Team Sky will target stage wins for the rest of the Tour de France as their Tour leader Bradley Wiggins recovers from a broken collarbone and prepares for a possible assault on the world championships at the end of the season, the team said.

Asked where Wiggins’s departure on Friday leaves him, Geraint Thomas said simply “off the front”, meaning that he will be looking for a chance to get in any escapes.

“It would be a shame to go under the radar, get our heads down for a few days,” said Thomas. “The days when there will be breakaways will go soon, it’s the next few days, so we have to turn it round right away and race hard. If Bradley was still here we would be doing a job for him, but now we have a chance to get up the road.”

When asked what he had told the team after Wiggins’s return to Britain, Sky’s team principal Dave Brailsford said: “I said to the guys this is an opportunity for them.”

“The likes of Geraint and Edvald Boasson Hagen were going to commit themselves totally to Brad, now they have an opportunity to ride with free will, with abandon, looking for stage victories. We need to see what development opportunities there are, what people can learn for their careers in the longer-term.”

Wiggins was flown out of a military airport near Châteauroux on a private flight to Manchester on Friday night. The flight left late, meaning that it was not possible to operate on his broken left collarbone, but the operation was expected to take place on Saturday.

The fracture is clean, and while a plate will remain in place for up to two years, most cyclists with similar injuries may resume training on a home trainer after five days, returning to the road after 10 days.

There is speculation that Wiggins may race the Tour of Spain in order to prepare for the world road time-trial championship in Denmark at the end of September. The Vuelta starts on 20 August and there is speculation that a possible comeback race for the triple Olympic gold medallist could be the Tour of Denmark from 3-7 August.

“I’d fully endorse [Sky' senior sports director] Sean Yates’s thoughts on Brad riding at least one grand tour this season,” said head coach Shane Sutton, who has been responsible for Wiggins’s preparation this season together with the former Australian swimming coach Tim Kerrison. Wiggins was expected to race the Tour of Britain from 11-18 September but would have to miss it if he opted for the Tour of Spain.

Sutton said that much of the team’s racing programme for the end of the season would have to be re-evaluated in the light of Wiggins’s withdrawal from the Tour.

“I would like him to consider the Vuelta, not just riding it but being competitive. We need to see how Brad feels about it. He’s well up for the world time-trial and off the back of what he has done this year, 10 days off the road isn’t going to be a lot.”

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.

This article titled “Team Sky riders to be let loose as Bradley Wiggins undergoes surgery” was written by William Fotheringham at Super-Besse Sancy, for The Guardian on Saturday 9th July 2011 10.10 UTC

Team Sky riders to be let loose as Bradley Wiggins undergoes surgery is a post from: worldwormweb

From:The Daily Telegraph

October 04, 2010 2:19PM

Passengers called police about 10.30am to report a man on a train from Newcastle had a gun.

Police from Kuring Gai Local Area Command cleared platforms 3 and 4 at Hornsby station before the train arrived, then entered the carriage.

A sawn-off .22 calibre shotgun was found under a seat. Passengers assisted police identifying the alleged owner of the weapon and he was arrested.

A 34-year-old Rosehill man was taken to Hornsby Police Station where he is assisting police with inquiries.

POLICE cleared several platforms at a Sydney train station this morning after a man was arrested with a sawn-off shotgun on a commuter train.

Shotgun seized from man on train is a post from: worldwormweb

The Christopher Pyne experiments

By Marieke Hardy

It seems there is nobody in the entire world who is loathed by Australia more than Christopher Pyne. (AAP: Alan Porritt, file photo)

I have had a great deal of time lately to think about Liberal MP Christopher Pyne. It was his appearance on last week’s Q and A that really cemented the process (“But… but… you didn’t cut Chris Bowen off mid-sentence,” he bleated to Tony Jones in his shrill little voice, causing a nation to, as one, silently pray for him to get attacked by a large and libidinous dog on his walk home), which led me to hold a few fact-finding conversations with various ‘demographics’ as I take my role as ABC opinion holder/commentator/taste-maker intensely seriously which you would probably be able to tell by my many searing political insights over the previous nine months.

Opinions on Christopher Pyne seem to vary, from “I despise his crinkly hair”* to “Seriously cannot watch Christopher Pyne. Parseltongue on television gives me the creeps”** to “When Chris Pyne says ‘Kumbaya’ I taste a little vomit in my mouth”***. It seems that nobody in the whole of Australia likes him. Which leads me to presume that perhaps there is nobody in the entire world who is loathed by Australia more than Christopher Pyne and that’s why I took it upon myself to conduct the following experiments.

1. Does Australia despise Kyle Sandilands more than Christopher Pyne?
It’s getting kind of tedious hating on Kyle Sandilands these days. I mean, when someone loudly announces to a table of dinner party companions: “You know who I just abhor? That fat-headed beard man from the radio,” it’s hardly bound to make waves socially. Every few months or so Kyle will say something about fat chicks or rape victims and everyone will fall over themselves trying to say how much they detest him, but it’s not necessarily interesting. You want to be controversial? Try telling a crowded bar that Hamish and Andy suck. Those two are like the untouchable twin Jesus brothers.

