After Grog Blog

ELIZABETH REX

Currently watching "Elizabeth: Virgin Queen" on The History Channel, a show which boldly claims to reveal the truth that QEI did not marry because she, contrary to popular misconceptions, died as a child and was replaced by a boy.

Now you know why he preferred Hot Wheels to Barbie Dolls.

THE BILIAD

A one billion dollar Trojan horse is how Greg "Aeneas" Baum describes the TV rights deal in his excellent article in today's Age:

The Trojan horse has bolted

THE Trojan horse is through the gates now. The red carpet was rolled out for it. For two days, the people have danced around it, chortling to each other about what a glorious beast it is. ''One billion dollars,'' they exclaim, as if the words themselves are some sort of magic formula, certainly not to be lampooned, like that other popular mantra of the day, ''William and Kate''. The new television deal is the AFL's royal wedding.

[...]

Media become shy on this topic because many in the industry have television deals, free-to-air and pay, and the rest claim their subscriptions on tax. I'm as guilty as any.

[...]

Even as AFL fans coo and fawn over this horse parading so splendidly before them, perhaps one of them should take a moment to look it in the mouth.

"Be careful what you wish for."

BILL' OF RIGHTS

Hats off to Andrew Demetriou who "twisted David Leckie's arm" for live footy, and still gouged the networks for more than one billion dollars for the AFL rights:

AFL rights bonanza announced

The AFL has announced its massive broadcast rights deals, to reap over $1.253 billion for the nation's leading sport organisation over the five years from 2011-2016.

RACKET CREEP

When I first got Foxtel back in January 2000 programs generally had just one ad break per hour consisting of promotions for other Foxtel programs; for instance, were you watching the Simpsons, you would get an ad for the History Channel, a sport and The Simpsons. Several years later the ad frequency had increased to every 15 minutes. Now the ads appear roughly every 11 minutes and are full blown "retail opportunities" as Martin Brundell was wont to say when it was time to interrupt the grand prix. Try an experiment: flick around your Foxtel channels and see how often you lob on a station when there is an ad on. This happens for two reasons: one) there are more ads, derrr; and two) Foxtel subsidiaries puts ads on differrent channels at the same time to stop you flicking, just like the FTA stations.

Obviously the ads increased as Foxtel sought to pay for increased programming costs as it purchased more product. It was also loss leading. Foxtel was prepared to drop money as it tried to attract subscribers to cable television just like a drug dealer tempting a potential junky. "Go on, try it. A little taste won't hurt."

Foxtel is now set to shell more than half a billion dollars for the rights to just about all the footy. Where does it find this enormous chunk of change if it is not able to increase subscriber numbers? (It would be interesting to know how many new subscribers signed up for Foxtel when it had the footy from 2002 to 2006.) Stands to reason they will have to increase their advertising revenue. Betting promotion will increase. Cross promotion, too. There will also, no doubt, be an add-on cost for subscribers to access the Footy Channel. And then there are Foxtel's disguised ads: the pre-match half hour filler.

It is already mooted Foxtel will have ads during play for the four matches per round they will simulcast with Seven, while it is unlikely they will have ads for the other (soon to be) five games. The way Fox handles this twin coverage will also be interesting;  how will the simulcast matches with ads compare with the straight to Fox matches without ads. With the aid of an imaginative mind, that dichotomy prompts another question: will Foxtel ever have ads on their non-simulcast matches?

Rohan Connolly, be careful what you wish for:

Football on TV, you get what you pay for

Seven, and to a lesser extent Ten's, coverage of AFL today reminds me more than a little of the current political climate in Canberra. Trying so hard to be all things to all people that they end up standing for little and not pleasing anyone much.

That's Foxtel's advantage. It knows its market is serious hardcore football fans, and caters accordingly. Though, it has to be said, the sort of things for which we're now grateful should be a given for any network.

Like live coverage of games, for starters. Like no advertising breaks after every goal, so you can actually see the score replayed and analysed by the special comments men. Like panel shows that actually talk about football and not themselves.

I'll have to pay. But at least I'll get to see what I should, and know that I'm watching it on a station that appears to genuinely love the game as much as I do, not just as a potential ratings boost for its other programs.

Foxtel has always provided solid footy coverage. They don't have any great commentators (the pool of commentary talent is depressingly shallow), they don't employ any whizz-bang effects, but, as Rohan says, Foxtel treats footy as the main event, not the garnishing. Whether it stays that way is another matter.

