Assessment #3.

BLOGGER
I have enjoyed using Blogger the most and have learnt a great deal during the time I have been using it, since I had heard of it yet never used it before. In total, I have made 25 posts and this has involved a fair bit of work by experimenting with templates. I believe I repositioned the layout to the way I finally liked it in the end. Since Assessment #1, I have made quite a few changes to the look of my blog. I have changed the background as well as various colours, fonts and also my main title. I have discovered, that by altering these finer details, the appearance of the blog can quickly change. In my blog posts, I have continued to cover the latest TV news of interest to me and have discussed topics that others may hopefully find interesting as well by also including a range of videos and pictures. Sometimes it has involved a small amount of research to make sure all the facts I'm relaying are true for the reader. I have also added 2 RSS feeds to my blog that are of interest to me.

FLICKR
I have uploaded a total of 25 images to Flickr over time and this has involved a random collection of sourced images as well as of pictures I have taken myself. It is very easy to use and in my set, I have a continuing theme with my obsession of Star Wars.

DELICIOUS
This site is useful to have bookmarked if you like to look at a lot of sites, yet I discovered I don't look at that many usually anyway. I have saved 29 links through 4 stacks. I was putting all the links into one personal stack for the majority of the session until I realised there should be more. The other two personal stacks are categorised in a way to my own liking.

CSUSAP WEBSPACE
I made my own website through iWeb and before that I learnt of the html formatting which was interesting as well. My website became a extension of my blog in a way, while making reference to it and discussing TV as well. It is something I would like to further explore sometime and other programs like it as I discovered the templates in iWeb were very handy to use and base my ideas around.

The subject has been a really useful introduction to aspects of the internet I feel I should have already known about before- yet never delved into, and in telling the truth, I have enjoyed doing the work.

Brad.

Coming Soon

The best is yet to come when some new shows are going to be hitting our TV screens in the second half of this year. Big Brother is returning for season 9 and this time will be airing on Channel 9. It will be hosted by Sonia Kruger and not a lot more is known at this stage however the serious auditioning process has already begun around the country. After Channel 9's coverage of the London Olympics, BB is expected to air. It is expected to be more 'family friendly' in a rumoured 7pm weeknight time slot. Still all very hush hush yet I think it will attract a lot of viewers for some reason.

Still mentioning the 2012 Olympic Games, Channel 9 is expected to broadcast up to 5 hours of 3D coverage each day on an allocated 3D channel for viewers. However, you have to a 3D TV and live in either one of the capital cities or the Gold Coast. The 3D content is being run as a trial and this is expected to cover the Opening Ceremony and events including the intense swimming finals, gymnastics, athletics, canoe slalom, synchronised swimming and diving. It will make us feel like we are right by the pool side. Nine, GEM and the dedicated 3D channel will have almost 24 hours of continuous coverage so no one would ever miss out as well. The Opening Ceremony from London begins on Friday, 27th July 2012 and Foxtel will be covering everything as well on their many channels.

The Olympic stadium in London.


In other news, The Amazing Race begins tonight on Prime7/ Channel 7. This years race has contestants cross four continents and 65 000km for the grand prize of a handy $250 000. I've heard about Michelle and Jo Troy, St George Illawarra cheerleaders who are both Barbie-like, fake-tan loving, twins. Yet looks could be deceiving and they could have a good chance. Good luck girls!

Link to The Amazing Race site.

Eurovision Song Contest 2012

A world wide television spectacle was held on SBS last night, the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, held in Baku, Azerbaijan (very easy to spell and pronounce). It was held on Saturday night in European time, yet for Australian audiences SBS compiled their own version of the telecast complete with hosts Julia Zemiro and Sam Pang.

42 countries competed for the title this year and through two separate televised semi finals, they were culled to 26 for the final, striving to be crowned the winner. There is no prize money but the winning country receives a cool winner's trophy and also the opportunity and honour to host the event in their country the following year.

The hosts of Eurovision 2012. Eldar, the guy in the middle has an uncanny resemblance to Charlie Pickering from Channel 10's The Project.

If you have never heard of Eurovision before, you are sadly missing out on a cultural phenomenon. Some of the songs are wacky, while some of them are catchy and great to sing along to, and I have some included some personal favourites further below.
Nearly 40 years ago a little group known as ABBA won with their song "Waterloo" representing their country of Sweden. This year, Sweden delivered the goods again with the song "Euphoria" by singer Loreen. Tipped as the bookie's favourite, she won with 372 points. Here is her stand out performance.

In second place was Russia, with 6 Babushka grannies singing their hearts out. True fact: Their combined age altogether is 615. This was a truly uplifting performance complete with one of them cooking some scones in a fancy revolving oven. They received 259 points.