VERDICT: Australia hates Christopher Pyne more than we hate Kyle Sandilands.

2. Does Australia despise India more than Christopher Pyne?
Boo! Hiss! The brown people ruined our special sporting event and went to the toilet in our athlete’s sinks! Let’s lynch ‘em! And so forth.

My favourite thing about the Commonwealth Games crisis in India was yesterday reading the hugely dramatic sentence, “England’s hockey and lawn bowls teams were whisked off to five-star hotels where they will stay until next week,” in the Sun Herald. Five-star hotel for a lawn bowls team? Shouldn’t they all be in those Formula 1 buildings where you have to sit in a plastic chair in the shower?

Anyway, despite all the chaos and filth and occasional bout of shitting in sinks India seems to have redeemed itself with the industrial cleaning hoses and help from the New Zealand chef de mission Dave Currie who seems to be single-handedly in there himself with a bottle of Draino and a Brill-o-pad. Let’s all look forward to a jolly, incident-free Games shall we?

VERDICT: Australia hates Christopher Pyne more than we hate India.

3. Does Australia despise Brendan Fevola more than Christopher Pyne?
Fevola, the recently benched AFL player whose name is usually preceded with the words ‘Disgraced footballer’ ‘Deranged drunkard’ or ‘Complete twazzock who made such a stark raving idiot of himself at last year’s Brownlow Medal count even Brynne Gordon was embarrassed on his behalf’, lately made the front pages by allegedly showing his flaccid penis to ‘a mother of four’ which seems a misguided exercise as she’s clearly seen at least one in her life on a previous occasion. It’s difficult, though, to hate someone who is so thick they probably eat their own hair gel. He’s just like a misguided Labrador, isn’t he? The li’l penis-flashing scamp.

VERDICT: Australia hates Christopher Pyne more than we hate Brendan Fevola.

4. Does Australia despise Kanye West more than Christopher Pyne?
Look, the truth is I’m probably stretching things for the sake of my otherwise watertight and wholly structured journalistic argument here. Nobody hates anybody in the whole world more than they hate Kanye West. He is a legitimate douchebag. Christopher Pyne is a douchebag in many ways, but those ways are more suburban and fey than innate. I’m happy to be argued out of this when Christopher Pyne shoves Julie Bishop out of the way during a lengthy Question Time and trills in that aforementioned cadence “Listen Julie, Imma let you finish… but Rob Oakeshott’s decision speech was one of the greatest of all time” and everybody tries to collectively kick him in the nuts.

VERDICT: Australia hates Kanye West probably just as much as we hate Christopher Pyne.

And what can we draw from this? Firstly that Christopher Pyne should probably release a hit single soon or flash a mother if he’s going to survive another year in politics without people simply walking up to him on the street and swatting him with a dirty glove. Still, I’m yet to explore part two of this particular experiment which involves Lara Bingle, Matthew Newton, and the family of missing toddler Keisha Abrahams. So there’s hope for you yet Christopher Pyne! I say this with affection, mind.

* My father, who very rarely has an unkind word to say about anybody’s follicular challenges, be they comedic or otherwise. Interesting side note: Michael Kroger also has crinkly hair.

** My friend Benjamin Law. At first I thought he was calling Christopher Pyne ‘parsley tongue’ which I found very droll. “He does sound like he’s talking through a mouthful of parsley,” I chuckled to myself, “what a strange and clever analogy”. Then I googled the term and realised Ben was making a Harry Potter joke. Less left-of-centre, but equally as amusing.

*** Someone on Twitter who calls himself Abe Frellman and clearly suffered through CP’s appearance on Insiders yesterday morning. Send your fruit baskets of condolences to the appropriate address.

Marieke Hardy is a writer and regular panelist on the ABC’s First Tuesday Book Club.

First posted Mon Sep 27, 2010 3:28pm AEST at thedrum.com.au

The Christopher Pyne experiments REDUX is a post from: worldwormweb

Pedestrian death rise blamed on iPods (not the morons using them!) is a post from: worldwormweb

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ABC News Coverage of the Leaders Debate is a post from: worldwormweb

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Times loses nearly 90% of online readers is a post from: worldwormweb

Current Twitter status 15-06-2010 @ 14:18

Twitter down AGAIN is a post from: worldwormweb

When You Don’t Know Your Own Strengths
By David Ingram

SBS is busy kneecapping one of its most outstanding assets: its world-class subtitling section. David Ingram looks at the managerial bungling behind their move

On its own, the shedding of more than 10 jobs in SBS’s relatively small Subtitling Unit could simply be a sad necessity, a realistic remedy to straitened economic times. SBS has limited funds, is not immune to economic downturns and must adapt to changing demands for subtitling foreign programs.