All that and I have not mentioned sports viewers' least favourite two words: 1) official; and 2) broadcaster.

"ENTHUSIASM IS BAD FOUR THE SOUL"

Should you happen to be looking for a good DVD set for your next gifty, look no further than the very funny I Didn't Know You Cared, a British sit-com set in Yorkshire which aired in the late 70s.

From left to right: Robin Bailey, who you may remember as old judge Graves in Rumpole; John Comer, who, in common with Jack Hawkins, had his last role dubbed because of throat cancer; and Stephen Rea, the transvestite's friend.

Liz Smith looking Royle.

Anita Carey, who uttered the famous words: "Ooooo, shurrup, you borin' little tit."

WEE BONNY ALAS

Lorelei Vashti, reviewing Boardwalk Empire in today's Green Guide, disappoints with the following description of Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald:

Margaret Schroeder, the Irish immigrant and single mother played by Trainspotting's Kelly Macdonald,

I hesitate to tell journalists what to write. But Lorelei really should have written In the Electric Mist's Kelly Macdonald, or No Country for Old Men's Kelly Macdonald, or State of Play's Kelly Macdonald, even Gosford Park's Kelly Macdonald. Not rubbish Trainspotting's Kelly Macdonald. Guess I will have to put it down to generational differences.

Still, Boardwalk Empire goes very nicely. And yet again I kneel, face Manhattan, and say a quick prayer to HBO.

LOSS BLEEDER

If TV networks made more money from running AFL matches live rather than on delay, they would already do it. In reality, AFL broadcasters bleed money so as to attract viewers to their other rubbish:

Channel 7 to lose $400,000 a weekend with live footy

A LEADING media analyst believes Channel 7 would be sacrificing up to $400,000 in advertising revenue a weekend if forced to show football live. Fusion Strategy managing director Steve Allen said Seven can make as much as $20,000 from each extra minute of advertising in its delayed football coverage.

When forced to show games live it cannot squeeze extra ads into the telecast between goals.

"The difference between Better Homes and Gardens and the AFL is that Better Homes is profitable and the AFL is not.

Networks such as Seven and Ten consistently lose money on their football telecasts, but being a football network helps with cross promotion and general ratings appeal.

BARE-FACED LIVE

When I first read the following article I thought "pushed back 10 minutes" meant the Seven telecast would be delayed by ten minutes, which is not exactly live, and which would have been a monumental piece of skullduggery. But then I realised it meant the games themselves were to be pushed back 10 minutes, which apparently is a piece of skullduggery - at least according to Caro:

AFL's $1bn rights deal

FRIDAY night football would be televised live every week for the first time and pay TV operator Foxtel would get to show finals live under a landmark $1 billion deal being negotiated between the big networks and the AFL.

As the deal moves towards its ambitious $1 billion price tag, it has emerged that Seven is close to a compromise with the league to make all Friday night telecasts live - in return for match starting times being pushed back 10 minutes.

In what could prove to be a controversial change among fans who attend matches - particularly families with young children - Friday games would be shifted from their current 7.40pm start to 7.50pm.

Andy Dollars & his three amigos will have done a sensational job if they manage to get the TV networks to go live as well as cough up the famous billion dollars.

Still, the ink is not yet dry. It remains to be seen whether Friday Night Footy is absolutely live as opposed to almost live. There's always The Delay. The TV stations will not want to lose listeners to the radio broadcasts, so a little time-shift tweaking is likely to happen as the TV network tries to scramble the radio & picture feeds. If you don't want to listen to the ads, you can always investigate the effectiveness of a delay-o-tron or IQ it.

RIGHTS ON THE MONEY!

Last year on July 29, a wise person wrote:

SHE'LL BE RIGHTS

The AFL are, allegedly, looking to push the price for the TV rights from $750 million to $1 billion. Currently marquee games are on delay: Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Yet the AFL want an extra $250 million as well as have the TV stations alter their current programming to run the matches live. Does this not smack of cake and eat it, too?

