Friday, May 25, 2007

ETV ends American Idol 2007 on a high

American Idol may not have much in terms of relating to Sri Lanka but it is undoubtedly the most popular reality show in Sri Lanka among the english speaking population. It should be said that it has a following among the Sinhalese and Tamil speaking people too. ETV has brought the last three seasons of American Idol to the television screen and this year it was a much better broadcast by ETV.

"Much better" since there were relatively fewer parts of the programme that were missing because last year there were episodes in which huge chunks of the programme vanishes. This does not mean in any way that the screening was perfect. ETV has a long way to go and hopely we see a better improvement next year. We seriously hope that ETV replaces American Idol with another reality show for the rest of the year such as "The Amazing Race" or something else like the band casting reality show that is to be produced by the American Idol producers.

We believe that American Idol fans in Sri Lanka would love to see the 2008 edition of American Idol on ETV from January 2008.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

More educational programmes needed

There seems to a lack of educational programmes on Sri Lankan television channels. Many channels view educational programmes as an unnecessary expense. The money spinner for television stations are cricket and entertainment programmes specially Hindi movies. Several years ago Rupavahini showed Discovery Channel programming but this was stopped after a few years. These programmes gave children much needed exposure to the latest trends in Science, Technology and other areas. A few years back ITN started showing National Geographic Channel programming but it is worth mentioning that there are better and higher quality programming on Nat Geo than what is selected by ITN for telecast.

The private channels seem to be avoiding the educational genre and strictly stick to entertainment and cricket. ETV commenced a programme called "Prehistoric Park" which is now drawing to a conclusion and we hope that they will at least continue to show other educational programmes too.

It is true than there are many educational channels on pay television but not many can afford pay television as yet. So we request television channels to give some special attention to the genre of educational programming and we hope that the national television station Rupavahini sets an example in this aspect.

We hope that selected high quality programming from channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet, Nat Geo, History Channel will be telecast in Sri Lanka over FTA. The challenge for all the television stations is who will claim the position of the 1st channel (Educational 1st) to successfully telecast these programmes.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Lost 3 premiere on Jun 7th

Sri Lankans will be able to catch the 3rd Season of Lost on AXN East Asia which will premiere on June 7th at 7:30pm and will be telecast every thursday at 7:30pm thereafter. On June 7th there will be a special recap show at 6:30pm and then at 7:30pm the two hour season premiere will commence.

Presently Art TV is telecasting Season 2 of Lost on FTA but many subscribers of pay television have already watched Season 2. Subscribers of Dialog TV and LBN who missed the series due to the shutdown last year were able to watch Season 2 when AXN telecasted a rerun of the series on a daily basis from March to April this year.

AXN East Asia is available on all pay television platforms in Sri Lanka.


Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Lost Season 3 to premiere on AXN East Asia

The third season of the hit television series Lost will be premiering on AXN East Asia sometime during the middle of this year. This information was provided to us by a blogger who had contacted AXN to find out information regarding Lost Season 3.

According to this information we believe that Lost 3 will either premiere in June or July 2007.

AXN East Asia is available on Comet Cable, LBN, Dialog TV and all Multivision operated cable television companies in Sri Lanka.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

MTV/MBC issues notice to public

"Please be informed that our channels are not available on any satellite cable or pay services. Sirasa TV, Shakthi TV, Channel One MTV are only available on Free to Air terrestrial TV via your regular TV antenna"

The above notice appeared on The Daily Mirror today 15th May 2007. At the moment the only pay services carrying the above channels were LBN and all Multivision operated cable television services. The only two wireless pay services Comet Cable and Dialog TV do not carry the above channels. According to comments received recently on the LBN Blog, the above channels have been taken off air on LBN.

MTV/MBC which as reported by us earlier does not believe that pay television will be successful in this country. It should be said that subscribers of these pay services are able to receive these local channels much clearer than they would if they used their regular television antenna's. Making these channels available on pay services will enable these channels to maintain their viewers and with this move it is guaranteed that Sirasa, Shakthi and Channel One will lose viewers from among the several thousands of subscribers of pay television services and Channel One MTV will stand to lose more due to bad reception in most parts of the island. It is yet to be seen whether Sirasa will be taken off air on Dialog GSM Mobile TV.

We hope that the management of MTV/MBC will change their attitude towards pay television services in this country and work together with them to provide their viewers with a more pleasurable viewing experience.

