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When I first watched Doctor Who I did so on Wisconsin Public Television where there was no commercial interruption during the program. After I moved, I sometimes watched Doctor Who on Iowa Public Television, also without commercial interruption during the program. Lately I've been watching the new seasons on Doctor on DVD, where of course there is no commercial interruption during the program.

I set the timer on the VCR to record Doctor Who last Friday and tonight, and will again for next Friday for [livejournal.com profile] sistaur as she is sans cable and satellite. I decided to try watching a bit, even though I haven't seen any of the other episodes for this season. I switched the TV off at the commercial break. If I watch it, I'll watch the tape where I can skip over that. Or I'll just wait. I only just finished watching the last season. I suppose it is a bit odd. Too impatient to put up with commercials, patient enough to wait perhaps months to avoid commercials.

It's not that I never see commercials, as I do see them (though I might not hear them as I mute the annoyances almost reflexively) if I watch commercial television which does happen. It's that there is an inherent wrongness to commercials interrupting Doctor Who.

Date: 29 Sep 2007 10:23 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] theskunkrocker.livejournal.com
You see that alot in british television brought to the states and I always found it weird, like it didn't seem like commericals belonged in those spots where they put them. When I went to Memphis for MFM, I met some londonfurs who explained it to me.

British television doesn't have any commericals.

They pay a TV tax over there of like ten bucks a year or something to prevent corporations from controlling the news, and because they did that the added bonus is that there are no commericals. Unlike over here where everything is General Electric Nike Enron Microsoft Mickey Mouse Uber Alles and not only are we bombarded with commericals but even the news won't report the truth on certain aspects because it would -offend- their bill payers (corporations).

I wanna move to the UK. Anarchy in the US!

Date: 29 Sep 2007 11:09 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vakkotaur.livejournal.com

I've known that there were no commercials during the programs as broadcast in Britain, though something else was also interesting. The original Doctor Who wasn't simply an hour show, but in roughly twenty-minute serial segments. These segments tended to be shown stuck together in the U.S.A. so every end of episode cliffhanger was immediately followed by its resolution, which can seem a bit strange. Those would have been "natural" places for a commercial break, but twenty minutes is, of course, not the standard 15 or 10 minute time to commercial. And like the BBC, PBS doesn't have commercials during the program. Except for interminable pledge breaks when they often show stuff they don't normally broadcast, which is rather Bait & Switch.

I'd like to visit the UK, but I don't think I'd care to live there. It's easier for a broadcaster to get a new business advertiser than a new government to fund them, for one thing.

Date: 29 Sep 2007 13:13 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
It's actually closer to $120 per year (probably more now that the dollar has sunk), and you have to pay it once for every device you own capable of receiving TV signals, like computer monitors. I'd be much happier with the commercials, which I can fastforward through at will.

The corporations still control the news in the UK, or more specifically, one corporation controls the news, BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation. It's pretty much moonbat-netroot far-left biased, they go out of their way to sympathize with terrorists and trash the USA at every opportunity.

Date: 30 Sep 2007 05:35 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com
You were doing fine until you blurted out the Fox News talking points at the end there.

Date: 30 Sep 2007 13:40 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
Sometimes FoxNews is correct. This is one of those cases.

UK mainstream media has a very strong liberal bias, even the BBC management admitted as much.

Date: 30 Sep 2007 19:18 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thecanuckguy.livejournal.com
While I've never watched Fox News (though I believe it's available up here), I'm almost positive they say the same thing about our news, especially the CBC.

Date: 30 Sep 2007 19:33 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] thecanuckguy.livejournal.com
Same wrongness for commercials in MPFC, and other "concessions" to make it "fit" N. America's broadcasting standards (combining pieces, not complete episodes either, of two eps in one broadcast spring readily to mind. The commercials are almost willing to tolerate.) Some British TV (MPFC and, apparently Dr. Who, though I've never seen it), just aren't made for N. American TV, at least not in an altered format.

With commericals here, I can take them or leave them, heck 95% of them I don't even mind (the other 5% is the one for Holiday Inn with the business nerds singing "Take it on the Run" *extremely* off key. I hope and pray that this is only a Canadian ad) and a few I even like!