SBS managing director Shaun Brown gave a Senate Estimates committee on Monday the reasons for what he called “surplus capacity” in Subtitling:

“Firstly, technology has changed and consequently there are more efficient ways of subtitling and there are further technology changes due in SBS. Secondly, we anticipate on SBS2 in particular an increased level of subtitling that comes with the program from overseas. The quality of those subtitles has improved markedly. … Thirdly, because we only carry subtitling in-house for certain languages, the match between those languages that we have capacity for and those language programs that we want to put to air is never going to be perfect.”

SBS currently employs approximately 35 full- and part-time subtitlers and about 15 casuals, already a significant reduction in numbers from its heyday of 60 staff. Subtitlers say they are the last refuge of multiculturalism within an essentially Anglo SBS TV.

Brown told the senators no languages or individuals had then been identified for the axe, although staff report that the previous Wednesday the unit’s manager had started to give individuals a “heads up” which left at least one subtitler in tears and three others in no doubt their jobs were gone, before the sessions were abruptly stopped. Brown and the Community and Public Sector Union’s National President Michael Tull will meet on Friday.

The truth is SBS doesn’t have enough money to do everything it wants. It never has had, though critics argue that its appetites have risen faster than its resources in recent years. Certainly its senior executives chew up a sizeable proportion of its $260-million budget. In 2008-09 (pdf), Brown and his six highest paid senior executives together received more than $2,175,000.

Brown’s explanation to Senate Estimates was hard to argue with, but it is his solutions which are causing alarm within and beyond the Subtitling Unit. They fear this signals the beginning of the end of subtitling within SBS and of all the benefits that go with having what was once unquestionably the best subtitling service in the world.

And many critics see this as yet another example of what one former managing director has called the “failed business model” of the Board under former chairman Carla Zampatti, which is ironic because that board was appointed almost wholly for its business credentials.

As a fashion designer Zampatti should have recognised the need to protect the brand and maintain consumer loyalty. Change is the lifeblood of the fashion industry, but the Zampatti label is admired as much for where it doesn’t go as for where it does. In trying to shift SBS into a space already overcrowded by the big three commercial television networks, she led SBS down a dead end.

And at a time when it was critical for SBS to remember the business it was in — multicultural broadcasting — the board and senior executive were stripped of almost all expertise. At one point, of nine directors only Zampatti herself and Aboriginal businessman Joseph Elu could claim significant non-Anglo backgrounds.

The senior executive headed in the same direction. Although expanded to nine under Brown, only one — the head of radio — was discernibly “ethnic”. On arrival from New Zealand, Brown could recite the values and value of multiculturalism but had little experience of its uniquely Australian manifestation. Many of his executives had less.

But ill-considered “mainstreaming” and a failure to understand the value of SBS’s multicultural brand weren’t the only aspect of the business model the Zampatti board got wrong. The ideology-driven move towards harder-edged commercialism — including ads within programs — not only alienated large, loyal sections of its audiences but it took the board and executive into areas of commerce where they were often ill-equipped.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this has been the board’s love of outsourcing, a fate some think is in store for SBS Subtitling.

Since 1994, SBS had used SBS Independent to fund local production partnerships, to the benefit of viewers, independent producers and the corporation’s bottom line. But under the Zampatti board, outsourcing became an ideological end in itself. Critics said it had become a vehicle for funnelling taxpayers’ dollars into the private sector. By 2006 SBS was out-sourcing most of its television production, excluding news and current affairs, when the board set out to outsource the entire multimillion dollar television playout system.

Deloittes, who do most of SBS’s business consultancy, ran the tender project, named STRAPS 2. Red Bee Media, a British-based former BBC company owned by the Macquarie group, emerged as the cheapest to provide a complete outsourced service. But it would cost approximately $50 million over 10 years, compared to only $27 million to do the work in-house.

Deloittes then provided three “model sensitivity scenarios”, varying some of the key assumptions which closed the gap between the in-house and outsource options, though not enough. Despite modellings which increased in-house costings and decreased the outsource fees by up to 50 per cent, the best scenario they could find still left the outsource option more expensive by $3 million.

However, the board’s Digital Sub-Committee “determined that an outsource option was preferred in principle” and on 6 March 2007 SBS announced it had chosen the outsourced solution by Red Bee. Nowhere did the media release mention the relative costs of the project.

A year later, on 23 February 2008, SBS quietly admitted the deal with Red Bee Media was off. It never publicly explained why.

Back to the present and the cuts to SBS Subtitling, again the outcome of a Deloittes review.

Red Bee Media owns Red Bee Media Australia, encompassing the former Australian Caption Centre and the country’s biggest supplier of captioning services. On 15 May 2010, the same week SBS was preparing subtitlers for redundancy, Red Bee announced (pdf) it was renewing its contract to provide closed-captioning to SBS. Ironically, while Red Bee Media was making capital from its specialist services, SBS was devaluing its own speciality.

And that’s a problem with outsourcing something unique; you can end up handing your expertise to someone else to accumulate and then sell back to you at price till eventually you have nothing left that makes you special.

In the case of SBS subtitling, this could mean outsourcing more work to a company such as Red Bee who, because they don’t currently have a similar language subtitling capacity in Australia, could either hire ex-SBS subtitlers at their cheaper rate or send jobs to their subtitling operations overseas.

As if this wasn’t alarming enough for SBS employees, talk has re-emerged of selling off SBS’s most lucrative asset — its $64-million Sydney headquarters — and moving into an office block. It may just be talk, but with so many functions now outsourced, its cavernous Artarmon studios vacant most days and digital technology allowing news bulletins to be presented from a studio no larger than a suburban lounge room, SBS could either try again to outsource program playout to an aggregator like Red Bee or even use the ABC/WIN TV multimillion dollar Media Hub facilities now being built at Ingleburn in Sydney’s west.

There is, of course, the question of studios in Sydney and Melbourne to produce SBS radio’s annual 15,000 hours of Australian programming, but radio has been rationalised and downsized over several years and has not been the main driver in SBS since the advent of SBS TV in 1980.

The SBS board has argued with some justification that without new money its options are limited. In the run-up to this month’s budget, Brown did the rounds lobbying for more money for multicultural programming. He repeated his pleas at the Senate Estimates hearing. So far those appeals have largely fallen on deaf ears in Canberra, though privately Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is said to be open to increasing SBS funding if he sees real evidence of a return to a more multicultural focus under the new chairman Joseph Skrzynski. Conroy appointed a second director of non-Anglo background last year and will announce another appointment next Friday. If that person has strong multicultural credentials it will assist Szrzynski and send a strong signal that the Zampatti era is over.

It’s also possible Conroy may order another review of SBS before the next triennial funding round in 2012 and he will certainly be watching closely what further progress the new SBS board makes in reining in Brown and his executives to focus on things SBS has traditionally done better than anyone else in the world. The surviving subtitlers will be hoping that includes them.

Source – http://newmatilda.com/2010/05/27/when-you-don039t-know-your-own-strengths

I am not, nor ever have been, employed by SBS.

Update
The Head of Subtitling, Winnie, has resigned and will be leaving at the end of July.

SBS on the slow road to oblivian is a post from: worldwormweb

More from jamesallenonf1.com

Ferrari and McLaren were left with egg on their faces after totally misjudging the weather conditions in qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Their four drivers will start from the back of the grid after their teams held them back at the start of a rain soaked first part of qualifying.

They presented an open goal to their title rivals Red Bull and Mercedes, who took full advantage.

Mark Webber was the only driver to gamble on intermediate tyres in the final session and took pole by a big margin, with team mate Vettel third. Nico Rosberg did a great job to take second, his first front row start and a full second ahead of his rain master team mate Schumacher who starts 8th.

The session was full of drama. The track was damp at the start of Q1, but there was more rainfall during the session. So it was important to be out on track at the right time.

While Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel got on with it early on, both Ferrari drivers, both McLarens and Mercedes stayed in the garage. Unfortunately for them the track was its fastest in the first 10 minutes and the rain began falling more heavily as those cars went out on track.

Button and Schumacher were the first of those cars on track and just managed to get in, but Button subsequently aquaplaned off the track having set 13th fastest time at that point, meanwhile Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa were forced to go for full wet tyres in an attempt to get into the game. They failed, Alonso having a lurid triple spin.

It was extraordinary that the leading teams should have misread the weather situation so badly, especially as the rain had been falling pretty consistently at that time of day all week.

“We got it wrong, we thought that first rainstorm was it, ” said Button. “I aquaplaned off and got stuck in the gravel. Very disappointing, strange session with both Ferraris and both McLarens off. I’m in front of three of my championship rivals, but behind others.”

The top teams’ misfortunes were good news for Virgin Racing and Lotus, who both got a car through to Q2. Kovalainen qualified 15th, with Glock 16th.

The second session challenged the drivers’ and teams’ tactical acumen. It started on a damp track but with rain forecast five minutes in. Most runners took a second set of intermediates, Red Bull went for full wets.

The Renault was handy in these conditions, with Kubica fastest in Q1 and second in Q2 as was Adrian Sutil in the Force India. Sebastian Vettel judged it perfectly and was fastest in Q2. The rain held off until two minutes before the end and the track was at its fastest in the few minutes before that. It was a question of being out there on the intermediate tyres with fuel in the car at the right moment.

Both Williams drivers made it through to the top ten shootout as did both Force India cars.

The decisive final part of qualifying was held in traditional Malaysian monsoon conditions. Robert Kubica cheekily drove around the queue of cars in the pitlane to get out on track first. But the session was stopped after three minutes before any of the cars had managed a lap.

At the restart, with seven minutes left on the clock, most drivers went for full wet tyres, Webber went for the intermediate. Initially it looked like the wrong choice, but on his second flying lap he took provisional pole and then found another 1.1 secs on his third lap.

Team principal Christian Horner confirmed that the decision to take the inters was Webber’s own.

Adrian Sutil qualified fourth and Nico Hulkenberg an impressive fifth.

MALAYSIAN GP QUALIFYING

1.	Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:51.886	1:48.210	1:49.327
2.	Rosberg	Mercedes	1:52.560	1:47.417	1:50.673
3.	Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	1:47.632	1:46.828	1:50.789
4.	Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:49.479	1:47.085	1:50.914
5.	Hulkenberg	Williams-Cosworth	1:49.664	1:47.346	1:51.001
6.	Kubica	Renault	1:46.283	1:46.951	1:51.051
7.	Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1:50.301	1:48.371	1:51.511
8.	Schumacher	Mercedes	1:52.239	1:48.400	1:51.717
9.	Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:48.467	1:47.792	1:51.767
10.	Liuzzi	Force India-Mercedes	1:49.922	1:48.238	1:52.254
11.	Petrov	Renault	1:47.952	1:48.760	-
12.	de la Rosa	Sauber-Ferrari	1:47.153	1:48.771	-
13.	Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:48.945	1:49.207	-
14.	Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:48.655	1:49.464	-
15.	Kovalainen	Lotus-Cosworth	1:52.875	1:52.270	-
16.	Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1:52.398	1:52.520	-
17.	Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:52.211	No Time	-
18.	Trulli	Lotus-Cosworth	1:52.884	-	-
19.	Alonso	Ferrari	1:53.044	-	-
20.	Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:53.050	-	-
21.	Massa	Ferrari	1:53.283	-	-
22.	Chandhok	HRT-Cosworth	1:56.299	-	-
23.	Senna	HRT-Cosworth	1:57.269	-	-
24.	di Grassi	Virgin-Cosworth	1:59.977	-	-

Webber on Pole as big names cock it up in the wet is a post from: worldwormweb

Best mobile Twitter client:

Winner – Twitterific
Honourable Mention – Tweetdeck

Best mobile phone:

Winner – Apple iPhone
Honourable Mention – Nexus One (This might have won had it been available here in Australia!!)

Best Office Suite:

Winner – Microsoft Office 2007
Honourable Mention 1  – Openoffice.org
Honourable Mention 2 – Google Docs (its just not quite there yet in my opinion)

Best Browser

Winner – Firefox 3.6
Honourable Mention – Safari

Best desktop twitter client

Winner – Tweetdeck
Honourable Mention – Seesmic for Windows

Best social media tool

Winner – Twitter
Honourable Mention – Facebook

Best Online news source

Winner – Google News
Honourable Mention – SMH.com.au

Best Technology news source

Winner – techcrunch.com
Honourable Mention – mashable.com

Best Radio Station

Winner – ABC 702 Sydney
Honourable Mention – triple j

Best Digital only radio station

Winner – ABC Grandstand
Honourable Mention – Radar

TV Channel of the Year – Free to air

Winner – ONE HD
Honourable Mention – SBS

TV Channel of the Year – Pay TV

Winner –Eurosport
Honourable Mention – UKTV

Australian TV show of the Year

Winner – Packed to the Rafters
Honourable Mention – Offsiders

International TV Show of the year

Winner – Top Gear (UK)
Honourable Mention – QI

Best piece of Technology

Winner – Apple iPod Touch
Honourable Mention – Foxtel IQ2

Australian Sports-person of the year

Winner – Mark Webber
Honourable Mention – Casey Stoner

International Sports-person of the year

Winner – Jenson Button
Honourable Mention – Ryan Giggs

Sports team of the year

Winner – Brawn GP
Honourable Mention – Manchester United

Song of the year

Winner – Muse – United States of Eurasia
Honourable Mention – Lily Allen – Not Fair

Wormy Thing of the Year

Winner – Google Reader

I just can’t start my day with out a browse through my subscriptions on Google Reader.

The 1st Official World Worm Web Awards – The Wormy’s is a post from: worldwormweb

This would be good if they can pull it off. Even if we don’t get the World Cup, Sydney needs this.

[gmap]

ANZ Stadium to get roof for World Cup is a post from: worldwormweb

They list the following new and expanded offerings:
Showtime Greats will be dropped in favour of Showtime genre channels covering action, premiere, comedy and drama. With action and comedy appearing in High Definition.  The Movie Network will add Starpics, and the Family Movie Channel (FMC) with Starpics and Movie One going HD.

On the sports front Fox Sports 1 and 2 will be HD, no word on the previously mentioned Eurosport just yet.

Fox8 and W will also go HD, other new Standard Definition channels include Nation Geographic Wild, Lifestyle You, The Style Network, Discovery’s Turbo Max, Kids CC, 13th Street and Sky News Local.

Sci-Fi, Turbo Max and Lifestyle you will get time shifted along with 5 other as yet un-named channels.

The article goes on to claim that Sport and Movies are the focus, however with only the addition of Fox Sports 2 to HD I can’t see how they claim that. Movies and Lifestyle would appear to be the main focus to me.

The channels mentioned in the article only account for 29, though some are just HD versions of current channels, new channels. This leaves 1 yet to be revealed channel. What will it be? Could it be Eurosport?

November seems a reasonable time frame for the launch of the new channels as the new satellite was only launched last Saturday, 22nd August.