Can the TV stations make up the extra dosh by moving from delayed to live broadcasts? Do the TV stations want the football enough to push the price out to $1 billion?

do the TV stations run games on delay purely to fit into their schedules? Channel Seven go on about viewer loyalty of Better Homes & Gardens, but do they really care that much about the BH&G income stream? Could running big games on delay means they can better pad their coverage? Surely, they would want to avoid having viewers turn off the sound and listen to the radio. Yes, there is the delay, but technology such as the Delay-o-Tron allows viewers to synchronise the sound and picture.

Up until now, the AFL have been unwilling to force TV stations to cough up more money and run all matches live. Belatedly, after the last contract negotiations were complete, the punters realised that, yet again, Friday night live was somehow left out of the agreement. Instead we were informed that Friday night matches were supposedly covered by and article of faith, a "discretionary" agreement, whereby the AFL crossed their fingers and hoped that maybe the TV stations would do the right thing by the viewers and show a match live if the match warranted the live treatment. For an extra $250 million, is this likely to change?

Today in the Herald Sun, Michael Warner (who really should have consulted the AGB, but instead consulted rent-a-quote footy oaf, Joffa):

Friday footy set to remain on delay as Channel 7 stands firm

FOOTY fans face another five years of delayed Friday night TV broadcasts.

As the AFL closes in on a new TV rights deal expected to top $1 billion, Channel 7 is refusing to give in to pressure to sacrifice top-rating Better Homes & Gardens and show footy live.

Also today in the Herald Sun, Mike Sheahan:

AFL needs to sweeten next TV deal if it wants to go live on Friday night

OF course the Seven network wants to preserve and extend the status quo.

Why would a network, any network, want to tamper in any way with an arrangement that guarantees fours hours of high-rating, prime-time television on Friday nights for the best part of 30 weeks?

No, if we are finally to get live football on Friday night every week, the AFL is going to have to concede a slice of the rights generated by the Friday night component.

JEN S

"I'm a big fan of Jennifer Byrnes."

~~ Posh lady in Readings

POT, KETTLE, FACE PACK

"Mimi Bobeck is a cosmetic creation."

~~ Bert Newton, 20 to 1

OLD MOON DEFACE

Twenty to One Celebrity Insults, No.1: Bert Newton, you look like a freak.

WRONGKA!

BEYOND BLOOPER

Anyone see the presentation of the trophy after today's Geelong vs. Hawthorn game? To paraphrase:

Andrew Maher: "Cam, how does it feel to do your bit for cancer research?"

Cameron Ling: "Depression, actually. Beyond Blue."

A sloppy gaffe with even sloppier timing.

BEYOND THE CRINGE

Leapster injects the penicillin into the arse of Australian TV comedy, suggesting that we were too hasty in ditching the cultural cringe and would benefit from its re-introduction:

A SHORTER HISTORY OF DISMAL AUSTRALIAN COMEDY

A rock critic once made an observation, re progressive rock and/or fusion music, which went something along the lines of: To rock out in 11/8 time isn’t so much impressive or difficult as it is impossible.

I feel the shows under discussion, when considered individually, or all together (now), achieve much the same effect. Watching any of them, it’s easy to get the impression that producing comedy isn’t so much impressive or difficult, as it is impossible.

BETTER ELATE THAN NEVER

You read it here first. It is the only TV show to have its own AGB category. Without even clicking - or hovering, you cheat - on the links, regular readers already know what I'm on about.

The Wire: Get. On. Board.

For a year or so, it only appeared on overseas blogs and newspapers. In the last year there has been the occasional article in Australian papers. Last week Ross Stevenson was talking about it on the radio: "Burnso," he announced to his on-air partner at 5:37 am, "get The Wire." The word is starting to spread.

Today there is a review in the Green Guide. But come on: comparing The Wire to Underbelly is like comparing Ripping Yarns to The Body in Question, Herman's Head to Q&A, The Biggest Loser to Crusty Demons Beyond the Apocalypse, or Hugh Jackman to a singer.

The Wire is incomparable... no matter how many times I compare it. I mean, it is better than Packed To The Rafters:

Wired for DVD viewing

An obscure US crime drama, The Wire, goes beyond TV to become a must-watch DVD experience, writes Greg Hassall.

FORGET Underbelly, the most-talked-about show at the moment is The Wire, an obscure US crime drama that wrapped up production more than two years ago. Some people finished it long ago but can't stop proselytising, others are at various points through the show's five seasons. The one thing they have in common is that they didn't watch it on TV — certainly not on Channel Nine, where it aired sporadically over the years in the dead of night; not even on pay TV, where the first four seasons have aired. No, The Wire is a DVD show, pure and simple.

In the opinion of many, this writer included, The Wire is the best television show ever made. Dense and complex, brutally realistic but rich in allegory and symbolism, it demands and rewards a level of engagement that other shows don't.

UNDERWHELMY II: A TALL TALE OF TWO CITIES

... and a lot of the countryside, too.

Seems that Underbelly, a Tale of Two Cities is full of cons:

When reality goes belly up

THE 1977 murder of Donald Mackay was a defining moment in Australian history and the truth about it needs to be told.

Unfortunately - entertaining as it may be - the new Underbelly television series isn't telling it like it was.

That wouldn't be so bad if they were up front and admitted they were embellishing, dramatising and just plain making bits up, but it is being promoted heavily as a true story.

What makes things worse is that the program's makers appear to have ignored their own consultants, respected Melbourne journalists John Silvester and Andrew Rule.

I've seen the first four episodes of Underwhelmy II and while it goes OK in parts, the overall is pretty thin. Just about the whole third episode, for instance, was, to be blunt: rubbish. A cynical excuse for Matthew Newton, his Kiwi girlfriend and assorted body doubles to get their kit off. To say it was gratuitous nudity is to sell gratuitous short. It was low-rent Chances-like sexploitation from Nine, who obviously think the best way to deal themselves back into the ratings game is to flash as much skin and simulate as much sex as is televisually possible. Naturally, it is working.

But it's not just the raunch-lite. The makers infused the show with about as much menace as a a pillow fight on It's A Knockout. Sure, people are killed, many in violent ways, but the architecture of each scene in pissweak, to coin a Vidmar. Compare it to the great crime movies and TV shows: the doom Coppola creates when Fredo is bumped off in Godfather II; Joe Pesci's "Oh, fuck" in Goodfellas when he realises he is not about to be "made" he is about to be, well, unmade; the demise of our very own man of ham, Gary Sweet, when he jumps into the cop car in Blue Murder and suddenly knows he's a gonner; the bar fights in Underwhelmy II are not a patch on the bar fights in Blue Murder which almost jump out of the television, at which point I grab my drink, jump out of my recliner, and scurry to the side of the room.

Then there's the silly. Monday night's episode had a character bumped off in his bathroom. By my accurate count the hitters fired 32,478 bullets and yet there was not a scratch on the tiles, just a healthy smear of blood. I mean, come on.

Underwhelmy is certainly interesting from a local viewer's perspective, and Roy Billing is good for a chuckle as Paul Aussie Bob Trimbole, but the lack of a Roxburgh/Rogerson or Martin/Smith means this will never be considered a great piece of television. It will most likely be remembered, if it is remembered at all, as a semi-accurate docudrama, with some adequate acting and accents.

EAT THE PARENTS

And the Emmy for the best TV conversation of 1997 goes to... the envelope, please... Oz:

Lenny Burrano: Donald Groves, you killed your parents and ate them, right?

Donald Groves: I only ate my mom. I was saving my dad for Thanksgiving.

LB: That’s festive. So, what can you tell me about Dino Ortolani’s murder?

DG: I got in trouble for sneaking in the morgue.

LB: What were you doing in the morgue?

DG: I was just looking.

LB: And they put you in The Hole.

DG: Yeah.

LB: And you were in the cell next to Ortolani when he got burned?

DG: Yeah.

LB: You hear anything?

DG: No. Not a sound. He didn’t scream. He got set on fire and he didn’t scream. That’s balls.

LB: Anything else?

DG: I saw them carry him out. Looked like a roasted… chuckle… broiled chicken. His flesh was all brown and crispy. He looked good enough to eat.

St ISFACTION

Who knew the TV show Satisfaction was such a force for good:

Kestie Morassi visited brothels before playing Natalie and says talking to prostitutes and madams changed her outlook on the industry.

"The one thing that struck me the most was the dignity the girls had and, in a weird way, the dedication they had to doing a good job," she says.

"It was fascinating how many of them were carers - nurses or mothers - outside the brothels."

"There were a few where you felt sad for them - there was a sadness in their eyes - but when I started to talk to them they said they feel like they are doing a community service. These girls need to be there, the industry needs to be there, and it's a really hard job."

An idea: madams and hookers should take over ABC Learning.

