Non-American members: Television?

[Tsunami]

Hmmm, maybe I confuse Irish with British or confuse subscription and non-subscription, but amongst British TV channels ESPN, Sky, Sky Sports and Setanta do need to be mentioned, no? Even in Irish pubs in Belgium, Holland, Germany, Spain and Turkey I have seen live football on TV on those channels, although I am unaware if they used satellite to receive these channels or if there exist special subscriptions for people or pubs abroad. I am not really that keen on Sky but their coverage of football, has to be said, is good. During nights with multiple games you can usually select the game you wish to see or switch from game to game, so basically every single game in the top division is broadcasted. I am unsure how you get those channels on TV and if it's even possible for regular households, but pubs for sure use those channels a lot. Even far from the UK, somehow Irish or English pubs in the other side of Europe show those channels to broadcast live sports games.

Of course many TV channels worldwide can be watched live over the web, even if it is a bit shaky in quality. Believe it or not but I swear this is true: I have watched North Korean state TV live several times. Someone in China picked up the signal and threw the whole thing online live stream, nobody bothered to remove it from the site anymore and so you can watch North Korean TV live now (that said, they only broadcast during daytime and early evening, and are off during night)

I have several times tried to get Israeli TV since I study Hebrew and figured it would be a good exercise to learn some words. But haven't found any live stream of that as yet, but for sure it will exist.

By the way, when I see the news broadcast on CNN, it seems there is live translation into sign language? That is amazing! I have studied as translator for the Deaf, hence my interest in this. In Belgium, we only had Teletext displaying the text on screen for a selected number of programs only. I was very pleasantly surprised to see live translation into sign language on CNN.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by Tsunami

I have several times tried to get Israeli TV since I study Hebrew and figured it would be a good exercise to learn some words. But haven't found any live stream of that as yet, but for sure it will exist..

Ever considered typing israeli tv streaming into Google?

[Adrian Bell]

ESPN, Sky, Sky Sports and Setanta are subscription. Pubs etc. have to pay more, they get a small beer glass in the corner of the picture to show that they've paid the fee.

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by Adrian Bell

ESPN, Sky, Sky Sports and Setanta are subscription. Pubs etc. have to pay more, they get a small beer glass in the corner of the picture to show that they've paid the fee.

I am surprised though that non-UK-based pubs can get the subscription as well as opposed to operate only in the UK itself. I have seen pubs as far as Istanbul that had Sky or ESPN on TV to show English football.

(PS what is the thing with English football being watched in all those other countries while those same pubs will rarely show Spanish or Italian football for example ... In almost every European city, English football is just a short walk to the pub away, while meanwhile other famous leagues are sometimes not shown at all)



With all those channels available across the globe (I have Moroccan TV, Al Jazeera, Italian and Spanish TV channels, CNN and one other US broadcast focusing on the news, ... and with internet streams you can easily find Russian, Chinese, Arabic, etc TV online now) I wonder if there is any place still cut off from international TV?

I mainly think about very remote sparsely populated places. I read a travel guide on the Pacific Islands the other week (a few have a decent population nr such as Guam, Fiji, New Caledonia etc, but some others such as Nauru, Niue, Pitcairn or Tokelau all have less than 10000 citizens -- in case of Pitcairn even less than 100 !) and I was wondering if there would be any TV channel catering those very remote islands with only a couple of hundreds people living there. In theory you'd say that an island as remote and sparsely populated as Nauru or Tuvalu would not have a TV station since the costs to set it up and the number of potential viewers would make it too expensive. On the other hand I also cannot imagine that those people, no matter how remote the islands, would be cut off from the rest of the world. There must be some way that even on the remotest islands people just watch TV , but I wonder if we should imagine a minimum number of channels or if they have all the big channels like BBC, CNN, etc?

Also, would really remote islands such as the Falklands, Niue, St Helena, etc have their own TV station with local news and announcements? Even on a remote atoll, there is a local social life and things that deserve media attention happen from time to time. So I wonder if they just have a few internationally available channels or if even those tiny islands would have their own TV stations?




@ janusz: I have tried to find Israeli streaming TV yes, I did find a few broadcasts but the quality was quite low. One exception was a sports orientated channel which indeed had a good quality both image and sound wise, and with Hebrew commentary.

[SusanUKF]

Personally I love a lot of UK programming, I really enjoy their dramas, comedies, documentaries, nature shows, and science fiction, such as Doctor Who.

Susan

[drew]

Susan, I love sci-fy too I followed the SG-1 and even the Stargate Atlantic
follow up and I looked at many versions of Star Trek and others
and Battlestar Galactica where one of my fave.

"Lost" where so different I don't see it as SciFi it is more
like a Buddhist drama trying to make Buddhism interesting?

But DrWho that one I totally fail to love. Maybe it is my Asperger
showing up. Or is DrWho seen as the very champion of Asperger Universe

Maybe that is why I did not like him? But the Telephone boot as camo
that where very funny and clever.

I saw a report from a Comic Conference a lot of SciFi Fans went to such
and they had a Match Making for free? That would be a cool thing to go to.

I could have a big sign Cylons wanted for friendship

[Tsunami]

Originally Posted by SusanUKF

Personally I love a lot of UK programming, I really enjoy their dramas, comedies, documentaries, nature shows, and science fiction, such as Doctor Who.

Susan

The UK is notorious around Europe and probably the world for their comedy which is quite different from comedy in other European countries. Many talk about the "British style of comedy" and would rank it at a higher level than comedy from other European countries. Hence, many UK comedy series are watched all across Europe.

The most famous examples would be Keeping Up Appearances, 'Allo 'Allo, Fawlty Towers, and a huge hype in the past decade: Little Britain (which is now being broadcasted again on Belgian TV by the way, and whose DVDs are sold in stores across Europe)

The odd thing is stand up comedians from the UK are not often shown on other EU countries' TV, while comedy sitcoms from the UK are very popular. Actually, the English language stand up comedian I'd think of first and foreall is American: Bill Hicks. Last week we had a documentary on TV on Bill Hicks' life and why his comedy was of so much impact ; that was a very rare exception that a foreign stand up comedian was shown on Belgian TV (exceptions being the Dutch ones since they speak the same language)

[blackbutterfly]

We get pretty much what you get with a few differences. Canada has regional stations. Like CHCH for Hamilton etc etc... here in York Region (where I live) we used to have A Channel but not anymore. We also have CPAC an all politics kind of thing.

Sam