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ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER
You’ll be smiling all day after reading this:
Ten Network’s programmers are baffled. With so much attention on climate change and consumer research indicating viewers were keenly interested in a 2 1⁄2 hour feast of practical advice on how they might save the planet, Ten’s ratings for the Cool Aid blockbuster on Sunday night were still a disaster.
Viewing numbers peaked at 618,000, compared with more than 1.6 million each for Grey’s Anatomy and CSI on Seven and Nine respectively, and averaged just 464,000 people across the country.
"Truthfully, we’re confused,” says Ten’s network head of programming, Beverley McGarvey. “They didn’t come. It’s not like they came to the show, sampled it and went away. They didn’t come.
"We had study guides in schools, we had the full support of the print media, both editorially and with advertising, and an extensive on-air campaign with a number of different creative treatments and different stances.
"We spent a fortune to get the audience there and it didn’t work. We’ve talked about it quite a lot internally. We’re disappointed."
Hint to Ten: possibly you’ll attract more viewers if you don’t run Tim Flannery’s alarmist nonsense:
It’s likely to be too late for the polar bear.
Doesn’t look like it, pal:
A survey of the animals’ numbers in Canada’s eastern Arctic has revealed that they are thriving, not declining, because of mankind’s interference in the environment.
In the Davis Strait area, a 140,000-square kilometre region, the polar bear population has grown from 850 in the mid-1980s to 2,100 today.
"There aren’t just a few more bears. There are a hell of a lot more bears,” said Mitch Taylor, a polar bear biologist who has spent 20 years studying the animals.
His findings back the claims of Inuit hunters who have long claimed that they were seeing more bears.
As usual, motives are questioned:
While fellow scientists have accepted Mr Taylor’s findings, critics point out that his study was commissioned by the Inuit-dominated government of Nunavit.
I’ll take their word over Flannery’s. Meanwhile, check out this polar bear photo gallery and an accidentally-timely column.
(Via Chris W. and Gordon)
UPDATE. Via Adrian the cabbie, more polar bear action.
very nice skewering of clueless collette & greenie hand-wringers generally. even when trying hard - barbecueing haunches of beef, doing donuts in v8s, cooling lots of beer, charging up the tardis, cooling even more beer - most blairites would have a carbon footprint that’s about a poofteenth of toni’s or sandra’s. as for the portutool, it’s that ole socialist mantra, don’t do as i do, do as i say
“With so much attention on climate change and consumer research indicating viewers were keenly interested in a 2½ hour feast of practical advice on how they might save the planet, Ten’s ratings for the Cool Aid blockbuster on Sunday night were still a disaster.”
How come I knew that viewers weren’t keenly interested and consumer research didn’t?
“’Truthfully, we’re confused’”, says Ten’s network head of programming, Beverley McGarvey. “’They didn’t come. It’s not like they came to the show, sampled it and went away. They didn’t come.’”
We didn’t come because we knew it was going to be a gabfest of “celebrities” and, in Sydneysider talk, “identities” congratulating each other on how green and virtuous they are, whereas the rest of us are just plain wicked and ignorant.
“We spent a fortune to get the audience there and it didn’t work. We’ve talked about it quite a lot internally. We’re disappointed."
He, he.
“Planet Ark’s chairman and Australian frontman for Al Gore’s hit documentary An Inconvenient Truth, John Dee, begs to differ….’So much of the Government rhetoric which has gone out to combat climate change has been around costing jobs and damaging the economy that households don’t realise many of the changes they can make can actually save money,’ says Dee.”
No, we’re all numbskulls who know nothing and don’t see through political spin like this. My mother has been “making changes” long before Planet Ark and John Dee were born - in fact since the Depression and WWII when people really learned to be sparing with resources - and she taught us to do the same. But somehow she is not considered an environmentalist.
Memo to Channel Ten: opinion polls are garbage, and, as you have just learned, high poll numbers on an issue will not necessarily translate into high ratings. Given the ludicrously high levels of poll ‘support’ for David Hicks currently being reported by the Age, why not do a Hicks Aid special? Should be a real winner.