Of course Foxtel have refused to comment according to the article , but as the article was published by 25% owner of Foxtel, News Limited, it is either true or a really good smokescreen. The fact it tallies with a survey sent out by Foxtel in late June, it would be a safe bet most if not all of these channels will appear.

You can read the full article here.

News Limited confirm Foxtel plans is a post from: worldwormweb

Chris Ahearn says :“I don’t believe you could or should charge others for simply linking to your content. Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged.”

Whilst I can’t disagree that advertising in newspapers does prop it up, The Daily Telegraph in Sydney is mostly ads with very little “journalism”, what they do call news is mostly trash and pandering to the uneducated masses. And the Sydney Morning Herald tries to pass itself off as a more high-brow news source, it too is mostly ads and the same news as in the Daily Telegraph, only more difficult to read on one of Sydney’s unreliable and overcrowded trains or buses.

Both publishers, News Corp and Fairfax, are doing there best to make out that without charging for the news they provide they will go broke, at least we still have the ABC.

You can read the Fairfax view here: www.theage.com.au/national/stop-the-presses-20090808-edmh.html?page=-1

And the News Corp view here: www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25898155-7582,00.html

And the Fairfax view on News Corp’s plan here: www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/not-happy-rupert-readers-say-they-wont-pay-for-online-news-20090807-eco0.html

And for the full article from Reuters: blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/08/04/why-i-believe-in-the-link-economy/

And for what will hopefully continue to be a free online news service visit the ABC : www.abc.net.au/news/

Reuters says linking to news is good is a post from: worldwormweb

More at cyclingnews.com

[mappress]

Astarloza: Drug Cheat is a post from: worldwormweb

The Australian clocked one minute 32.230 to finish ahead of Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button.  Sebastian Vettel was fourth in the second Red Bull as the unpredictable weather made for a thrilling afternoon.  The improving McLaren of Lewis Hamilton will start fifth, equalling his best qualifying performance of the season.

Read More at BBC.co.uk

Webber secures maiden pole position in Germany is a post from: worldwormweb

Read the full story in  The Herald

Jerry Sienfeld Stars in Newcastle Bank Ad is a post from: worldwormweb

The spots ended with Budweiser expressing second thoughts: “You do the football; we’ll do the beer.”

Now an American cable broadcaster, ESPN, is poised to “do the football” in Britain. Last month, ESPN bought the rights to show live English Premier League matches, picking them up after the British arm of Setanta, an Irish pay-TV company, collapsed. So is it time for British soccer fans to prepare for “soccertainment” when the new season begins in mid-August?

Not to worry, said Russell Wolff, managing director of ESPN International.

“We have a deep football culture within our company,” he said. “We have football fans, professionals and aficionados. We’re going to build on that experience.”

With channels in more than a hundred countries, ESPN already shows a lot of soccer. But the new agreement is different, highlighting ESPN’s push to broaden itself from an American powerhouse into a force in international sports broadcasting.

Televising Premier League matches in Asia, as ESPN does in a venture with the News Corporation, is one thing; showing matches in Britain is quite another. Imagine, for example, if the BBC were to acquire the rights to Major League Baseball games in the United States.

“It’s a big step forward for our business,” Mr. Wolff said. “We are looking to make our channels ever more locally relevant and exciting for sports fans around the world.”

ESPN, which is majority-owned by the Walt Disney Company, is already available in more than 200 million households outside the United States, twice its potential American audience. But in many international markets, particularly in Europe, it attracts only small audiences.

ESPN has tried to break into the big leagues of European soccer before, bidding unsuccessfully for domestic rights to the German Bundesliga last year. ESPN also tried three years ago to acquire English Premier League rights, but lost out to Setanta.

Setanta got its opening because European regulators objected to a long-running exclusive relationship between the league and British Sky Broadcasting, which is controlled by News Corporation. Sky has retained a majority of the matches since then, but Setanta won the rights to broadcast 46 games a season, one-third of the total, from 2007 through the 2009-10 season. Those games will now be taken over by ESPN, along with 23 matches in each of the next three seasons.

ESPN declined to say how much it had paid, though reports in Britain put the price at about £240 million, or $392 million, for the four seasons.

Analysts say ESPN’s move to acquire the Premier League rights could set up a battle between ESPN and Sky when negotiations for the next round of domestic rights agreements take place in 2012. Backed by Disney, they say, ESPN might try to wrest a larger share of the rights away from Sky.

“I think this could change the sport broadcasting landscape,” said Simon Chadwick, professor of sports business strategy at Coventry University. “Up until now, it has been a bilateral landscape.”

For now, Sky and ESPN play down talk of conflict, adding that the companies have already reached an agreement to show the ESPN games via Sky’s satellite system. “We look forward to working with ESPN to bring their Premier League coverage to Sky customers,” said Robert Fraser, a Sky spokesman.

Mr. Wolff said that with just six weeks to go until the season begins, ESPN was focusing on getting broadcast crews and announcers in place, as well as securing rights to other events to round out ESPN’s programming in Britain.