Prison Break to premiere on Art TV

International Hit Television series "Prison Break" will be premiering on Art TV. The official launch date has not been announced as yet but it is a likely replacement for Lost Season 2 or Survivor Palau which are drawing to a close. It may also be given a time slot on some other day. It is highly unlikely that Lost Season 3 will start as soon as Season 2 closes since Art TV have already shown two seasons continuously and it is likely that they will give it a break before commencing Season 3. Survivor Palau will be drawing to a close in a couple of weeks and it is likely that it may be replaced with the new season of "The Apprentice" since Art TV have been using the Fridays 9:30PM to 10:30PM slot for Reality shows.

However no official release from Art TV is available at this moment but it is better for Art TV to get Prison Break on air as soon as possible since they have this habit of advertising programmes for months without airing them.

We welcome the management of Art TV or anyone who can confirm the date on which "Prison Break" will be premiering to post a comment on this blog or email us with the relevant information. There is a rumor that "Prison Break" may make an appearance during the month of June.

At the moment "Prison Break" is being telecast on pay channel Star World which is available on Comet Cable and LBN pay television services.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Max TV losing viewer appeal

Max TV which had one of the longest test transmissions and rebroadcasted Ten sports for a majority of their airtime during test transmission including popular programmes such as WWE and other popular Ten Sports programmes has been losing viewers steadily over the past few months.

This loss comes amidst the reduction of Ten Sports programming and also the introduction of selected NDTV programming which is hardly watched. Recently the most popular Max TV programme WWE has been taken off air, which has also added to the decline.

Max TV which promised to deliver high quality programming including quality sports, educational and entertainment programmes has failed to deliver and in doing so has followed the path taken by almost all television stations in Sri Lanka.

We hope that the management will take steps to revive this station.

Channel One to showcase India - Bangladesh Series

Channel One MTV one of Sri Lanka's leading English Language television stations will be telecasting the cricket series between India and Bangladesh commencing today.

This is the second non Sri Lanka involving cricket series that is to be shown over this channel. It seems that Channel One is taking an interest to show sports content to their viewers. Just last month they telecasted the FA cup semi finals live (well at least one was "live" and the other was recorded). This month on the 19th they are expected to show the final also hopefully "live".

It would be great if Channel One MTV would expand into more sports content such as Formula 1 racing, Motor GP, tennis and other events which have a following but are not being catered to at the moment.

We also hope that Channel One expands the coverage of their transmissions so that more people will enjoy their programmes.


Thursday, May 03, 2007

Yes FM completes "The Caribbean Morning Show"

Yes FM which embarked on an ambitious concept "The Caribbean Morning Show" where the morning show hosts Shaq and Mark would host the show live from the Caribbean for a period of one week has proved to be a disappointment for many of their avid listeners.

The hosting of the show from the Caribbean turned out to be through a mere telephone connection and the music was controlled by a DJ based in colombo.

Many listeners were hoping that the two DJ's would churn out their music straight from the caribbean via a satellite link and the listeners would be able to hear them as if they were right here in Sri Lanka. However this was not to be so since a telephone connection would not be enough to carry out many of what the listeners were expecting.

This Caribbean week was just over hyped and failed to live up to its expectations.

It should be noted though that the live satellite link would have proved to be very expensive and they would have had to hire or move DJ equipment to the caribbean which would have added to the cost. We take this opportunity to commend them for trying to make this a success and we hope that lessons learned from this will enable them to do a better job when trying to undertake something of this magnitude in the future.

This morning show is arguably the most popular morning show in Sri Lanka and it would have been great if they had met the expectations of their listener base.

BBC Entertainment & CBeebies BBC launched

BBC has launched BBC Entertainment and CBeebies BBC from May 2nd 2007. BBC has made a mark in this region with "BBC World" a channel which focuses on news and current affairs has been in operation for a considerable amount of time.

This is the first non news themed channel launched by BBC in this region. CBeebies BBC is a dual language channel targeting children aged 6 and under. BBC Entertainment on the other hand is a fully entertainment oriented channel and promises to bring the best of british entertainment programmes to this region. Initially the two channels will be available for 12 hours a day meaning that CBeebies BBC will air from 6am to 6pm and BBC Entertainment will air from 6pm to 6am.

At the moment BBC Entertainment and CBeebies BBC is available on indian DTH pay television provider Tata SKY.

We hope that Sri Lankan pay television companies will introduce this channel for the benefit of local television viewers.

A1 relaunches as Nat Geo Adventure

A1 the adventure themed channel which was part of the National Geographic channel network has now been relaunched as "Nat Geo Adventure". This relaunch took place on May 1st 2007.

Nat Geo Adventure will follow the path of adventure programming that was set by A1 and will offer an array of new programmes.

Nat Geo Adventure is available in Sri Lanka on pay television platform Dialog TV.

Web Site : http://www.natgeoadventure-asia.tv/