And you’ve got to love that bit about sceptic scientists being ‘tainted’ by Inuit money. Now if we can just find an oil company run by Inuits (they have 23 words for light sweet crude, you know), we can make a few moonbat heads explode.
Toni – in the usual manner of a wealthy dimwit telling her inferiors how to live – was completely unembarrassed.
“I love nature and I love life,” she said.
“I have a pretty green lifestyle.”
No, Toni, you don’t. But don’t let that stop you telling the rest of us how to live.
A moot point, nailed. Not only do simpering airheads like Toni have the ‘chutzpah’ to lecture others, as if stepping into a Prius in LA is the eco-equivalent of having touched a piece of the true cross, despite doing the opposite, they are aided and abetted by the media. How dare shows like that lecture us, waving a finger at people because they left a light on, when they can simply ‘wipe’ Toni’s air travel and voila, she’s a green saint.
What a crock and such lies.What next, environmental indulgences for the rich? Oops, we already have those, they are called ‘carbon credits’.
It is all the fault of too much time out in the sun. Stop the sun shining.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2007 03 09 at 09:51 PM • permalinkIt’s likely to be too late for the polar bear.
That’s where Ten went wrong, right there: they didn’t heed Flannery’s warning about the scheduling. If they’d moved the show up an hour to 7:30 the polar bears would have tuned in. But after a tough day of conspiring with Inuit to falsify studies and trying to keep afloat in meltwater, the last thing a polar bear wants to do is stay up late to watch some lame documentary.
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 03 09 at 09:54 PM • permalinkBy the way, is there a statement more useless than “I love life”? I mean, what’s the alternative—“I hate life,” “I wish I were dead,” “I wish the entire universe would expire”? It’s true those sentiments do exist, mostly in the skulls of self-absorbed Western teens, but “loving” life is the default position of normal human beings. She might as well say “I love gravity” or “I love breathing.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 09 at 09:59 PM • permalink"I have a pretty green lifestyle."
I have a tastefully understated off-white and celadon lifestyle.
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 03 09 at 10:00 PM • permalinkOf course when the earth as we know it doesn’t end, and the polar bears have taken over all lands north of the Tropic of Cancer, Flannery will be able to use the trusty ol’ Lane defence: “I fell for it because I wanted to believe it”. Or to put it another way - he peddled this garbage because he loved the publicity and it was making him shitloads of money.
Andrea, maybe Toni is trying to contrast her point of view with that of the Spanish Foreign Legion, whose motto is (or was) “Viva Muerte”, or “Long Live Death.” Admittedly that’s no more incoherent than most of what passes for thought among the Greenies, but it is a possible explanation. Of course, I doubt Toni knows anything about the Spanish Foreign Legion.
As to the show, what kind of idiots are these people? Are they supposed to be experts at appealing to viewers? If they wanted massive viewership all they had to do was plaster the show with beautiful, scantily clad young women. That would have brought in the all important horny teenage male crowd. Complementing them with muscular, bare-chested surfer blokes would have brought in their sisters. It was about global warming righ? So guys and babes in swimwear would fit right in, showing the dangers of excessive water that glowball warmening would bring. And these people call themselves professionals? Bah.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 03 09 at 10:59 PM • permalinkOpinion polls are worthless, because EVERYBODY tells pollsters they’re “concerned” about issues. Ask instead, “Are you concerned enough about global warming to support government action that cuts your pay and consumption by 10%”, and see how concerned people are.
Idiots. They can’t see anything beyond their cocktail-party circle jerks.
just where is flannel the weather womble - none of his recent tv or radio appearances have been live. he is apparently “doing something important” overseas, before he takes up his new day job at macquarie u. but what? is he at some gathering for globbal warmermongers with excessive frequent flyer points? did he fly? did he swim with the polar bears? is he hanging with al-pal? is he about to become the UN’s climate change ambassador? please help solve this puzzle
Ten programmers need to watch that Yes Minister (or was it a Yes, Prime Minister?) episode wherein the good Sir Humphrey patiently explains to Hacker the machinations of opinion polls.