TURN UP THE VOLUMES

Stephen Matchett, in Saturday's Australian, writes about the literary nature of The Wire:

Literary classic, serially

ANYBODY who argues that television has helped destroy the great tradition of the novel is not paying enough attention to, well, TV, or at least to serial dramas.

This format, born on network TV, now has audiences independent of the networks.

Take The Wire, which has aired here on cable TV and is perhaps the most interesting example of the post-network world. Certainly this show uses the form of the TV drama, those 60-minute series (if you include the ads) that are broadcast at the same time every week and in which the same characters appear in stories that are entirely self-contained or form some sort of serialstory.

And, belatedly linked from last month's Age, Ken Nagoohen compares "sophisticated TV" for "discerning eyeballs", which is less painful than it sounds, with the turd flavoured Chiko roll that is modern film. For me, TV has been better than film since, oooh, around about the most recent fin de siècle.

Idiot box wises up

Kenneth Nguyen finds out why it's now hip to be square-eyed.

A FILM CAN BE SO carelessly made as to be vaguely humiliating. I learned that a few months ago while sitting through the Doug Liman science-fiction attempt Jumper. The young character's habit of jumping around the globe at will seemed a metaphor for the tossed-off screenplay, which did little but leap from one underdeveloped scene to the next with an adolescent's attention span. I read later that the offending script was inspired by a comic book. So too, it seemed, was the acting: the performances of Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson were not just blockish but appeared to have been manufactured wholly from recycled wood. As I sat in the Jam Factory next to my girlfriend - she grimacing at the fact that it was her choice that had subjected us to this profound underestimation of the audience's intelligence - I had but one thought: Oh, to be at home watching television.

BOGGLE OX

Debi Enker, reviewing Seven's footy coverage in today's Green Guide, opines that Nathan Buckley "can parlay his knowledge of the game, and perceptive readings of strategies and player performance, into illuminating observations as it unfolds." Fair enough... but how would she know? There is a mistake in her first sentence which is the kind of howler that says to me she has barely ever watched Seven's footy.

Close your eyes and you might imagine her sitting at her desk, frantically trying to make deadline: "Someone, anyone, tell me something, anything, about Friday Night Footy!"

AFL Semi-final
Channel Seven, 8pm

TV's best football commentary team, anchored by Bruce McAvaney, Dennis "Ox" Cometti and Nathan "Bucks" Buckley, gathers tonight to cover the clash between the Western Bulldogs and the Sydney Swans. It's a lively, well-informed and astute triumvirate. McAvaney, with his terrier-like excitement about the game and firm grasp on all the stats related to it. Cometti, with his rich voice, left-field pop-culture references and inspired off-the-cuff remarks. And this year's versatile new recruit, Buckley. The former Collingwood captain has been proven to be more than just a commanding former player with a profile that's handy for network promotions. He's also one of that rare breed who can parlay his knowledge of the game, and perceptive readings of strategies and player performance, into illuminating observations as it unfolds. While it is true that the nervy Rick Olarenshaw still has some delivery issues down on the ground with his injury reports and interviews, when it comes to the commentary booth, this team triumphs.

What's more, while he's a terrific commentator, most every real footy devotee knows "Ox" Cometti's remarks are anything but off-the-cuff.

Deb: May the Schwarz be with you!

DO THE METH

Teacher + family man + part time job + cancer = drug dealer. Welcome to Breaking Bad.

Watching the first episode of Breaking Bad last Thursday, 8:30 on Showcase, I wondered whether American TV producers will ever run out of ordinary people/extraordinary predicament scenarios. But then, just as soon as I'd concluded they will probably never run out of them, it occurred to me that it doesn't matter. It's all about how well they do them.

I never bought Weeds, the other program in which a suburbanite starts selling drugs to make ends meet. It seemed to me as if Weeds was hedging its bets. Hook the viewers by putting a "heroine" in a tight spot, have her sell drugs around the neighbourhood, chuck in an early-doors sex scene, but don't go in too hard: heroine should peddle harmless, everyone-does-it marijuana. Were the DEA to drug test Weeds and its paraphernalia, they would doubtless find trace elements of cop out. Breaking Bad, on the other hand, has Walter White, a chemistry teacher at a New Mexico high school who has just been diagnosed with cancer and faces two years max, deciding to cook and sell crystal meth, a far less savoury chemical enhancer altogether. While Weeds has the watered-down feel of a network television show, despite emanating from Showtime, Breaking Bad, even on one showing, has a more natural and gritty feel to it, topped with lashings of black humour.

