Channel-hopping: Who’s got the remote?
For incurable couch potatoes, channel hopping ain’t what it used to be. At least, not on Sky Digital. Everything’s… on… a… one… second… delay. You can’t build up any kind of rhythm with your remote control. And God knows, when you’ve got E! and Sky One, a high zapping speed is of the essence. But the difficult question still remains: is any of it worth having? There ought to be some kind of industry benchmarking analysis, so viewers who already have it can calculate whether they’re getting value for money, and those who don’t can calculate the cost of not having a life.
For this very reason NZBC has created the AWVH meter™.
AWVH (or “average weekly viewable hours”) is a subjective ranking of each channel based on the quality of the programming offered. The maximum achievable score would be a 168, but you’d have to be a P addict to survive a solid week of New Zealand TV with no sleep, and run the risk of being committed for mental care at the end of it.
What we’re looking at is a rough average of weekly viewable programming on each channel (i.e. excluding reality TV and sport, so if you want a sports ranking, you’re going to have to create one yourself). We’re not suggesting you should actually watch anything close to these averages each week, merely that this is the quality of programming available, if you wanted to maximise the, er, potential of each channel.
Terrestrial stations
1. TV One’s promo trailers rarely make much sense, but “Our larger land-mass closer to Antarctica…” surely takes the biscuit. Closer than what? It’s nearly as bizarre as Paul Henry’s increasingly Napoleonic persona on Breakfast TV. And who is that blond kid with “two kneesh?” and “farzands and farzands of hairs”, and why hasn’t there been a segment about him on Close Up, or have I missed something? Then there’s the soaps: Why does TVNZ think Granada TV created Coronation Street in 30-minute chunks? Why mess with the formula? You can be too northern, you know. Oh, and on the ad front: Kimball Briscoe Johnson? It was an easy mistake to make. They just missed out the one word: “Clearly not the greatest New Zealand album of the last decade.” And TV One is penalised for losing the second season of Huff to Prime. Click. Average weekly viewable hours (AWVH) = 28.
2. Forget Footballers’ Wives, what was TV2’s excuse for the delay in showing Desperate Housewives? If we ever got one, it was unsatisfactory. Now that it’s here, it’s definitely in TV’s top five. While individual channels can’t be held directly responsible for the ads they show, they are often more memorable than the programming (and frequently as annoying). New Zealand TV advertising appears to be far too cheap — how else can you explain the fact that in Europe TV ads are almost exclusively a branding exercise for luxury goods advertised on motion picture budgets, while in NZ we still get the Skyline Gottage and people shouting about carpet sales? The ACC ads about people “killing and maiming themselves unnecessarily” (as Gary Wilson, the ACC chief executive comically puts it) around the home insult our intelligence. And then there’s ‘Aunt Sarah’ from the AMI insurance ads: The agency message appears to be that AMI won’t actually pay out, just fix your broken stuff in a naff way and turn up uninvited at your wedding. Click. AWVH = 2.
3. is a waste of air space, other than for The Simpsons and Campbell. And what is it with TV journalists and the phrase “centred around”? Other than this, the 3 ‘shopfront’ is best remembered by its anti-trend of screening ads dubbed into English from foreign languages (the Smints Little Red Riding Hood and dance class hair dye campaigns) and loads of other crap: the ‘Terry Gilliam’-style cut-out mouths in the second-hand car ads; and the shouting cretins in the Discount Tyres ads... Click. AWVH = 2.5-3.
Nostalgia, celebs and lifestyle
4. UKTV has Grumpy Old Men, new pub-com Early Doors, the new episodes of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, plus old faves such as League of Gentlemen and The Royle Family, but what’s with the compression that boosts the volume of the few ads they’ve sold and the annoying, infinitely repeated trailers to twice that of the programmes? This is the 21st Century, patronising excuses just don’t cut it any more. TV stations can’t pretend such volume peaks aren’t deliberate and that it isn’t possible to smooth them out for a less traumatic viewing experience. UKTV also loses several credibility points for The Bill (will it never end?!), Holby City and the unbearable Monarch of the Glen. Click. AWVH = 10.
5. What does Sky 1 have, other than The Man Show’s “Girls Jumping On Trampolines”, Smackdown and an endless round of unspeakable US wrestling shows? Can someone please explain to me the appeal of wrestling? No, on second thoughts, please don’t. Having said that, I have caught a few minutes of a toon called Family Guy with a talking dog. Mildly amusing. And Crank Yankers still has its moments… Click. AWVH = 1.