Q: “Would you like to know how to help the planet?”
Now, whilst on Tim Blair’s website, the most common answer might be “No, but is there anything I can do to help ruin it faster?” this is unlikely to be the predominant response in a general population opinion poll, despite the fact that most people are striving to attain all those things that - according to environmentalists - would accelerate climate change. What people say and do, in other words, are often completely different.
I’d like to suggest that the Channel Ten programmers conduct their own phone polls to determine what viewers would like to see. Here are some sample questions:
“Are you in favour of films depicting gratuitous sex and violence?”
“Should we be showing more educational programs?”
“Would you like to see more locally produced content instead of all these American shows?”
There, that should steer them in the right direction, don’t you think?
Memo to 10:
I watch television to escape.
To be transported away.
To be entertained.Perhaps Grey’s Anatomy and CSI was doing that for some people.
Frankly, I turned the TV off.
And by the way, I wanted to tape The Shield, scheduled to commence after the Cool Aid wankfest. Programming was changed and The Shield was not shown.
While fellow scientists have accepted Mr Taylor’s findings, critics point out that his study was commissioned by the Inuit-dominated government of Nunavit.
Red is the new white?
The gentle noble savages who cared for their environment and lovingly preserved it, taking only what they needed from it until the white man came along and despoiled it are now greedy rapists of Mother Gaia?
The enviro-pinko narrative just gets better and better!
Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2007 03 09 at 11:41 PM • permalinkI love this bit:
Dee argues education is critical, pointing to a mail-out of “how to save” leaflets to 5 million homes last week by companies such as Bunnings, Philips, Hills Industries, CSR’s Bradford Insulation, Jackgreen.com.au and mailhouse Salmat.
Assuming 80-grammage paper and a single A4 sheet per leaflet, that’s 25 tonnes of waste generated in leaflets alone. That’s not counting all the environmental effects of paper production, printing, and distribution. Quite a victory for the environment, no?
Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2007 03 10 at 12:00 AM • permalinkWell DAH, Channel Ten. Try passing off propaganda, with crap thrown in, for ratings and the advertising dollar, people are not going to swallow it. Wonder how that other ‘comedy’ show, Channel Seven’s Sunrise is going, with ‘Mel and Kochie’. Have the ratings figures caught up with their hysterical rantings yet?
I wait with baited breath for Channel (Eddie) Nine’s contribution to the biggest con job of the 21st Century.Are polar bear cubs the cutest animals on the entire planet? Either that or a narrow tie with tiger cubs. My adorable-O-meter is reading some of those pictures at a startling 38 KIBs*.
Whether hunting seals on the majestic pack ice, or pulling a rotting sheep carcass apart on some municipal dump site with a large ‘problem bear’ number scrawled on it’s side in red spray paint by irritated park rangers, the noble polar bear shall continue to impress us with it’s unrelenting wicked-coolness and the intolerable hugabiltiy of it’s rolly-polly offspring.
(*Kitten In a Basket, standard measuring unit)
Oh, My God! Look! It’s a drowning polar bear, from Tim’s link above.
—“I hate life,” “I wish I were dead,” “I wish the entire universe would expire”
Andrea - Great line, I guess you stole it from a muslim?
Posted by surfmaster on 2007 03 10 at 12:28 AM • permalinkThe Gorecolytes have descended from on high to enlighten the masses of the People’s Republic of Taxachusetts with the solution to gerbil worming:
Replace a couple of incandescent lightbulbs with the fluorescent ones, make sure the tires on your car are properly inflated, and unplug your cell phone charger when you’re not using it.
Bingo — you’re saving the environment.
Cell phone chargers are a major cause of gerbil worming? Who knew? It’s frickin’ freezing here - I’m going to go plug that bad boy in right now. Shorts and sandals, here I come!
Gerbil cooling the Framingham way
Posted by Blue State Sil on 2007 03 10 at 12:55 AM • permalinkOf course the real story here is that the people of Australia are so concerned about AGW that about 15 million of them chose to not turn on their TV set. Ten should have done their part and gone off air for 2 hours. Every one would have been better off.