ESPN already has two channels there, one of which shows reruns of classic sports events. The other has mostly imported sports like baseball, basketball, hockey and American football. It will probably be combined with the Premier League matches and other events on a new premium-price channel, analysts say.

Can ESPN succeed where Setanta failed? Backed by Disney and the Hearst Corporation, which owns 20 percent of ESPN, the company does not have to worry about paying the bills month to month, which Setanta was unable to do. Analysts say Setanta also overpaid for sports rights, while ESPN has a reputation for being more conservative in its spending.

But ESPN will have to make its mark quickly, analysts say, because it will have fewer games after the coming season.

“If they haven’t established the coverage with the Premier League next season, then they are going to have a lot of ground to cover,” said Tim Westcott, an analyst at Screen Digest, a research company in London.

As Mr. Wolff noted, ESPN has considerable experience with international sports. It used to own 33 percent of Eurosport, a pan-European channel controlled by the French broadcaster TF1, but sold that in 2002. It showed World Cup soccer matches in Brazil in 2006 and broadcasts top cricket events in India. It produces SportsCenter, a sports news show, in 14 versions for audiences around the world.

ESPN also owns Web sites with global appeal, like Cricinfo, which is about cricket; Scrum, which covers rugby; and Racing Live, about Formula 1 auto racing.

Still, few sports fans are as demanding, or as tribal in their passions, as followers of Premier League soccer. American involvement in the game has been a sore subject at clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool, where fans objected to takeovers by American owners.

In a reference to ESPN’s controlling owner, Disney, the tabloid The Daily Mail joked that the broadcaster might try to rename the F.A. Cup, a venerable English soccer tournament, the “Mickey Mouse Cup.”

With everything related to ESPN’s coverage of the Premier League, from camera angles to analyst comments, likely to be scrutinized for signs of a hidden agenda of Disneyfication, Mr. Chadwick had some advice for ESPN: “There is a strong sense of counterculture in English football. They can’t be too glitzy, they can’t be too showbiz, they can’t be too American.”

Fans in Britain Cringe as ESPN Takes Over Broadcasting Soccer is a post from: worldwormweb

The basic package could get 2 new channels, Sky News Local and Lifestyle You. Sky News local will present news focused for Australia’s key cities and Lifestyle You will be based around personal makeovers, healthy living, parenting and relationships.

The existing High Definition offering will be boosted with the addition of Fox Sports HD 2 & 3, Fox 8 HD, W HD, Movie One HD, Movie Extra HD, Showtime HD, Showcase HD, Showtime Action HD and Starpics HD.

As well as the addition of High Definition Movie channels more Standard Definition Movie channels are on the way. Showtime Action, Showtime Drama, Showtime Comedy & Family Movie Channel providing G and PG rated movies before 9.30pm each day. Also added to the movie packages is Starpics a channel based on Hollywood news bios and previews.

Entertainment channels to be added to the Foxtel platform include: Nat Geo Wild – Wildlife and Nature Documentaries, Discovery Turbo , Style Network and 13th Street – A channel dedicated to murder mysteries. Kids will get  new channel KidsCo, owned in part by NBC Universal.

Sports fans should be happy with Eurosport to go with the increased High Definition offering from Fox Sports.

Along with the new channels will be enhancements to the way Foxtel is delivered. The EPG will be overhauled allowing the picking of up to 50 favourite channels, mini screens will show what you are currently watching while you are searching the EPG.

Foxtel will also allow you to download shows over an internet connection to your computer for viewing on that computer.

Pricing is yet to be confirmed but no doubt it will increase in line with the increased offering.

New Foxtel Channels revealed is a post from: worldwormweb

It left the sports pay-TV company one step closer to administration.

The Premier League will now sell its 46 live games for next season to the highest bidder. A decision is expected next week.

The move comes after last-ditch efforts to bail out the Irish company failed.

American tycoon Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries found Setanta had an outstanding VAT bill of up to £50million.

Administrators Deloitte could now be called in within days.

Setanta issued a statement last night saying it will “consider its options this weekend”.

It added: “In the meantime, Setanta’s sports channels continue on air.”

The broadcaster had already missed a £3million payment to the Scottish Premier League.

Setanta has around 1.2 million subscribers but it needs a reported 1.9 million to break even. Customer numbers have been hit by the recession.

For more go to thesun.co.uk

Setanta on the cusp of death is a post from: worldwormweb

Prince Harry gets mobbed by the press… is a post from: worldwormweb

Arthur Ross Cradock, a 48-year-old orchard worker, admitted in the Nelson District Court yesterday to the charge of using a phone for a fictitious purpose, after calling police with the message, “I've been raped by a wombat”.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that on the afternoon of February 11 Cradock called the police communications centre, threatening to “smash the filth” if they arrived at his home that night.

When asked if he had an emergency, he replied “yes”, Mr Stringer said.

On a second subsequent call to the communications centre, Cradock told police he was being raped by a wombat at his Motueka address, and sought their immediate help.