6. Prime still has Top Gear, but so does BBC World. You don’t have to own a car, don’t even need to covet one, but you can still love this show because it’s possibly the best hour of non-drama on TV. The Late Show is rarely watchable; Letterman is a buffoon in his peculiar double-breasted wardrobe and white socks (why can’t he button up his jacket before he steps out on the stage?) and Paul Schaffer’s band is a bad parody of vaudeville. Aussie show Sunday is desolate and depressing, but Prime does offer Little Britain and Doctor Who and scores an extra point for dumping Holmes. Click. AWVH = 4.
7. E! The so-called Entertainment Channel isn’t anything I would personally describe as entertainment. Although there is the pneumatic Brooke Burke on old episodes of Wild On, if you like guessing, “Is it real or is it silicone?” The E! True Hollywood Stories appear to prove that TV shortens your attention span: If you can’t remember what was covered before the ad break, no problem, you’re going to see it all over again in the next segment. By which time, of course it’ll be time for another ad break… Click. AWVH = 0.25.
8. The Living Channel has the best food shows — from Nick Nairn’s Wild Harvest to Giorgio Locatelli and Delia Smith — which is good, because there’s a dearth of quality food programming on the other channels. But it lacks Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain and also has some of the worst TV cooks, in the risible (UK) Ready, Steady Cook and the po-faced, anal retentiveness of the actual Gary Rhodes itself. And, while I’m on cookery, what’s with that strange new optical effect on Sophie Grigson’s show Grigson? It’s all bright, falling salt in a stop-frame, shimmery over-exposed orgy of jerkiness. Sorta fing. Click. AWVH = 12.
There’s no number nine. Click.
Sport
10 (Sky Sport 1), 11 (Sky Sport 2), 12 (Sky Sport 3), 13 (ESPN), 14 (Trackside) and 15 (Rugby Channel), well, who needs ’em? Click.
Movies
20. Of the five main movie channels, Sky Movies 1 is possibly the least high-brow, but at least it occasionally bears viewing for the length of a film. On the night in question it’s showing Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and, later, School of Rock and the rather more arthouse (but in my opinion overrated) The Cooler, with William H. Macy. AWVH = 2.5.
21. Sky Movies 2 infuriatingly tells me that access has been blocked because its rating exceeds my selected Parental Lock setting (even though I’ve chosen the lowest level of block), and all this merely so I can key in a PIN to glimpse John Travolta and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in The Punisher. And, later, it’s Out of Time with Denzel Washington. Who needs Parental Locks with programming this bad? Click. AWVH = 0.75.
22. is MGM, which, at the time of writing is showing the ancient (1991) Truly, Madly, Deeply with Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson and, at peak time, for the umpteenth time, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Coming soon is “a new comedy”, Get Shorty. The film channel for those living in a time warp. Not classic, just old. Click. AWVH = 5.
23. The most consistent quality in movies is to be had on Rialto, where there are not only arthouse and seldom-screened international releases, but also documentaries such as Inside the Actors’ Studio and Green Light, alongside music shows of the Later with Jools Holland pedigree. Click. AWVH = 10.
24. TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has all those black and white, noir milestones and the Hollywood landmarks you complain the terrestrial channels never show these days, but which you never quite get around to watching — even when you do have them on channel 24 of your remote… Click. AWVH = 3.
There’s no 25 (well, not unless you count a double-up of the Preview channel), 26, 27, 28 or 29. Click.
Music
30. Juice is also available on UHF Channel 57, so Aucklanders will know that it’s pop clips from Atomic Kitten to indie bands like Alkaline Trio and Kiwi faves like Zed. It’s lightweight fodder in the early-MTV vein. Inoffensive in the sense of being tame, unless you’re offended by pop music. Click. AWVH = 0.75.
