Chief Minister Tries to Steal RiotACTs Idea

what about an ‘insatiable banalities’ show ? local music, drunken chat etc.

transact are dogs. i tried numerous times to get it at my place, and they have the damn cables in the backyard, but no. so i went with foxtel.

I heard that NRS got their start by writing ad jingles….

Nothing wrong with TransACT being a pay TV provider. They also give me better broadband cable access than Telstra could, and cheaper local phone calls.

THE NRS Group is the ACT’s biggest and most successfull tv/film/media production group. Graham Patrick runs the show. He is an astute business man and a respected film producer who has convinced the powers-that-be Canberra needs and can commercially sustain a community tv station… though the generosity of TransACT, his investment in infrastructure is minimal and for cheap content he can a) use the NRS back catalogue and b) content from aspiring local screen industry types who automatically hear “TV” and are willing to provide content and their time for peanuts or nothing. In addition he has attracted sponsorship from Tourism ACT.

Mr Patrick is a genius… he has effectively convinced the government to underwrite his business!

At least they’ve got the Raiderettes, and that fluoro pig.

Maelinar’s plan of world domination begins with the acquisition of one small television station….

Channelvision smells a little of smellovision and a heap of nepotism. Is this a good summarism ?

Ok, things noticed and my impressions from the launch this morning:

John Mackay, CEO of TransACT (and ACTEWagl I’m sure) introduced the venture then quickly handed over to his brother-in-law Grahaeme Something who’s title I didn’t quite catch but I think he’s the director of the production company for Channelvision, which is quite possibly called the NRS Group. So the whole project’s in the family, it appears.

Grahaeme said there are now 60,000 households across Canberra with TransACT and that’s why this is an ideal time to launch this project (I must say, my suburb has been told our cables will be laid “soon” for the past five or six years).

He said there has not been a community tv station in Canberra for about 25 years. Apparently starting in the 60s sometime there was a station run by a George Barten based on Black Mountain, on which Grahaeme’s band appeared several times, leading to gigs for them. Of course, I’m far too young to know anythng about this, so I’ll leave it up to your memories to confirm this.

Channelvision (I forgot to find out who thought up the name…I really don’t like it) has about 20 people working on it at the moment and most are in their 20s — so, like me, don’t remember Canberra’s previous excursions into community tv.

There’s currently six hours of programs ready to go, and someone told me it would be live from noon today. According to their website, this string of programs will play in a continuous loop until new stuff gets made.

Grahaeme said, “Now we’ve got the technology in place, we’ve got the team in place, we just need the local people to help this channel grow” and something about get new content happening, which seems to say that there is room for other programs to come along and get shown, which was not very clear from all of what I saw and heard.

Then Jon Stanhope talked, giving a potted history of television and waffling about the ACT’s reputation for government support of media and production and tying it all in with ScreenACT, which we heard about yesterday.

He also clarified the business about this being an Australian first, when there’s patently been many other community tv stations. Apparently this is the first such station to be shown on pay tv.

He said the station would show a range of magazine style programs and would reflect the world-wide trend of people wanting a stronger sense of loacl identity and build closer ties with their communities.

Then we were shown a ‘presentation’ which basically was the tilte sequences of the 12 shows and then snippets from each.

A few comments.

If that’s really what the title sequences are, then they would annoy me no end.

All the presenters are pretty young things and talking very carefully. It turns out I know one of the sports presenters from uni and he told me he got involved in the project after seeing an ad in the CT for people interested in being presenters on this new tv station. I didn’t recognise anyone else among the people shown in the presentation, but my guess would be they’re mostly students of media type subjects or aspiring models. I forgot to ask if they were being paid for it, but will try and find this out.

Although it’s being presented as “all local content with all local people”, there is a travel show and the snippets shown were of a giraffe adventure in Nairobi and ice climbing with some English tourists somewhere. I’m not saying this isn’t interesting, it just didn’t seem to sit with the line they were pushing.

If you have access to TransACT, tune in to the first sportsvision broadcast for nice close-ups of the Raiderettes (two of whom were at the launch along with that stupid fluoro pig from Hogs Breath).

And finally, they only seem to have been able to afford on background set for all the presenters to use. I would have thought you would try and establish a distinct identity for each show, even if it just means buying some cheap cloth from Lincraft and taping it over the backdrop.

However it all looks rather slick and will be interesting to keep an eye on to see what happens in the future. If only I had TransACT.

