Now I think that the whole concept of Live 8 was an admirable one and I think the sentiments of all concerned are in the right places. I think however that as a major Western nation (but not a member of G8) that the whole thing has sort of washed over Australians and has been a sideline intrusion into our normal weekend of football scores and the Wimbledon and cricket highlights from the UK. This series of Live 8 concerts had 2 million audience members and was reportedly watched by 3 Billion people world wide on television and the internet.
Yet in Australia, it took Molly Meldrum 15 minutes to explain to me in the intro what the “8” meant – I know about the G8 but I guess because we’re not members, it doesn’t get a lot of coverage here and in Australia it was more reported to be “Live Aid 2 – 20 years on”. I was totally surprised that it wasn’t for charity and that there was no money to be donated. Instead we were asked to subscribe to the online petition (see the link) and simply unite to say to the G8 that we should wipe the slate clean on African debt.
This is all very good and I gladly signed my name to the petition.
But why wasn’t this more heavily promoted in Australia? TripleM radio were promoting the fact that they were playing the music but there was very little specific detail on the finer nuances of the event. Sure, we saw Bob Geldof, Bono and Elton John on the news promoting “the event” and talking about poverty, but very little was reported into the workings of G8 or the meeting in Scotland this week.
What I also found appalling was the fact that whilst this was one of the biggest events staged in the history of humanity (if the 3 Billion viewing audience is correct), in Australia it was shown on Pay TV on the Fox8 network (ironic?) and that to see the concert about poverty, we had to be a subscriber to a media outlet that makes more profit than you can poke a stick at.
However, you cant blame the Foxtel people because the free to air media refused to show it live because it would a) cost too much and b) interfere with cricket and wimbledon coverage. Appalling! Instead, on a delay of 22hrs, it was packaged and presented in highlights form on one of the free to air networks at 8:30 on Sunday night. This timing undoubtedly chosen so it didn’t clash with Big Brother!
Shame Australia Shame!
2 comments:
I think it shows clearly where the Australian commercial network's priorities lie.
I am happy to admit I'm one of the growing contingent of Aussies who actually doesn't watch commerical TV and feel better for it.
In fact, I spent most of the weekend recovering from illness and watching episodes of The West Wing back to back (why on EARTH did Australian networks turn their backs on such a good show is beyond me - I guess any kind of drama that makes you think is deemed too dangerous for Australian viewers eh?)
Bah!
Why bother with TV at all I say. You can't pick what shows you watch, have to put up with ads, and most of the shows are crap anyways.
Long live fumbbl, the intarnet and puter games I say!
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