31. Often described as “New Zealand’s VH1”, J2 tries too hard to cover all the bases, from Everything But The Girl to Celine Dion and Coldplay. There’s just too much contrast in its playlists — after all, who can bear the leap from Maroon 5 to Mariah Carey, from vintage Fleetwood Mac to Meatloaf? And where are all the 1970s classics (Old Grey Whistle Test footage of PFM, anyone?), the 1990s classics, the 2000s classics — when, for example, was the last time you saw the groundbreaking Coldplay clip for Yellow on NZ telly? Click. AWVH = 1
32. For Sky Digital subscribers, channel 32 is C4. And, if L&P can do it, why can't other Kiwi brands get their ad act together? The L&P ‘stubbies’ ad is memorable, funny, artfully crafted and edited, plays on powerful nostalgia and yet also manages to be hip enough for C4… Of course, there’s a swag-bag of ‘yoof’ programming like Holla Hour, Jackass, John Safran and Beavis and Butthead. Need we say more? Click. AWVH = 1.5.
Maori
33. I’ve probably spent all of 20 minutes watching Maori TV, but they do seem to be supporting New Zealand bands and the indigenous cultural experience. And it’s not all in Maori. There appears, though, to be some shenanigans going on at www.maoritv.co.nz, which is being cybersquatted by New Zealand ska band, the Managers. Hmm. Click. AWVH = 0.75.
There’s no 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 or 39. Click.
Kids
40. is Disney. Sadly, not those for-the-whole-family Disney movies like The Straight Story but mostly awful tots-only toon shorts, shows like That’s So Raven and longer animated features such as The Return of Jafar. Click. AWVH = 0.25.
The Cartoon Network on 41 and Nickelodeon on 42 are frankly unwatchable unless you have kids in the house. The looped jingles will drive you insane and the animation is, for the most part, atrocious. Click. AWVH = 0.25.
There’s no 43. Click.
44. (or 202) is PlayinTV Games. Unwatchable. Click. AWVH = 0.
There’s no 45, 46, 47, 48, or 49. Click.
Knowledge and nature
50. Of late, the Discovery Channel has deteriorated from showcasing interesting shows like Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, John Revell’s The House that John Built, Mark Evans’ A Car is Reborn and A Racing Car is Born, as well as both of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series to largely American lowbrow dross like Buff Brides and Dietbusters and Glamorous Bedrooms and Junkyard Wars. Click. AWVH = 10.
51. National Geographic has been showing some gripping Anatomy of a Disaster-style shows that take a closer look at transport accidents and other programmes of anthropological interest, but sadly also a lot of substandard nature programmes and reality TV-style material. Click. AWVH = 8.
52. Animal Planet is simply too depressing to watch: Almost every programme ends with the sobering remark that the animal you’ve been watching for the last hour will soon be extinct. Click. AWVH = 1.
53. Our Director General refers to the History Channel as “the Hitler Channel”, but it shows some reasonably good British documentaries, such as Battle of the Clans, a series about the history of the Tower of London, Kings and Queens of England and ’Enery the Eighth. Click. AWVH = 15.
News and weather
54. You can virtually guarantee that part way through the UK’s Sky News, Sky’s “Australian colleagues” will cut in with their awful Aussie equivalent. From the almost sublime to the frequently banal, the Aussie offering is news at its worst and the female anchors’ curiously affected accents will drive you to distraction. Click. AWVH = 3-4
55. BBC World has the best global news coverage, but its promo clips run endlessly and are ruthlessly snipped to fit the programming. Hard Talk with Stephen Sackur isn’t what it used to be under Tim Sebastian, but Top Gear and Talking Movies score it extra points. However, it gets them knocked off again for its obsession with vague and utterly impractical global weather forecasts. Who cares? Click. AWVH = 5-6.
56. “Trust the king of talk: Larry King on CNN…” “40,000 interviews and I’m just warming up!” Yes, Larry, that’s the problem. King must be one of TV’s worst talk show hosts, possibly even less accomplished than Paul Holmes, and that’s saying something. He constantly interrupts his guests, leads them with questions that beg one-word responses, and insists on embarrassing viewer phone-in slots. And CNN also has annoyingly adenoidal ‘anchors’ like Kristie Lu Stout, endless interruptions for self-promotion and more meaningless global weather reports. And as for Richard Quest, what is he on? Click. AWVH = 3.5.
58. The Weather Channel: Interactive, supposedly. Click. AWVH = 0
The arts
59. Sadly, the Arts Channel has now finished its run of the Mark Steel Lectures, but there are periodic reruns of various South Bank Show specials and now and again a jazz, blues or rock gem, as well as some five-minute segments, made for ARTE in Europe, examining masterpieces in Europe’s best art galleries and museums. Nevertheless, the channel still favours modern dance and opera, rather than literature and what the Arts Channel somewhat dismissively refers to as the “general arts”. Click. AWVH = 6.5.
The badlands
Beyond 59, it’s the desolate wastes of pay TV, radio channels on your TV set, subscription channels and, er, Southland TV on 90, now showing the Hokonui Fashion Awards. Quite short programmes, then... Click. AWVH = 0.
Sky Digital continues to have its anomalies; “rain fade”, for one, and you don’t get that on cable TV. No sooner does it start to chuck it down than Sky’s picture freezes and gradually disappears in a psychedelic blur of random pixels, channel by channel, to be replaced by cold blue screens. The one time when you really want to be indoors watching TV and you can't watch anything — not even the terrestrial channels. And when you phone someone who doesn’t have Sky, what they're watching is about two seconds ahead of what you’re seeing. Mighty strange.
The most annoying thing about Sky, though, must surely be the way the tuner periodically sticks during channel hopping (only turning the tuner off at the wall will fix this), or hurtles back to ‘0’, the Preview Channel, before turning itself up to full volume as soon as you touch the remote. Until recently, there was also a problem with Sky dumping programmes ‘booked’ via your remote control. Incredibly annoying if you’d spent time programming a busy night’s viewing. This problem seems to have become an infrequent one, though.
The verdict
So, what’s our overall judgment? Is Sky Digital worth the ever-increasing expense, now that the package costs $83 a month, including the movie and Arts channels? As you can see, it’s one of the terrestrial channels, TV One, that scores the highest AWVH with this reviewer. And even if your palate is skewed weirdly towards reality TV and US drama shows (there’s no accounting for tastes), it’s likely that you’ll be able to find most of your chosen poison on Channels 1 to 3. Otherwise, only a rabid sports fan with a Rugby Channel subscription is likely to find his or her viewing profile differing dramatically from the above.
But hey, our averages account for at least 139 hours of viewing a week, and that’s over 5.5 days of solid telly viewing. If you love to watch movies without ad breaks but don’t have a DVD player (or video - yuck!), you can’t really do without it. And if you want some less parochial news coverage and a wider selection of music and documentaries, get a Sky subscription while it’s still cheaper than a flight ticket to Europe.
Alternatively, you could get up off the sofa and try getting a life… I know, it just doesn’t bear thinking about, does it. Click.
For this very reason NZBC has created the AWVH meter™.
AWVH (or “average weekly viewable hours”) is a subjective ranking of each channel based on the quality of the programming offered. The maximum achievable score would be a 168, but you’d have to be a P addict to survive a solid week of New Zealand TV with no sleep, and run the risk of being committed for mental care at the end of it.
What we’re looking at is a rough average of weekly viewable programming on each channel (i.e. excluding reality TV and sport, so if you want a sports ranking, you’re going to have to create one yourself). We’re not suggesting you should actually watch anything close to these averages each week, merely that this is the quality of programming available, if you wanted to maximise the, er, potential of each channel.
Terrestrial stations
1. TV One’s promo trailers rarely make much sense, but “Our larger land-mass closer to Antarctica…” surely takes the biscuit. Closer than what? It’s nearly as bizarre as Paul Henry’s increasingly Napoleonic persona on Breakfast TV. And who is that blond kid with “two kneesh?” and “farzands and farzands of hairs”, and why hasn’t there been a segment about him on Close Up, or have I missed something? Then there’s the soaps: Why does TVNZ think Granada TV created Coronation Street in 30-minute chunks? Why mess with the formula? You can be too northern, you know. Oh, and on the ad front: Kimball Briscoe Johnson? It was an easy mistake to make. They just missed out the one word: “Clearly not the greatest New Zealand album of the last decade.” And TV One is penalised for losing the second season of Huff to Prime. Click. Average weekly viewable hours (AWVH) = 28.