In third place came Serbia, Željko Joksimović, with 214 points.

From a production perspective, the event is amazing to watch and you can tell there has been quite a lot of preparation put into everything. The arena it is set in takes months and months to construct and looks spectacular when it is complete. The camera angles are cool, where one shot can be sweeping in from high above to being up close to the performer on the stage where the notes are soaring. The wind and smoke machines worked over time in Crystal Hall.

Outside Crystal Hall

Here are 2 of my favourite stand out performances from this years competition. The first one is from country San Marino with "The Social Network song". The lyrics are out of this world. And to mark the 11th time that Norway has come last, performer Tooji and his backup dancers perform the song "Stay". Stay on here to enjoy them.

Australia and America's Got Talent 2012

This show is proving to be popular with the same format repeated all around the world and the Australian version is heating up where it screens Tuesday nights on Channel 7/Prime7. Unfortunately Kyle Sandilands is a judge so thats a personal reason why I don't watch it much but the range of acts are still very entertaining. Here is a personal favourite audition, a 19 year old meat packer, Daniel Jovanovich who specialises in car sounds.

Here is a talented and unique act that anyone would just marvel at, Horace aged 25 from the US America's Got Talent. Warning: don't try this at home. If he gets to the next round it makes me wonder what he will have to do next to win the $1 million prize ( only $250 000 for the Australian version). Horace could possibly put his prize money towards medical bills and doctors to restore his manhood (and dignity).

Videos courtesy of Youtube.

 

TV Ratings

The Australian television ratings are the reason the free to air networks bring out the big guns with their reality shows, competitions, dramas and news and current affairs bulletins. It is interesting to notice this, for instance through the success of MasterChef Australia on Channel Ten in previous years, Channel Seven responded quickly by whipping up their own serving of another cooking competition, My Kitchen Rules, though very different in style complete with a French chef, Manu Fieldel, making it even classier.  The cooking shows however have captured the attention of Australian audiences and dished up even lucrative advertising deals with networks and supermarkets like Coles as an example with MasterChef.

MasterChef Australia winner Adam Liaw in 2010 celebrates taking the prize and loving the success associated with Coles.


The ratings also soar when there is a large event that will engross the audiences such as the ceremonies of the Olympics, news years eve, the sporting finals and even the annual Melbourne Cup race. The finales of various shows are always quite successful as well.

  The New Years Eve fireworks in Sydney.

Dunaden winning the Melbourne Cup 2011 by the closest of margins. 2.6 million people tuned in to watch the very short race.

The contestants on The Block 2011. (Channel Nine) It was the most watched show of 2011 and when the winners Polly and Waz were announced, it had a small audience of 3.3 million viewers.




The 'exclusives' are always what draw in the audiences as well, whether it is a hard hitting interview with Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair or funnily enough an interview with a shady character who has spent time in jail and is getting paid an extreme amount to retell his or her story on 60 Minutes, paid by Channel Nine. These stories are what attract audiences and what we all (mostly) like to tune in to watch.

The ACA interview with Matthew Johns made Tracy a bigger star and ratings rocketed for the show (1.4 million to be exact for that night).

Each network is vying for the top spot at the end of the day which are collected by three main organisations known as OzTAM (metro areas), Regional TAM (obviously regional) in areas with three television commercial networks and through Nielsen Media Research Australia in areas with two commercial TV networks.
The ratings are recorded over 40 weeks of the year, where there is a 2 week break over the Easter period and a 10 week break over the summer period- which explains why a million repeated episodes of The Big Bang Theory are shown at this time and we want to start throwing things at our TV screen (well I do because its frustrating).

The Big Bang Theory seems to still rate really well even after countless repeats of the 4 seasons on Channel Nine/ WIN Network.


On Wednesday night, a large audience of 2.51 million turned on Channel Nine to watch the first (and controversial) game of the State of Origin, setting a new record for the game since OzTAM ratings had been introduced in 2001.

The two teams getting along makes for good TV- good to see rivalry too.


The big program of the time that everyone is talking about is The Voice. There have been many singing competitions over the years but for some weird reason this show has taken off like no others. I can't figure out whether it is put down to the types of contestants, the nice natured judging or the brightly coloured nail polish judge Seal wears yet week after week the ratings have displayed 1 to 2 million viewers. It truly is a knock out show hitting all the right notes.
In the US, the ratings are a whole different juggernaut where figures that compare to a viewing audience the same size of the population of Australia tunes in just to watch an episode of American Idol- crazy!

THE MOST WATCHED SHOWS TO DATE

This is the list of the 13 most watched broadcasts since 2001 (when OzTam began) in Australia, with ratings of over 3 million viewers (metro viewers only *).