Uh huh. TransACT doesn’t have Fox Sports, so why bother?

how was transact, at a minimum as a pay tv provider, even justified in the first place in such a small city??? Where the substitute product is so much better???

CityNews have got detailed coverage up already.

Well, CityNews down the wire perhaps. Or 24 Hour Stateline.

There’s a possibility I might end up doing something with them but I haven’t heard anything about it in a while.

People with transact are a good market for advertising purposes.

I think some people are confusing the CM agreeing to attend the launch function and giving it some oxygen with total control.

It’s what he’s supposed to be doing after all.

Anyway Thumper have you listened to Insatiable Banalities? Sounds like what you’re proposing…

So a heap of ads pretending to be stories??? And you have to pay TransACT to see it…I’ll stick with the free mailout thanks.

I would still be interested to find out what happens at the launch though.

Having looked at what passes as the program line-up, it seems to be a sort of “City News” of the air. Looking forward to hearing more about it tomorrow…I think.

Interesting point Thumper – can’t imagine it’d be because the right don’t have anything to say in contemporary media (anyways, time to park the high horse 😉

Blokesworld is a cracker of an idea (and chicksworld could well be interesting) – b/w came from channel 31 in Melbourne initially by the way

She sure is Mr Evil.

Trust the RIOTact ranting right to jump up and down and label this a Stanhope vehicle – I guess the next time a bus stop gets opened we’ll have the same level of hysteria.

From the scant info on the website – channelview is a commercial setup run by some production company on the southside.

As for being a first – not so much – community telly has been broadcast in most capital cities (Melb, Syd, Bris, Adelaide and Perth) in different capacities since the mid 90’s and OptusVision even ran a similar service in Melbourne in 96 called LocalVision. (Optus pulled the plug after about a year – and cost me my first proper job 🙁

Be interesting to see if programme providers get paid for their contributions or if access is provided to equipment. Anyone know if this costs extra?

Indeed. Another reason to avoid TransACT TV.

I like the fact that my Digital set top box will never see Channelvision.

Channelvision? CHANNELVISION? Who’s the silly cnut that came up with that name?

Shit, is Gallagher preggers? Why would anyone want to breed with her? I wonder if she conceived in a Torana or a Monaro.

maybe a localised soap based on hair dresses-cum-hookers – my name for this show would be ‘RearEnders’…hehe

I hope someone does a gardening show with plants that will actually grow in Canberra, cos most of the stuff on commercial TV is for Sydney.

Mr Evil, you have a thing about seeing a pregnant woman take her clothes off? Become a midwife!

Could be a good thing, provided the government doesn’t get too involved in content vetting. But how is it a first? Doesn’t Channel 31 in Melbourne do local content – or do they also have imported stuff?

mmm waynes world perhaps….. A lot of people have told me about blokes world….., mostly because I started scripting a tv show which people suggested was very similar to it, it sounds good but

Yep, another mouth-piece for Stanhope is all we need. All ‘sanitised’ news brought to the people in Stan-o-vision!

I hope they have an ACT ‘naked news’ segment hosted by Katy Gallagher and Deb Foskey.

At this rate maybe we will see a 100 metre high Stanhope up on Mt Ainslie after all???

Bonfire, that sounds alot like Blokesworld. No complaints from me though, I could watch that show (Blokesworld) everyday.

Does this mean that Simon will be banned from posting here on Stanhope TV’s competition.

I saw an ad for it in the City Ads last week…seems interesting. Maybe I could run “Samuel’s Opera Hour”. My boss has described my opear as wolves crying.

Samuel

ive got this idea for a show which i can do out of my basement. it will be about heavy metal, babes and demonstrations of new products like the flowbee.

Shouldn’t it be called Tunnelvision ?

I might go depending on how the morning’s going. And if I do, will attempt to take a camera (because we all really want Stanhope’s mug on the riot front page don’t we?)

I shall be there. Will provide more details. I ownder if this will be similar to the community telly jobbies that exist in Sydney and Melbvegas.

I wonder if the London Circuit Soviets will have a hand in vetting what content gets shown on there?

Stanhope would love his own state media outlet – just like the one Kim Jong-il has.

Ultimately I think this will end up being an outlet for people with far too much spare time – i.e. retired left wing public servants with an axe to grind about Iraq, roads through O’Connor ridge, gay whales etc