So, how well do they do Breaking Bad? Well, pretty well.

MIGHT AS WELL FACE IT, YOU'RE A DICKHEAD TO MISS

Set your videotapes, or digital set-top IQ box recorders:

Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict

A beautiful young wife stands to lose everything when she becomes addicted to sex.

~~ Tomorrow, Seven's midday movie.

THE SWEENEYS

Mike Sweeney is a cop whose wife has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and whose partner has just been killed. For a new start, the Sweeneys move from Toronto to Durham County where two teenage girls have just gone missing.

Bad move for Mike: the bloke who lives across the street is Ray Prager, a nutcase from Mike's past, and possibly a serial killer. Good move for a television show: the first episode of Durham County on Tuesday night was a corker.

Since I've only seen one episode it's impossible to say whether DC is worth sticking with, but that episode set up a raft of interesting scenarios. Ray Prager, for instance, is not your typical prime-suspect, trying to keep out of the limelight; he is a complete wanker who heaps sh1t on his wife, torments his son and is loud and obnoxious to everyone he meets. Even if he isn't the serial killer, he's still an obvious nutcase.

Not that DC is perfect; there is the odd cliché. Naturally, Mike's teen-angst daughter is trouble, his youngest daughter all quirk. It doesn't stretch the imagination to think they might fit into the frame serial-killer-wise. And Mike is having an affair.

Still, check it out.

If you are a fan of high tension electricity transmission - HV lines, Stockbridge dampers, insulator strings, corona rings - you will get an extra kick out of Durham County.

Fact: Australians call an electric shock a "boot"; Canadians call an electric shock a "poke".

ENOUGH MOPE

What's Worse?

1. Mashing: Enough Grope
2. Snorting: Enough Dope
3. Boozing: Enough Sauce-ope
4. Wearing: Absolutely Dreadful Shoes

UNDERWHELMY

Channel Nine must be spewing. Nationally, the top rating program last week was National Nine News, Sunday with 1.60 million viewers; Underbelly was fourteenth with 1.30 million. In Melbourne the top rating program was NNNS with 505,000 viewers; Desperate Housewives was twentieth with 367,000 viewers. It's reasonable to assume UB would rate its obligatory dark sunglasses off in Melbourne - certainly it would rate better than DH, which has been groaning for a visit from Philip Nitschke since the end of season 1 - which means UB would be the best rating show in the country.

Not only that, Nine are unlikely to pick up major ground when UB is eventually released here. Doubtless Blue Murder would have done better had it been released in Sydney in 1995 than it did when it was belatedly released around 2000. What's more, back in those prehistoric days before Big Internet, BM wouldn't have had to contend with what UB has to contend with now, even though lots of Sydneysiders would have seen tapes of the show. Every petrol station you go into, the bloke behind the jump makes surreptitious eye contact and whispers "Moit, you wanna watch some Underbelly?" Pretty sure that phenomenon is not contained to just petrol stations, although they seem to be the major outlet for choice contraband. And there are countless stories of people getting DVDs sent from interstate and downloading off their local internet. By the time UB finally screens in Melbourne, most everyone will have seen it, AND been able to zip through the countless ads. No wonder Nine are stopping out all the pulls to squash, or even quash, "illegal" distribution.

(What is it with NNNS? Ever since I have been back in Melbourne (1988) it has rated at or near No.1. Why? Are people, exhausted after a long hard Sunday, desperate for a restorative fix of the hot topic du jour? Baby meerkats at the zoo, for instance. I have seen a bit of NNNS, but it's certainly nowhere near the top of my "must watch" list. What makes the Sunday night News such a hot rating success?)

What about UB itself? Well, having seen the first two episodes I'm perfectly placed to critique the whole series.

It goes alright.

Naturally, the comparisons with BM don't stop at distribution. Organised crime: tick. Local faces: tick. Local news: tick. But you knew all that.

A glaring on-screen comparison is the colour. While BM on ABC was toned down grey-beige, UB on Nine is often filmed at night under gaudy lighting with lots of blues and reds.

I already mentioned the ads: BM had none, UB doesn't have none.

