With just two and a half months to go before the first part of our country (Mildura/Sunraysia) is left without access to a free-to-air analogue television, Senator Conroy announced this morning a joint venture between the Government, Southern Cross Media and Imparja.

The Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service will be available to all areas except for Western Australia where a deal is in the works with Optus.

From the media release:

Executive Director of the Digital Switchover Taskforce, Andy Townend said the satellite service will be available for the Mildura/Sunraysia region as the first region to switch over to digital-only TV on 30 June 2010.

To access the VAST service, viewers will need to purchase a new satellite set top box with an access ‘smart card’, a satellite dish and cabling.

“Households wanting to get ready for the new satellite service should contact a qualified antenna installer to express their interest so they can start making arrangements immediately, including the installation of a satellite dish,” Mr Townend said.

Altec UEC will be the initial supplier and distributor of satellite set top boxes. The supplier will be informing antenna installers and satellite equipment suppliers in Mildura/Sunraysia about the availability of the new satellite service from today.

Households in the Mildura/Sunraysia region already using the existing Aurora satellite service will be able to convert to the new service using their existing dish as soon as the new set top boxes are available.

Do you live in the middle of nowhere and want access to television like everybody else? Tell us in the comments.

Channel 9 premiered their new Australian series a couple of weeks ago. It prompted me to create this piece for The Outland Institute radio show. It went to air on 31 July, 2009 but you can still listen to it thanks to modern technophilia.

Channel 9′s new weekly drama is called Rescue Special Ops (with cops). It’s what I like to think of as a helicopter ear-piece (HEP) action series.

I haven’t seen it yet because*, ever since Underbelly, Channel 9′s publicity seems to be more about secrecy than anything else.

But I thought we’d look at other HEP series from other networks.

Of course, there’s the one that started it all. Police Rescue. This ABC drama featured a lot of falling off cliffs with rescuers shouting “Hang on. Mate, just hang on.” Also combined with this was some shouting of instructions: “attach the rope to the belt” etc. Police Rescue also pioneered the use of the winch in weekly television.

More recently, All Saints, already on the do not resuscitate list, tried to reimagine itself as an HEP, renaming itself to All Saint Medical Response Unit. The introduction of helicopters into a hospital drama was novel if not sustainable.

It’s important to note here that helicopters are the most expensive thing in the filmed entertainment world. It is cheaper to burn giant containers full of truffles laced with cocaine than to hire a helicopter for a film or tv shoot.

So that brings us to Rush on Channel 10. Not happy to spend the national debt on two helicopters, one to film and the other to be filmed, the Rush crew decided to use computer generated images for their action sequences. To compensate for that, though, they have more earpieces and made-up technology than any other HEP series before or after.

How will Rescue Special Ops add to this genre? I’m guessing it won’t. Really. It’s more action for action’s sake until they realise that action’s too expensive and they just fall back into boring intra-department romance and politics like everything else does.

* Remember that this review went to air before Rescue Special Ops aired.

For those of you who missed the premier of Australia’s latest cop drama, City Homicide, Seven wants to make sure that you get your chance to see it because they’re showing it twice in the days leading up to episode 2. Once was last Friday night and the next one will be midday on Monday.

Considering that TV shows are generally bought with a limited number of repeats, has Seven blown its repeat load already?

Are repeats mostly a thing of the past with exceptions for Seinfeld, Simpsons and Raymond (or any other half hour filler on Channel Ten)?

We’re still trying to get a network programming person onto the show to discuss these questions and more.

This new show on SBS is an interesting concept poorly planned out. I discussed it at length with Fran Kelly on Radio National this week.

You can listen to it via the internetwebs: Radio National Breakfast (7/8/2007).

Well, it looks like the money men aren’t afraid to sack some execs and make some real changes around channel 9.

The Nation has obviously been a surprise hit so they’re taking it out of the soft Tuesday night lineup and throwing it into the high profile Wednesday 10:30 slot. I wonder if Mick Molloy will be able to take the increased pressure.

On its last Tuesday night airing, The Nation pulled 548,000 viewers nationwide.

(Josh says: “Read the article from the Age.”)

News just in from Nine:

The Nine Network Australia today announced Mick Molloy’s new television project, The Nation, will premiere on Tuesday, June 5 at 9.30pm.

Mick Molloy swaps his tracky daks for a snappy suit to sit at a desk and let rip with a topical, news-based program ? with an edgy difference.

Every week The Nation will take a humorous look at the people and events making news. Mick will be joined at the news desk by a roster of comedians and entertainers as they dissect the real world of politics, current events, sport and entertainment.

“I promise that every episode will end with a dog that can ride a surfboard and do long division,” said Mick Molloy.

Stars of the airwaves such as 2Day-FM breakfast co-host Jackie O and Nova drive co-host Akmal Saleh will join Mick each week to review the news.

My favourite bit of this media release is “with an edgy difference”.

Anyone who has seen the Daria episode where her dad is supposed to be more “edgy” will know what I mean.

Placing bets now. I reckon it will last 5 weeks.

Channel 9 has finally lost patience with Family Feud.

I guess after 18 months of claiming it was ‘building’ when there was no real change in the ratings Nine had to do something. Like the whole Rowe departure you just have to wonder why it has taken this long.

I doubt we’re going to be able to cover this in much depth on the show this week so here are the nominations for all the categories in the 2007 Logies.

Continued inside »