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With the way that the free to air tv stations have been treating all the good programs like Stargate-SG1, 24, and others lately I am totally suprised that Australia is not first.

Stargate-SG1 is my all time favorite show at the momment, and yet we are a whole season behind. So this week Seven have decided to show the first 6 eps of season 8 within 8 days, and they have not shown any hint of playing Stargate Atlantis.

They move around the screening times, and we are starting to get into footy season, so there is no hope of it being in a regular time slot before 10:30 at night.

I hate the fta stations as anything desent gets rubbished and the creators of the shows don't really care that the licencees are just stuffing around with their creations.

Well ten is about to start show battle star galactica, and and I am only guesing that it will not be long before start stuffing around with it's airing times.

I don't know, but that's what I've heard also. I now see on www.athens2004.com that even by this metric, the USA is now equal second with us (Australia) behind China. We have twice as many gold medals though.

I still prefer Roy and H.G's tallies anyway :)

Hey, I'd be happy if the TV stations transmitted a real program guide in their digital streams - not just shitty "NOW / NEXT" data, or sometimes an even shittier separate "Program Guide" video channel.

Hell, I'd be happy enough if the NOW / NEXT info was accurate. Though the info from the ABC, at least here in Brisbane, is within a second or two - when it's working, that is...

Note for Americans : Australia, in the capital cities, has 5 FTA stations:

• the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) - government-owned, considered to be left-leaning regardless of whoever is in power, but probably more central than left. Programming consists of everything from mainly British shows to innovative local productions - which usually never achieve popularity until they are head-hunted / ripped off and mangled by one of the 3 commercial stations. Ad-less (well, internal ads only, between programs)
  
• SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) - known as "Sex Before Sleep" by people who think the word "knickers" is rude and funny. Nominally a "multicultural" station (in the best sense of the word), plays everything from PBS news and documentaries, through comedy (South Park, Daily Show, etc), anime, non-mainstream sport (soccer, Tour de France, etc), to "European" movies ;-) Semi-commercial - government sponsored, but with commercial advertising between programs.
  
• 7, 9, & 10 - the 3 commercial channels. One's tied up with AOL, another's tied up with Microsoft / MSN, and the other one has no money so runs "The Simpsons" on a mobius loop interspersed with "Big Brother", "Australian Idol", and even less-successful local reality TV. All run as many programs as they can fit in between the ads...
  

Thankfully, we don't really have a Fox, though Ch9 comes close - without the soaring eagle and giant phallic missile graphics...

Here in Sydney, you only need to watch Channel 7 to see your favorite spice pop up on the bottom of a cooking show!

They started in show advertising / OSD ads or whatever you call them during special commercial free events ( Logie Awards etc) so they could still make money.

It pisses me off because firstly on commercial networks, the ad's are on every few minutes in the middle of a show. And to top it off, we already have the highest ad's/show ratio with 40-50% of any timeslot being filled with ads.

- Sweet Jesus