2. Forget Footballers’ Wives, what was TV2’s excuse for the delay in showing Desperate Housewives? If we ever got one, it was unsatisfactory. Now that it’s here, it’s definitely in TV’s top five. While individual channels can’t be held directly responsible for the ads they show, they are often more memorable than the programming (and frequently as annoying). New Zealand TV advertising appears to be far too cheap — how else can you explain the fact that in Europe TV ads are almost exclusively a branding exercise for luxury goods advertised on motion picture budgets, while in NZ we still get the Skyline Gottage and people shouting about carpet sales? The ACC ads about people “killing and maiming themselves unnecessarily” (as Gary Wilson, the ACC chief executive comically puts it) around the home insult our intelligence. And then there’s ‘Aunt Sarah’ from the AMI insurance ads: The agency message appears to be that AMI won’t actually pay out, just fix your broken stuff in a naff way and turn up uninvited at your wedding. Click. AWVH = 2.
3. is a waste of air space, other than for The Simpsons and Campbell. And what is it with TV journalists and the phrase “centred around”? Other than this, the 3 ‘shopfront’ is best remembered by its anti-trend of screening ads dubbed into English from foreign languages (the Smints Little Red Riding Hood and dance class hair dye campaigns) and loads of other crap: the ‘Terry Gilliam’-style cut-out mouths in the second-hand car ads; and the shouting cretins in the Discount Tyres ads... Click. AWVH = 2.5-3.
Nostalgia, celebs and lifestyle
4. UKTV has Grumpy Old Men, new pub-com Early Doors, the new episodes of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, plus old faves such as League of Gentlemen and The Royle Family, but what’s with the compression that boosts the volume of the few ads they’ve sold and the annoying, infinitely repeated trailers to twice that of the programmes? This is the 21st Century, patronising excuses just don’t cut it any more. TV stations can’t pretend such volume peaks aren’t deliberate and that it isn’t possible to smooth them out for a less traumatic viewing experience. UKTV also loses several credibility points for The Bill (will it never end?!), Holby City and the unbearable Monarch of the Glen. Click. AWVH = 10.
5. What does Sky 1 have, other than The Man Show’s “Girls Jumping On Trampolines”, Smackdown and an endless round of unspeakable US wrestling shows? Can someone please explain to me the appeal of wrestling? No, on second thoughts, please don’t. Having said that, I have caught a few minutes of a toon called Family Guy with a talking dog. Mildly amusing. And Crank Yankers still has its moments… Click. AWVH = 1.
6. Prime still has Top Gear, but so does BBC World. You don’t have to own a car, don’t even need to covet one, but you can still love this show because it’s possibly the best hour of non-drama on TV. The Late Show is rarely watchable; Letterman is a buffoon in his peculiar double-breasted wardrobe and white socks (why can’t he button up his jacket before he steps out on the stage?) and Paul Schaffer’s band is a bad parody of vaudeville. Aussie show Sunday is desolate and depressing, but Prime does offer Little Britain and Doctor Who and scores an extra point for dumping Holmes. Click. AWVH = 4.
7. E! The so-called Entertainment Channel isn’t anything I would personally describe as entertainment. Although there is the pneumatic Brooke Burke on old episodes of Wild On, if you like guessing, “Is it real or is it silicone?” The E! True Hollywood Stories appear to prove that TV shortens your attention span: If you can’t remember what was covered before the ad break, no problem, you’re going to see it all over again in the next segment. By which time, of course it’ll be time for another ad break… Click. AWVH = 0.25.
8. The Living Channel has the best food shows — from Nick Nairn’s Wild Harvest to Giorgio Locatelli and Delia Smith — which is good, because there’s a dearth of quality food programming on the other channels. But it lacks Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Bourdain and also has some of the worst TV cooks, in the risible (UK) Ready, Steady Cook and the po-faced, anal retentiveness of the actual Gary Rhodes itself. And, while I’m on cookery, what’s with that strange new optical effect on Sophie Grigson’s show Grigson? It’s all bright, falling salt in a stop-frame, shimmery over-exposed orgy of jerkiness. Sorta fing. Click. AWVH = 12.
There’s no number nine. Click.
Sport
10 (Sky Sport 1), 11 (Sky Sport 2), 12 (Sky Sport 3), 13 (ESPN), 14 (Trackside) and 15 (Rugby Channel), well, who needs ’em? Click.
Movies
20. Of the five main movie channels, Sky Movies 1 is possibly the least high-brow, but at least it occasionally bears viewing for the length of a film. On the night in question it’s showing Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and, later, School of Rock and the rather more arthouse (but in my opinion overrated) The Cooler, with William H. Macy. AWVH = 2.5.
