SBS isnt bad and ABC but as you say auntie mollies cat stuck up a tree is far more news worthy if it happened in australia than say some major event elsewhere ,mind you i think they did move the cat to second place when the tsunami hit a few years ago

OK, I'm prepared to accept that the Beeb's coverage has been excellent - for those who are paying for it.

But I don't have digital TV, and I am willing to bet that I'm not the only one.

Astonishing as it may sound, Australians are usually very in tune with global affairs. When I first came to Britain, I saw nothing in the British media which came as any surprise; I was already up to date with the latest events around the world.

I was also rather satisfied to discover that I knew more about certain parts of the UK than the people who actually lived there.

Here's the ABC "World News" page. Looks pretty good to me; I detect no glaring omissions.

It is a popular but unfounded myth that Australians (a) have no idea what's going on outside their country, (b) have no way of knowing, and (c) have no interest in knowing.

Americans, on the other hand...

LOL. Amen to THAT.

BBC1 had uninterrupted coverage from 11pm last night to 1pm this afternoon, then from 2pm-3.30pm - over 15hrs of coverage and reports. BBC2 has had 1.5hrs of highlights this evening. You don't need a digital TV or digibox (just £120 for a TV licence )

Aren't there 70-odd countries competing in the commonwealth games, all in Melbourne at the moment probably gagging to catch a glimpse of themselves on the telly? knickers to them apparently even if they did win gold. May as well call it the Australia games. Even the people I work with are saying they are sick to death of hearing 'Advance Australia Fair'

Right... and how many videotapes?

I don't tend to watch TV between 11pm & 1am (in fact, I don't know anyone who does) and during the day, I am out earning a crust.

Caught some highlights tonight, though; that medal tally is definitely looking good.

BBC2 had a really nice segment the other day, in which they praised the overall sportsmanship of the participating nations. Their prime example was the Scottish cyclying victory; the reporters commented that the stadium was rocked by Aussies cheering their congratulations to the Scottish winner.

It seems to have been a very friendly Games; I've watched several events in which winners and losers from different countries have embraced each other with laughs and smiles all round.

I have been completely underwhelmed by the Commonwealth Games and the coverage. I fully expected the whole ra, ra , ra thing for Team Aussie, but given that the Games are being held in a sports mad City in a supposedly sports mad country, the coverage has been mediocre. The tone was set by the opening ceremony, which if I had paid $500 to attend I would have been demanding a refund.

Pam loves netball and has been desperate to watch it, but there has hardly been any on. The most she has seen was 6 minutes (of course Australia were playing) before they cut to lawn bowls . My abiding memory of these Games will be swimming and lawn bowls, it is all I seem to have seen, and both bore me to tears. I tried watching the Rugby 7's, but they kept cocking up the advert breaks (oh for the BBC) so that they missed part of matches that only last for 14 minutes .

I am looking forward to two sporting events this year, the World Cup and the Ryder Cup. I just hope that a) SBS show every single match of the World Cup b) the Ryder Cup is on TV, given that Australia aren't involved.

Interestingly, Channel 9 only has a telecast going from 8am-5pm & then from 6.30pm-10pm = 12.5 hrs of coverage. Less advertisements - after all it is a commercial station. Not sure how many minutes of commercials they can squeeze in in an hour, but Im betting that we would probably get less than 11hrs of actual coverage/day (probably less!). And with the latest medal tally at 155 medals it's no wonder they havent got time to show anything else but the aussies .

Foxtel has 7 channels dedicated to the Games 24/7, with every sport (& no doubt every nation) covered.

But this is the host nation and surely there are heaps of overseas visitors/atheletes etc who have to watch Aussie TV to see any of the games- perhaps they would like to see how their/another country is doing.

Coverage was the same during the Olympics in Sydney- sorry I meant the World Swimming Championships- bloody awful!

[QUOTE=thribble]You say that, but a colleague of mine was there last night with an English woman. They cheered on Dean Macey, then hung around for ages for the medal presentation. Which didn't happen. They were just told, oh, we've run out of time, we'll do it tomorrow. Can you imagine that happening if the Aussie had won gold? I don't think so.

actually it did happen. last night John Stefferson ran a magnificent 400m & won gold for Aus. the medal presentation will be tonight, apparently because they ran out of time, which does seem a bit bizarre. i'm sure there were plenty of furious aussies about that.

Any of the games? Errrrr if they are overseas visitors & athletes here for the Commonwealth Games, dont you think they would be seeing it at the Games itself?

See my previous post, one word - Foxtel.

Strange, people seem to think that the Channel 9 coverage that you see on TV here is the only coverage that anyone in the world sees. Dont you think that each competing country (plus a few more not competing!) will have its own media here covering what *they* see as important to them? Add to that the plethora of other media covering the Games as well.

Good question

Do we get the Ryder cup on the TV in Oz?
Heres hoping that it is on FOX.....nothing like whooping the yanks once more whne they have all the superstars in their team.

I totally agree. The Aussie TV stations should devote the majority of their time to their own athletes. I would be surprised if they didn't.
It would still be nice (seeing as they are the host country) for them to show the outstanding efforts of athletes from other nations.
Oh hang on, the Australians would appear to have +60% of the medals.