And #20 PW “Audience Offsets”, ROFL.
Posted by alien kiwi on 2007 03 10 at 01:07 AM • permalinkExpect a phone call like I got today.
Have heard of Cool Aid?
HA?
Have you heard of Cool Aid?
OH! yes hehe
In audible dribble...black balloons.....In audible dribble
Pardon?
Would you like to save the environment?
Sorry not interested in what your selling.
YOU DON’T WANT TO HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!!!!!
Click
Posted by armageddon on 2007 03 10 at 02:04 AM • permalinkHaven’t these morons learned the first rule of propaganda yet? Don’t believe your own press releases!
Posted by Jeffersonian on 2007 03 10 at 02:16 AM • permalinkFrom Tim’s column:
why doesn’t Toni simply change her job to something more Earth-friendly, like a coal miner or Touareg crash-test dummy?
I think Toni’s first job was as a crash-test dummy. They had to let her go, there was too much pre-existing brain damage and they couldn’t get any reliable readings…
"Audience Offsets”, PW
Now that’s funny. And practical, too.
A politician, some folks whose rice bowl depends on scaring other folks, and a bunch of clueless celebrities hopping on a band-wagon tells them that the debate is over, and these brains think it’s time to tell the proles how to live their lives. Sounds right, no? I mean, these are people who are supposed to understand the masses. I, too, scratch my head with wonder over why it all went so horribly wrong.
Brockovich case a crock
by Michael Duffy of ABC Radio National’s alternative point-of-view:COUNTERPOINT
This week’s Newspoint:
• Al Gore’s global porn doco Oscar win & his home’s increased energy consumption
• The Carbon Train ... those making money out of Global Warming
• AGWT: Anti Global Warming TechnologiesErin’s here to chat with Mrs Phatty Adams’ Coalition of Climate Change Crackpots; fellow ABCer Phatty won’t be amused ...
I see the Punsters have come out to play…
;^)
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 03 10 at 03:51 AM • permalinkThis is way way OT but have a look at this ‘Hillary Special” at Soldiers Dad. It’ll give you a slightly mischievous chortle for sure.
http://www.soldiersdad2.blogspot.com/
Posted by the nailgun on 2007 03 10 at 04:50 AM • permalinkIf only they’d shown it Sunday morning against the other religious programs, they might have won their timeslot. By contrast, the ABC had a rational greenie speaking here last week talking about why people should eat kangaroo and otherwise exploit native wildlife. Far more interesting than Channel Ten’s newage fire-and-brimstone sermons.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2007 03 10 at 05:50 AM • permalinkSo much to comment on, so little time before the apocalypse ...
1. TV programmers baffled? So what’s new there.
2. Tim Flannery, the Dalai Alarma of Australia, was a bad move for Ten. He is a media whore and a real turn-off for the average Australian. A clue for programmers - if the media adores someone, the public will hate them. Refer to notes on Dick Smith.
3. Inuit have centuries of first-hand experience with polar bears. Climate alarmists have weeks of book-learned experience. Which one knows the most?
Look at these pics and tell me that a glowball warmening inspired polar bear exodus isn’t happening ,why the poor mites are resorting to grand theft marine to escape the defrosting north.
Greenies are unlikeky to be happy with these guys who seem to be going for the
nuclear optionPosted by eeniemeenie on 2007 03 10 at 06:39 AM • permalinkthe massive global and local movement that is resisting our fossil fuel economy
WTF?
So Phatty is travelling to-and-fro from Gundy to ABC Sydney studios on a mule/solar car/wind sail car?
“‘Truthfully, we’re confused,’ says Ten’s network head of programming, Beverley McGarvey. ‘They didn’t come. It’s not like they came to the show, sampled it and went away. They didn’t come.
We had study guides in schools, we had the full support of the print media, both editorially and with advertising, and an extensive on-air campaign with a number of different creative treatments and different stances.
We spent a fortune to get the audience there and it didn’t work. We’ve talked about it quite a lot internally. We’re disappointed.’”