21. Sky Movies 2 infuriatingly tells me that access has been blocked because its rating exceeds my selected Parental Lock setting (even though I’ve chosen the lowest level of block), and all this merely so I can key in a PIN to glimpse John Travolta and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in The Punisher. And, later, it’s Out of Time with Denzel Washington. Who needs Parental Locks with programming this bad? Click. AWVH = 0.75.
22. is MGM, which, at the time of writing is showing the ancient (1991) Truly, Madly, Deeply with Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson and, at peak time, for the umpteenth time, Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Coming soon is “a new comedy”, Get Shorty. The film channel for those living in a time warp. Not classic, just old. Click. AWVH = 5.
23. The most consistent quality in movies is to be had on Rialto, where there are not only arthouse and seldom-screened international releases, but also documentaries such as Inside the Actors’ Studio and Green Light, alongside music shows of the Later with Jools Holland pedigree. Click. AWVH = 10.
24. TCM (Turner Classic Movies) has all those black and white, noir milestones and the Hollywood landmarks you complain the terrestrial channels never show these days, but which you never quite get around to watching — even when you do have them on channel 24 of your remote… Click. AWVH = 3.
There’s no 25 (well, not unless you count a double-up of the Preview channel), 26, 27, 28 or 29. Click.
Music
30. Juice is also available on UHF Channel 57, so Aucklanders will know that it’s pop clips from Atomic Kitten to indie bands like Alkaline Trio and Kiwi faves like Zed. It’s lightweight fodder in the early-MTV vein. Inoffensive in the sense of being tame, unless you’re offended by pop music. Click. AWVH = 0.75.
31. Often described as “New Zealand’s VH1”, J2 tries too hard to cover all the bases, from Everything But The Girl to Celine Dion and Coldplay. There’s just too much contrast in its playlists — after all, who can bear the leap from Maroon 5 to Mariah Carey, from vintage Fleetwood Mac to Meatloaf? And where are all the 1970s classics (Old Grey Whistle Test footage of PFM, anyone?), the 1990s classics, the 2000s classics — when, for example, was the last time you saw the groundbreaking Coldplay clip for Yellow on NZ telly? Click. AWVH = 1
32. For Sky Digital subscribers, channel 32 is C4. And, if L&P can do it, why can't other Kiwi brands get their ad act together? The L&P ‘stubbies’ ad is memorable, funny, artfully crafted and edited, plays on powerful nostalgia and yet also manages to be hip enough for C4… Of course, there’s a swag-bag of ‘yoof’ programming like Holla Hour, Jackass, John Safran and Beavis and Butthead. Need we say more? Click. AWVH = 1.5.
Maori
33. I’ve probably spent all of 20 minutes watching Maori TV, but they do seem to be supporting New Zealand bands and the indigenous cultural experience. And it’s not all in Maori. There appears, though, to be some shenanigans going on at www.maoritv.co.nz, which is being cybersquatted by New Zealand ska band, the Managers. Hmm. Click. AWVH = 0.75.
There’s no 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 or 39. Click.
Kids
40. is Disney. Sadly, not those for-the-whole-family Disney movies like The Straight Story but mostly awful tots-only toon shorts, shows like That’s So Raven and longer animated features such as The Return of Jafar. Click. AWVH = 0.25.
The Cartoon Network on 41 and Nickelodeon on 42 are frankly unwatchable unless you have kids in the house. The looped jingles will drive you insane and the animation is, for the most part, atrocious. Click. AWVH = 0.25.
There’s no 43. Click.
44. (or 202) is PlayinTV Games. Unwatchable. Click. AWVH = 0.
There’s no 45, 46, 47, 48, or 49. Click.
Knowledge and nature
50. Of late, the Discovery Channel has deteriorated from showcasing interesting shows like Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour, John Revell’s The House that John Built, Mark Evans’ A Car is Reborn and A Racing Car is Born, as well as both of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series to largely American lowbrow dross like Buff Brides and Dietbusters and Glamorous Bedrooms and Junkyard Wars. Click. AWVH = 10.
51. National Geographic has been showing some gripping Anatomy of a Disaster-style shows that take a closer look at transport accidents and other programmes of anthropological interest, but sadly also a lot of substandard nature programmes and reality TV-style material. Click. AWVH = 8.
52. Animal Planet is simply too depressing to watch: Almost every programme ends with the sobering remark that the animal you’ve been watching for the last hour will soon be extinct. Click. AWVH = 1.