My kids, however, haven't quite understood the concept of commercials, my almost three year old son in particular. Most of their TV watching (not counting videos, which have no ads obviously) is Treehouse TV, the preschool channel. The only "ads" they have are between shows, most of those ads are for Treehouse's own shows, and sometimes before a show starts you'd hear "Today's Treehouse programming is brought to you in part by Pull-Ups. I'm a big kid now!" and that's it. Ten seconds, tops. However, when we're watching one of "my" shows that I think that they'd enjoy as well, Simpsons for example, we'd watch it, and, as per usual, they'd have the opening credits and then cut right to a commercial. My son would then pipe up with "Simpsons over, Daddy!" and I'd spend the entire commercial break explaining to him what a commercial was and convincing him it would be back. 2 minutes later, the show would start and he'd sit down and watch it with us again. But, first commercial break at the end of act one "Simpsons over, Daddy!" (not caring that the plot isn't resolved yet) and we'd go through the whole thing again.

Date: 30 Sep 2007 23:08 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com
I'm mainly talking about the "they go out of their way to sympathize with terrorists and trash the USA at every opportunity" part. Britain has had enough terrorist attacks on their own soil that I find it completely unbelievable that they "sympathize with terrorists". Whoever you got that bit of rhetoric from is engaging in hysterical xenophobic grandstanding, which doesn't make for a sound argument.

And as for "trashing the USA", well, two things: 1. Pot, kettle, black. 2. Do you perhaps mean "criticizing Bush"? They're every bit as entitled to do so as we are.

Date: 1 Oct 2007 00:13 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
You must not have read the sources I have. If the USA launches a missile strike at a terrorist hideout, the BBC fixates on the civilian casualties and calls it a tragedy. They blame the US for alQaida's attacks and give alQaida itself a passin the name of multiculturalism. I can't remember the guy's name, but the mayor of London is unquestionably an alQaida sympathizer and probably on some shiek's payroll.

It's even worse in France, where a sizable percent of the population think George Bush blew up the towers on 9/11, and a majority of the Arab nations think the same.

As for trashing the USA, I don't mind folks who trash the USA as long as they trash everyone else who deserves trashing, but if someone gives the Wahabbists a free ride and trash the Americans, their head isn't screwed on straight.

Date: 1 Oct 2007 00:47 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com
I'm sure I haven't. Please provide an exhaustive list of links to sources that confirm these statements, and they must be reputable news sources, not opinionated columnists.

Or, we could just forget about it and go back to talking about commercials on TV, which was the original topic of discussion. :}

Date: 2 Oct 2007 03:29 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com
Please, PLEASE tell me you're not seriously presenting that article as evidence that the UK "sympathizes with terrorists".

Did you not actually READ that article? That is NOT "sympathizing with terrorists". They're protecting innocent Muslim children from bullying at the hands of people who are letting their bigotry blind them to the fact that not all Muslims are terrorists. Please don't tell me you don't agree with that fact.

Date: 2 Oct 2007 03:32 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kinkyturtle.livejournal.com
This doesn't even have anything to do with my initial comments. So there are a lot of crackpots in France. There are here too, and in every country. So what?

Date: 3 Oct 2007 01:01 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
You wanted an unbiased news source, so I started with the mayor's own website. Here's additional information about him. I imagine you'll reject it because it's from a conservative source but I'm posting it anyway.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID={4EB4B16C-E460-4B13-A7EB-C5FBDF273C9C}

Then there is the London Mayor Ken Livingstone, who blamed the London bombings on “80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil." Also in July, Livingstone praised Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Egyptian Muslim scholar and resident of Qatar who supports suicide bombing, “The Palestinians don’t have jets and bombs, they only have their bodies to use as weapons." On September 13, Livingstone said: “Sheik Qaradawi is, I think, very similar to the position of Pope John XXIII. An absolutely sane Islamist,”

Another Islamist supporter is MP George Galloway, who on August 21 announced, “Blair must go; Bush must go. Victory to the Intifada. Long Live Palestine. Long live the people of Iraq, thank you." A fervent fan of Saddam Hussein, Galloway made £150,000 in his libel suit against the London Telegraph.

Articles published by the Telegraph detailed how Galloway received bribes as part of the United Nations oil-for-food program. Yet, Galloway won his libel case not by disproving these allegations, but because the judge ruled that he did not “have a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon them [the documents] before they were published."

Date: 3 Oct 2007 01:04 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
I thought you were doubting my assertion that a significant percentage (more than 5%) of French and a majority of Muslims thought George Bush blew up the towers on 9/11. Found this on Germany just now, 1 in 3 Germans under age 30 think Bush did it.

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-33241.html

Can't dismiss 1/3 of the under-30 population (probably 10% of the entire population) as crackpots.

Date: 3 Oct 2007 01:07 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nefaria.livejournal.com
And my argument wasn't that the UK sympathizes with terrorists, it's that the BBC does, to a much greater extent than they should.

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