Rank	Show	Number of Viewers	Date	Network
1	The Voice Australia : Premiere	4,110,000	15 April 2012	Channel Nine
2	Australian Open: Men's Final (Lleyton Hewitt v Marat Safin)	4,045,000	2005	Channel Seven
3	2003 Rugby World Cup: Final (Australia v England)	4,016,000	2003	Channel Seven
4	Masterchef Australia : Winner Announced	3,964,000	25 July 2010	Channel Ten
5	Masterchef Australia : Winner Announced	3,560,000	19 July 2009	Channel Ten
6	2006 Commonwealth Games: Opening Ceremony	3,560,000	2006	Channel Nine
7	Masterchef Australia: Finale Night	3,542,000	25 July 2010	Channel Ten
8	2005 AFL Grand Final (Sydney Swans v West Coast Eagles)	3,386,000	2005	Channel Ten
9	Australian Idol: The final verdict	3,344,000	2004	Channel Ten
10	Masterchef Australia: Finale night	3,313,000	19 July 2009	Channel Ten
11	Australian Idol: The final verdict	3,330,000	2006	Channel Ten
12	2006 AFL Grand Final (West Coast Eagles v Sydney Swans)	3,145,000	2006	Channel Ten
13	The Block: Final	3,115,000	2003	Channel Nine

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_ratings_in_Australia

A useful TV blog that summarises the ratings each day is TV Tonight.
TV Tonight Blog-Day to day Ratings

The official site of OzTAM, the television audience measurement system for metropolitan cities.
http://www.oztam.com.au/

Assessment #2

I created my webpage through the program iWeb. I decided to continue with the television commentary theme that I have been using for this blog and briefly touch on a post I made earlier and added a few other features to it. I had the idea for the site in my head early on. The process started out by choosing the template and it took some time to find the right one to use. I looked at all of them and how they were layered out to further develop these ideas.  I decided on creating the first page to keep it minimal in design and leave the viewer with the thought of wanting to see more as they click further.

I then developed the other pages with a black background as well yet slightly changed the colour of the sides of the page, proving to be effective. When I started typing in my content it came to my attention that the correct use of colours for the fonts would be necessary to work well with the black behind it. Some shades like blue and red didn’t work at all.

When I had to put pictures in I learnt that this sometimes took a while as it depended on the template I was using at the time. It would involve rearranging the text as well, however after a while I was able master it I believe. Since I have never done anything like this before I have learnt quite a lot while we have been learning the html codes over the weeks. The tabs/widgets were handy to use as well where youtube videos were just a click of a button and I was also able to get my RSS feed of my blog and format to the way I thought it fitted well on the 'about me' section of my page. I find the formatting very interesting with html yet I found iWeb good to handle and a useful way to express what I was trying to convey to my audience. 

Bikie Wars: Brothers In Arms

Channel Ten's new drama show last night was a combination of schmick looking Harleys with mullets flapping in the breeze, reflecting the story of the Comancheros and Bandidos bikie clubs in 80's Australia. This is also quite a topical show for the present times, with stories of motorcycle gangs being back in the news in Sydney including references to both the Comancheros and Bandidos clubs. In 1984 both of these gangs went to war on Father’s Day at the Viking Tavern in Milperra. Seven people lost their lives, including one child, with many more injured. Now, a six-part miniseries has been produced in partnership with Ten by Screentime, which have created shows like Underbelly and the new Tricky Business seen on Channel Nine.

Episode One establishes the story and the era and its style is reflected pretty well I believe. We meet the leader of the Comancheros, Jack Ross (played by actor Matt Nable) as he recruits Snoddy (Callan Mulvey) , the new guy in town. The gang regard themselves as the greatest in the country and the induction is quite a simple one and I'm sure we could all do it; be christened with a can of beer and then get a sweet-looking tattoo (easy peasy really).
Peter Andrikidis is the director who has worked on shows like Underbelly and East West 101 and his style is noticeable in this production, where there are montage scenes and it has the same 'feel' to it like all the previous Underbelly series. Of course it wouldn't be the same without a steamy scene or two and the added nudity of young good looking woman being on screen.

The Comancheros on a morning ride.


Without giving too much more away because I've already given many spoilers and sucked you in I have to leave you in suspense- because even I don't even know though I am looking forward to seeing things heat up as Snoddy goes to the other (dark) side to fight against the Comancheros, and forms the Bandidos in the next episode.

Link to the official Bikie Wars site- Channel Ten

The Hollywood Complex

A documentary screened on ABC2 tonight which gave a behind the scenes insight into the journey families undertake to turn their children into the next big stars in film and television in the US. Making it in Hollywood as we all can imagine is quite a big achievement for anybody (everyone's dream right?), and the devoted parents make very big sacrifices and suffer many moments of heartache along the way as well. Honestly the efforts some of them put in just make the ordinary person judging them just shake their heads in disgust (I did while watching). For instance, my favourite family highlighted in this was one woman Sandy Haun and her young daughter Megan who had tried out 66 times just to get an audition and spent over $180 000 in 3 years of attempting to crack it big time.