Performance wise? Vince Colosimo's Alphonse Gangitano vs. Gary Sweet's Chris Flannery. Boynton says it's hard to play the psycho, and she would know, being well versed in matters acty. By extension, though, if it's harder to play the psycho, it's harder to get it right. Both Colosimo and Sweet were lauded for their performances, but I reckon Vince does a better job. He looked like a nutter, Sweet looked like he was acting a nutter. Maybe it's a wog thing. I know more skips, so maybe it's harder for a skip to convince me they are psycho. Or maybe it's because Gary Sweet once pinched me in a footy match against Port Colts. Not that I hold grudges.

The best part was Gyton Grantley as Carl Williams. Notorious Big is right: "I'm still laffing at the choice of Carl Williams. Absolutely superb casting and makeup (not sure about the acting - surely he wasn't that thick?)." Judy Moran said he was a moron and the Williams in UB is very moron, and very funny.

Another comparison is the big fight scene. The pub brawl in BM was wonderfully put together, tightly cut and very in your face. You felt like you were in the bar. The pub brawl in UB was more like a rock fillum clip. To be perfectly francis, it was such a fighty blur they may as well have shown Gangitano and Jason Moran strolling into the Sports Bar, cut to them strolling out, then shown a footpath full of bloodied punters.

The cops in UB haven't yet been fleshed out, and there was one flagrantly expositional scene: "Why can't we just arrest them... that's right! They haven't committed any crime." You'd like to think there was more to the cops than what's been shown so far.

Still, the first two episodes of UB were good, but given the commercial intrusions I am prepared to wait until I can see the whole thing on DVD.

DAY-NIGHT STALKER

I have something in common with John Harms. No. Not Geelong. No. Not Queensland. No. Not short sentences. No. This:

The first time I ever stayed up for the entire night was watching the World Cup final from Lords in 1975.

Me, too. Watched it at my grandparents house in Mount Eliza, on a weekend away from boarding school. I still count that final as among the best one-day matches I've seen. Dunno about the decadent, but there was action alright: Lloyd and the Tavern window, Richards and the run outs, the calypso music, Thommo & Lillee batting at the end, Bill Lawry declaring with Marsh on 93. Ok, Marsh was 92. And it was a Test match. In Melbourne. Four years earlier. Anyway. Half way through the telecast I flipped to The Night Stalker, which despite being completely daggy, is still in my top ten all-time favourite TV shows. The way Kolchak went alone into derelict buildings, sewers, basements, attics and hidden underground cities is still in my top ten all-time how to create tension techniques. His blue suit and sand shoes is still in my top ten all-time fashion statements. And the show's theme is still in my top two all-time TV themes.

With this theme:

The theme to Dexter reminds me of John Barry.

CHANNEL DEEPENING

No, not that channel deepening; this channel deepening:

SEVEN and Foxtel ended years of disagreement today announcing the channel had signed a retransmission deal with the pay-TV group.

The news means Channel Seven will become available to satellite pay-TV subscribers for the first time.

And Seven's programming options will also be seen on Foxtel's electronic program guide for the first time.

Seven was the only free-to-air TV network to not have a retransmission deal with Foxtel.

Channel Nine, the ABC and the SBS have been retransmitted on Foxtel for years, and Ten came on board late last year.

Bout time Seven got with the programming. Now I can use my Foxtel IQ to record all those great shows I've been missing: Dancing With The Stars, Singing With The Stars, Surviving With The Stars, Desperate Housewives, Home And Away, Deal Or No Deal, Grey's Anatomy and Melankochie. Brilliant.

UNDERCUT

Forget that Underbelly has been banned in Victoria - that was always on the cards - and instead focus on this:

Barrister for Nine, Brendan Murphy QC ... said the network always intended to air a heavily edited version of the series for Victorian audiences.

When, precisely, was Nine going to tell us Underbelly was cut to the sh1thouse?

At least the judge has a sense of humour:

The Nine Network has also been ordered to pull Underbelly character profiles from its website, and has been banned from placing any episodes on the internet in Victoria.

BRUM and BRUMMER

Butler done it.

Done what?

Done this:

Superintendant Andy Dalziel, of the Birmingham police, is the personification of the kind of copper everyone has in mind when they wax lyrical about the old days.

Done this, too:

Andy's midlands accent adds grit and authority.

That's the Weekend Strayan's Mark Butler misplacing Dalziel & Pascoe.

Update! Not Yorkshire.