He called police again soon after, and gave his full name, saying he wanted to withdraw the complaint.

“I'll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he's pulled out,” Cradock told the operator at the communications centre, who had no idea what he was talking about, Mr Stringer said.

“Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right you know, I didn't hurt my bum at all,” Cradock then told the operator.

Mr Stringer said alcohol had played a big part in Cradock's life. However, defence lawyer Michael Vesty said alcohol was not a problem that day.

Judge Richard Russell said he was not quite sure what motivated Cradock to make those statements to the police.

In sentencing, he warned Cradock not to do it again.

Source – SMH.com.au

NZ man sentenced after claiming to have been raped by a wombat is a post from: worldwormweb

Sales of rear-projection TVs had been declining recently as LCD TVs gain in popularity and get bigger, Sony spokesman Shinji Obana said.

In October, Sony lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs – which uses a projector to create images on large screens – to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous fiscal year.

By contrast, Sony expects to sell 10 million LCD TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year.

Sony sells 85 percent of its rear-projection TVs in the US, and about 10 percent in Europe, according to Obana. Production at the three plants that make the rear-projection TVs in Japan, Mexico and Malaysia, will be halted, Obana said.

The decision to abandon rear-projection TVs underlines Sony's strategy of focusing on LCDs and OLEDs at a time when competition is heating up in flat TVs.

In the fiscal half-year through September, Sony lost 60 billion yen ($US526.3 million) in its TV operations, partly because of losses tied to rear-projection TVs. Diving prices of LCD TVs also contributed to the red ink, Obana said.

The world's electronics makers are all working on LCD technology for TVs, as well as another technology called plasma display panels, or PDP.

Earlier this month, Sony began selling a small 11 inch TV that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called OLED. Sony's XEL-1 measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear, vivid images.

Earlier this week, Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes Panasonic brand products, Hitachi and Canon forged a tie-up in their liquid crystal display businesses – another sign of how Japanese electronics makers are being forced to work together to compete globally.

Sony has an alliance with South Korea's Samsung Electronics in LCDs.

Sharp Corp, another major Japanese LCD maker, formed a partnership with Toshiba Corp last week. Under the deal, Toshiba will buy LCD panels from Sharp for its TVs.

AP

Source – SMH

Sony abandons rear-projection TVs is a post from: worldwormweb

Bhutto Killed

“She has been martyred,” party official Rehman Malik said.

Ms Bhutto, 54, died in hospital in Rawalpindi. Ary-One Television said she had been shot in the head.

Police said a suicide bomber fired shots at Ms Bhutto as she was leaving the rally venue in a park before blowing himself up.

“The man first fired at Bhutto's vehicle. She ducked and then he blew himself up,” police officer Mohammad Shahid said.

Police said 16 people had been killed in the blast. Earlier, party officials said Ms Bhutto was safe.

A Reuters witness said he saw about eight bodies on a road.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said initial reports suggested it was a suicide bombing and more than 10 people had been killed.

A suicide bomber killed nearly 150 people in an attack on Ms Bhutto on October 18 as she paraded through the southern city of Karachi after returning home from eight years in self-imposed exile.

Earlier, gunmen opened fire on supporters of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, from an office of the party that supports President Pervez Musharraf, killing four Sharif supporters, police said.

Mr Sharif was several kilometres away from the shooting and was on his way to Rawalpindi after attending a rally.

Mr Sharif, who was overthrown by Mr Musharraf in a 1999 coup and allowed back into the country just last month after seven years in exile, blamed supporters of the pro-Musharraf party for the violence.

But a spokesman for the party denied that its workers were involved.

The shooting occurred near an office of the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League (Q).

“Somebody from inside the election office opened fire,” senior police official Shahid Nadeem Baloch said.

“But I can't say they were Q [pro-Musharraf party] people. It's an election office and lots of people sit there during election time.”

The United States has condemned the bombing attack in Pakistan that reportedly claimed the life of Ms Bhutto.

Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey could not confirm that Ms Bhutto had been killed in the bombing.

“We obviously condemn the attack that shows that there are people out there who are trying to disrupt the building of democracy in Pakistan,” he said.

- Reuters/AFP

Source – abc.net.au

Bhutto Killed in attack is a post from: worldwormweb

A 17-year-old P-plater was driving the Nissan Navara on Oxley Drive at Mt Colah at about 12.10am, when the vehicle crossed to the wrong side of the road, mounted a kerb and hit a tree.

There were six passengers in the ute, including two in the rear tray.

An 18-year-old male travelling in the front seat was taken to Westmead Hospital with lower back injuries.

An 18-year-old female in the rear seat sustained a fractured right shoulder and was taken to Royal North Shore Hospital.

Two 18-year-olds travelling in the rear tray were taken to hospital, one with lacerations and the other with neck pain.

They were later released.

A 19-year-old and another 18-year-old travelling in the rear seats were also assessed at hospital and released.

The driver was uninjured.

Source – SMH

P-plater with six passengers hits tree is a post from: worldwormweb