[OT] Worldcup 2006 ?

[David Bandel]

On 6/11/06, Klaus-Peter Schrage <kpschrage at gmx.de> wrote:
> dallam schrieb:
> > On Sat, Jun 10, 2006 at 12:49:37PM -0500, Alma J Wetzker wrote:
> >> If I want to get news, I usually tune in the BBC or some such.  (It is
> >> good to have useful radio equipment.)
> >
> > The BBC is actually one of the things I won't miss *at all* when I move
> > back to the states. In MHO the BBC is worse than Microsoft.
> >
> > Not only do I find their presentation of the *News* very slanted and biased,
> > I object to having to pay ?115 a year for a TV license for a color tv
> > (black and white is about ?80 I believe) to finance the BBC. While other
> > television networks here are dependent upon advertisments for their income,
> > the BBC has a free ride due to the TV licensing tax. Don't want to pay the
> > tax? The BBC employ folks who come to your home and demand entrance to count the
> > televisions in your house. A court summons follows and you can be fined ?1000
> > (roughly $1800). Oh, as well as the confiscation of your offending television
> > sets.
>
> In my country (Germany) we have similar tv and radio licencing
> regulations: You have to pay about 250 $ per year and household. From
> these fees, three tv networks and most of the radio networks are
> financed. There programs are mostly free of advertisements.
> Apart from the "public" tv channels, there are several "private"
> networks running solely on advertisements.
> I am quite happy with the public networks (of course, others wouldn't
> agree with me). The private programs are mostly rather bad, and when
> it's sometimes claimed that German television is one of the best then
> this is solely due to the public networks.
>
> By the way, the Worldcup 2006 is nearly solely broadcast by the public
> networks (it's 24 h of soccer now on tv ...). They had to pay a huge
> amount for the license, something about 200 Million $.
>
> I personally don't care much about soccer, although I live quite near
> from two of the stadiums, and you can't evade it really now over here.
> Klaus

I don't care much for soccer (what some call football), I like
football (don't know what they call real football like Dallas Cowboys
play).  Never understood a bunch of grown men trying to kick each
others shins in.

As for the BBC, I think if they stressed quality it wouldn't be so
bad, but all their productions are horribly boring.  Watch "Narnia -
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" produced by Hollywood, and the
same thing produced by the BBC.

As for news bias, about the only source of (relatively) unbiased
reporting I've seen comes from the Christian Science Monitor.

Ciao,

David A. Bandel
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto