanks again to Catbrain for this week’s delicious cake.

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