53. Our Director General refers to the History Channel as “the Hitler Channel”, but it shows some reasonably good British documentaries, such as Battle of the Clans, a series about the history of the Tower of London, Kings and Queens of England and ’Enery the Eighth. Click. AWVH = 15.
News and weather
54. You can virtually guarantee that part way through the UK’s Sky News, Sky’s “Australian colleagues” will cut in with their awful Aussie equivalent. From the almost sublime to the frequently banal, the Aussie offering is news at its worst and the female anchors’ curiously affected accents will drive you to distraction. Click. AWVH = 3-4
55. BBC World has the best global news coverage, but its promo clips run endlessly and are ruthlessly snipped to fit the programming. Hard Talk with Stephen Sackur isn’t what it used to be under Tim Sebastian, but Top Gear and Talking Movies score it extra points. However, it gets them knocked off again for its obsession with vague and utterly impractical global weather forecasts. Who cares? Click. AWVH = 5-6.
56. “Trust the king of talk: Larry King on CNN…” “40,000 interviews and I’m just warming up!” Yes, Larry, that’s the problem. King must be one of TV’s worst talk show hosts, possibly even less accomplished than Paul Holmes, and that’s saying something. He constantly interrupts his guests, leads them with questions that beg one-word responses, and insists on embarrassing viewer phone-in slots. And CNN also has annoyingly adenoidal ‘anchors’ like Kristie Lu Stout, endless interruptions for self-promotion and more meaningless global weather reports. And as for Richard Quest, what is he on? Click. AWVH = 3.5.
58. The Weather Channel: Interactive, supposedly. Click. AWVH = 0
The arts
59. Sadly, the Arts Channel has now finished its run of the Mark Steel Lectures, but there are periodic reruns of various South Bank Show specials and now and again a jazz, blues or rock gem, as well as some five-minute segments, made for ARTE in Europe, examining masterpieces in Europe’s best art galleries and museums. Nevertheless, the channel still favours modern dance and opera, rather than literature and what the Arts Channel somewhat dismissively refers to as the “general arts”. Click. AWVH = 6.5.
The badlands
Beyond 59, it’s the desolate wastes of pay TV, radio channels on your TV set, subscription channels and, er, Southland TV on 90, now showing the Hokonui Fashion Awards. Quite short programmes, then... Click. AWVH = 0.
Sky Digital continues to have its anomalies; “rain fade”, for one, and you don’t get that on cable TV. No sooner does it start to chuck it down than Sky’s picture freezes and gradually disappears in a psychedelic blur of random pixels, channel by channel, to be replaced by cold blue screens. The one time when you really want to be indoors watching TV and you can't watch anything — not even the terrestrial channels. And when you phone someone who doesn’t have Sky, what they're watching is about two seconds ahead of what you’re seeing. Mighty strange.
The most annoying thing about Sky, though, must surely be the way the tuner periodically sticks during channel hopping (only turning the tuner off at the wall will fix this), or hurtles back to ‘0’, the Preview Channel, before turning itself up to full volume as soon as you touch the remote. Until recently, there was also a problem with Sky dumping programmes ‘booked’ via your remote control. Incredibly annoying if you’d spent time programming a busy night’s viewing. This problem seems to have become an infrequent one, though.
The verdict
So, what’s our overall judgment? Is Sky Digital worth the ever-increasing expense, now that the package costs $83 a month, including the movie and Arts channels? As you can see, it’s one of the terrestrial channels, TV One, that scores the highest AWVH with this reviewer. And even if your palate is skewed weirdly towards reality TV and US drama shows (there’s no accounting for tastes), it’s likely that you’ll be able to find most of your chosen poison on Channels 1 to 3. Otherwise, only a rabid sports fan with a Rugby Channel subscription is likely to find his or her viewing profile differing dramatically from the above.
But hey, our averages account for at least 139 hours of viewing a week, and that’s over 5.5 days of solid telly viewing. If you love to watch movies without ad breaks but don’t have a DVD player (or video - yuck!), you can’t really do without it. And if you want some less parochial news coverage and a wider selection of music and documentaries, get a Sky subscription while it’s still cheaper than a flight ticket to Europe.
Alternatively, you could get up off the sofa and try getting a life… I know, it just doesn’t bear thinking about, does it. Click.
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