To paraphrase Bertold Brecht:
“The people
Had forfeited the confidence of the environmentalist movement
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.Would it not be easier
In that case for the environmentalists
To dissolve the people
And select another?”Posted by JJM Ballantyne on 2007 03 10 at 07:13 AM • permalinkViewing numbers peaked at 618,000, compared with more than 1.6 million each for Grey’s Anatomy and CSI on Seven and Nine respectively, and averaged just 464,000 people across the country.
In defense of Cool Aid, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI had some really interesting episodes. If not for that, those viewers would definitely have watched Cool Aid.
Definitely.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 03 10 at 07:27 AM • permalinkBy the way, I’m curious. Does prime time Aussie TV air a great deal of American TV shows? I figured it was all shows like Kelly the Kangaroo and Bumping Around Byron Bay.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 03 10 at 07:30 AM • permalinkwronwright - It’s actually Humping Around Byron Bay
Discussions on climate anomolies in the slums of Glasgow (Gorbal Warming) follow in the warm afterglow.
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2007 03 10 at 08:08 AM • permalinkSo, Channel 10, you’ve “talked about it quite a lot internally”. Since you do not employ anyone living west of Strathfield you were mostly consulting your staff who live in the Eastern suburbs or over the Bridge. These people don’t watch TV because it is so “common”. Basically, you talked to people whose job depended on watching your programmes and, of course, they will tell you whatever you want to hear. All of you know the phone prefixes in Sydney’s West, how come nobody ever calls me to find out what I think? Or for that matter, Melbourne’s West etc. Everywhere “West” on the East coast of Australia is where TV shows live or die. Hey, this could be the New West Side Story.
Furthermore, watched a segment of A Current Affair on Friday where they covered an experiment by University of Western Sydney replicating the conditions of the projected global warming to see how the eucalypts will respond to raised temperatures, higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and lower moisture. They are using technology originally tested in Sweden where it was found that increased CO2 made trees grow faster and bigger. Do we expect eucalypts to behave differently?
#69 Ash_ -
yes. Most of the shows aired in prime time here are American.
Well no wonder you Aussies can adopt an American accent much better than we Seppos can speak like Aussies. Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, that guy in LA Confidential besides Crowe—they all sounded like Americans.
For that matter, Hugh Laurie does a great American accent on House, even though he’s a Pom.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 03 10 at 11:00 AM • permalinkIn one sense we have to be scared, though. If they can’t get people to come voluntarily you know the next step (at least among a certain segment of the GW/green/socialist crowd) is to try to force people to come, for their own and the world’s good. It’s too important to let people make up their own minds, after all. They will try to get every TV station to play the damn show simultaneously or figure out some other coercive method of shoving their castor oil down your throat. After all, they know best what you need. And godammit they’re going to give it to you come hell or high water.
For that matter, Hugh Laurie does a great American accent on House, even though he’s a Pom.
He sounds more American than most Americans. Including me. Same for Jamie Bamber ("Apollo") on BSG.
Begs the question - if Aussies and Brits can do perfect American accents, then why do so many Canadian actors find it so difficult? They’re already 90% there. That blonde drink of water on Stargate has been doing the show for ten years, and she still can’t pronounce an “o” correctly.
why do so many Canadian actors find it so difficult? They’re already 90% there.
That is an interesting question, but to quote the great Joseph Mallozzi: “There’s not a lot of difference between Canadians and citizens of the USA.” Maybe they think of it as just another regional accent. And if you listen real hard to Laurie and Bamber, you’ll hear them stumble and betray their roots now and then.
Also, I could have done without the “polar bear” man-boob pictures, Tim, thank you very much. Put me right off breakfast.
PG&E simply made the monetary decision that giving up a third of a billion which it could then (unlike Dow) simply pass on to utility rate payers, made more sense than leaving things up to the whims of an arbitrator trained not in science or medicine but in law.
I’m one of those rate payers to whom PG&E “passed on"** the Brockovich windfall. Much as I’d like to blame her, I fault the juries (and the arbitrators) who think “these poor suffering victims” deserve compensation just because they’re “poor suffering victims” and go looking for deep pockets regardless of responsibility or negligence. And I blame Congress and the state legislatures for not placing more caps on punitive damage awards.