Sandy and little Megan waiting patiently for the next crack at the big time.

It was a really well presented documentary in my view as it was filmed over a couple of years. Starting in 2009, the story looks at the tough world of child acting and exposes the grief and perpetual self-belief of the children who really believe they will 'make it' in Hollywood. Focusing on the stories of a few families who flock to tinsel town as its known during what is regarded as the all important 'pilot season', we see them staying for 5 months at Oakwood Apartments, Burbank, an acting and agent home. We see how some of them gain success as well as failure over time. One woman referred to her children as being given a gift- funnily enough though all four of them were unsuccessful in the end and even resort to picking out recycling out of garbage bins to make more money (yes, it gets that bad) to allow them to afford staying there the entire time.
Chirpy yet very annoying Megan ends up changing her name to Presley Ca$h, (I think because of her influences from idols Elvis and Johnny Cash) and she is able to bounce back for yet another year at Oakwood and belt out some redneck country tunes. She now regards herself to be famous as far as her twitter account states because she starred in a Taylor Swift music video last year. Mum Sandy would be so proud at long last.

You know you've made it big when you swiftly make a video with Taylor. Picture courtesy of http://twitter.com/#!/CupCake54.

Link to the official site

MasterChef Returns

The finale of The Biggest Loser looms so it makes perfect sense for MasterChef to hit the screens.

Tonight premiered the return of season 4 of MasterChef Australia and after many sneak peeks over the past few months teasing audience's appetites, the moment finally arrived. This series is being described as 'going back to basics', where the dishes are less extravagant, mystery box challenges will return to Sunday nights and dramas will stay centred in the kitchen arena (why everyone really tunes in to watch).
The show kicked off and stayed for the entire episode at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, where contestants were vying for a spot in the top 50 stage of the competition. We start to learn of the backgrounds of these people straight away as they have their moment to shine in front of the three judges Matt, Gary and George.

From young students, to social workers, teachers, a policeman and also a car detailer, the dishes they served up were interesting and worthy enough for the judges' growling stomachs. Other dishes, described as 'real cooking' had over 20 different ingredients and described with tongue-twisting titles. I guess some were showing off because they have five minutes to be on television and make the most of it. It was saddening when a young 18 year-old student appeared to have a promising future yet his uncooked pork let him down in the end, while another contestant stated how she didn't even eat pork but got through with the exotic dish she plated up.
It was quite bizarre that during the ad breaks (and to make up for lost time I'm guessing) was more footage of other contestants getting through into the top 50, it was as if they were apart of the ads themselves. Overall however, the classic MasterChef moments were not wiped away with, such as the combination of intense theme music with repeated footage of scenes of suspense, where the viewers have to wait till after the commercial break to find out the teasing results of someone getting through to the next round. You cannot leave the lounge until this is discovered-its intense. Tomorrow night sees the true battles begin and it makes me wonder if this series will be as popular as past ones?

Link to MasterChef site

 The MasterChef kitchen in Sydney- the original shooting location for the show.

Review- My Strange Addiction

There is a gem of a show on the GEM channel (ch. 80) screening weekly on Thursday nights at 8.30pm. It is quite an interesting show and best of all its presented in full high definition so the range of topics are clear and stunning to watch. Tonight for instance, Teresa, a mother in the US told her story of how she was addicted to eating rocks and loved slowly biting away at the earthy tastes it provided for her. Strange and amusing yet true and confronting at the same time as well.

2 Pounds a day of rocks keeps the doctor away for Teresa.


Below is a link to the site that shows previews of Teresa's eating habits as well as other weird and wacky ones like a woman eating washing detergent to a woman craving for the softness couch cushions provide.
Link to strange eating habits



The show is produced by the US company TLC and follows the addicts as they reveal their strange addictions to their friends and family. They also meet with psychological experts to understand the underlying causes of their behaviour. As a viewer it makes me want to continue watching week after week because these addictions vary greatly. 
Another subject tonight was Tamara, who, since the age of 4 has carried a pillow around with her and has never left her side. She can't ever part with this mouldy object and it was even starting to ruin the lives of the people around her as a result.

    Tamara and her infamous companion.


 Here is the link to Tamara and others who have weird love obsessions.
Link to strange love obsessions



This one in particular takes the cake, a man named Davecat who is in love with... a doll. I guess there would never be arguments in the household..

                           The happy couple


Watch this preview if you need more convincing. Its quite gripping television.

Good luck to Teresa, Tamara and Davecat. May your lives hopefully become normal one day..