The Cool Air blockbuster bust shows how the public will respond to certain poll questions. If a PC answer seems called for, that’s the answer the pollster will get. Mr. John Q. Public (what’s his Aussie equivalent?) may say he’s interested in a 2 1⁄2 hour feast of practical advice on how [he] might save the planet, but only because he thinks it’s socially acceptable answer. In reality, he wouldn’t be caught dead wasting his precious leisure time in such a fashion.
**PG&E is good at “passing on” costs. When the State of California ordered the utility to apply an across the board 10% rate reduction, PG&E argued successfully that since it would have to finance the cut, it should be able to pass those borrowing costs on to the consumer. So my bills reflect the dutiful rate reduction and also my “share” of the finance costs which often turns out to be more than my 10% rebate. Don’t know how much more “help” from the State of California I can afford.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 03 10 at 02:16 PM • permalinkI strongly suspect that the average answer to any greenie-driven survey is, “yes, yes, I’ll say whatever you want, just STFU and go away!” Of course, it’s not put in those terms and the surveyors only hear what they want to anyway.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 03 10 at 05:22 PM • permalinkThat blonde drink of water on Stargate has been doing the show for ten years, and she still can’t pronounce an “o” correctly.
I dunno, Dave, maybe she’s not aware of it, although that is hard to believe after 10 years.
I grew up within 20 miles of the Canadian border, in the northwest corner of Washington State. I didn’t find out that I had a Canadian accent and used Canadian grammar until I attended college in the midwest.
I found out in a amusing fashion; one of the more vocal jokers on my dormitory floor asked me if I was deaf, as I kept on saying “eh” at the end of my sentences.
Until then I had no clue that I didn’t speak genuine American. I had me a rude awakening!
But I did have a decent response for the joker:
“What are you talking about, eh?”
Said joker failed to laugh. Heh!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 10 at 07:23 PM • permalinkPerhaps this wasn’t such a good article to support your argument on the issue of polar bears, Tim. From the same article:
Polar bear experts said that numbers had increased not because of climate change but due to the efforts of conservationists.
The battle to ban the hunting of Harp seal pups has meant the seal population has soared - boosting the bears’ food supply.
At the same time, fewer seal hunters are around to hunt bears.
“I don’t think there is any question polar bears are in danger from global warming,” said Andrew Derocher of the World Conservation Union, and a professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “People who deny that have a clear interest in hunting bears.”
Bear numbers on the west coast of Hudson’s Bay had shrunk by 22 per cent over the past decade, he said.
“To say that bear populations are growing in one area now is irrelevant.”
Regardless of what I think, that was a little cherry-picked don’t you think?
Polar bear experts said that numbers had increased not because of climate change but due to the efforts of conservationists.
sim, if you bother following much of the hype surrounding global warming, you’d see that climate change is being touted as the main threat to the polar bear, up to and including polar bears drowning for lack of ice. Which is a running gag here.
So when the article clearly states that climate change is not a threat to the polar bear, it’s hardly “cherry picking” when the topic is “climate change”.
The fact that there are other, real threats to the polar bear is not lost on us. It does seem to be lost on the climate change
hypocritessupporters.Maybe you should write them a letter, no?
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 11 at 04:17 AM • permalinkThanks for the reply TRJ.
I have been following much of the argument re: polar bears and the banter that happens around here about it. My point here is not for or against that argument, but to point out that this article is in direct contradiction to the point that Tim was trying to make, and that he picked a few nice sentences out of the article and out of their context.
A summary of the article could be:
- polar bears are increasing in number in this particular place
- this is due to conservation efforts
- the danger of global warming still existsSo when you say:
So when the article clearly states that climate change is not a threat to the polar bear, it’s hardly “cherry picking” when the topic is “climate change”.
I can’t agree with you because I can’t see where it clearly states that climate change is not a threat to the polar bear.
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Tim, I’ll send Mr O’b Vic.news dir. 10 an email to let him know to pass the message on.