Non-American members: Television?

webecedarian · 23 Sep 2012, 04:42 AM

I love that this is a fairly international forum - as a matter of fact, I don't even know where EMD is based, which would normally make me leery - since most of the forums I participate in are close to1% American. And I realized that there are a bunch of questions I've been curious about, with not many opportunities to ask, so I should try here, especially since the Lounge tends to be rather languid.

I've often wondering about television in different countries, and was very interested to hear the other day, that in Myanmar they had been watching the American television program "The West Wing" to learn about democracy. Which I thought was charming. (Especially because I loved that show.)

So I'm wondering...Do you have a lot of channels? Is it essentially free channels, or do most people get paid service for other channels? Do you import a lot of American television, and if so, which programs, and are they popular? Does your own television tend toward certain repeated subjects? (In the U.S., constant subjects for drama are police/crime subjects and medical/hospital plots.) Are there restrictions to advertising, either in content or how much time? (In the U.S., for instance, cigarette and liquor commercials are banned.) Are there certain products that dominate television commercials? (In the U.S., there is a heavy dominance of a few things, like cars and pharmaceutical products, but household products, like soap, have almost disappeared.) Is your television becoming progressively coarser, as ours is?

Myanmar Officials Watched 'The West Wing' To Learn Democracy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1899897.html

David · 23 Sep 2012, 08:54 AM

Did you mean to say "100 % American" webecedarian. I live in Canada and do not own a TV set. The service (American shows and all) is just not worth the money, IMHO

Tsunami · 23 Sep 2012, 07:01 PM

In Belgium the situation is complex.

First of all there is the state owned channel, which is run by the government and receives subsidies. Of course there are multiple such channels, because we have three official languages so for each language there is 1 or 2 state run channels. The reason why there are 2 for the two biggest language communities is because they tend to have different type of shows. For example the first one offers quiz shows, soaps, talk shows etc. The second one will show kids programs during the day and more artsy shows during the evenings (eg concerts, documentaries, etc). They also show sports live. Since the TV station is government owned they also broadcast the King's speaches, messages from the government, messages about missing persons, etc.

Then we have several commercial TV stations. They are not financed by the government so they have commercials in between the programs and sometimes a program is interrupted once or twice for a set of commercials. The programs are again soaps, sitcoms, talk shows, quizzes, sports, kids shows, ... This doesn't mean there are no commercials on the state run TV, but they are very low in numbers while on commercial TV the commercials are high in numbers.

The sports is a tricky thing, because each sport is run by its own federation; eg Belgian soccer federation, Belgian basketball federation etc. and some leagues are run by a pan-European federation. Each federation negotiates with TV channels who can bid on the rights to broadcast the games, so it can happen that the soccer games for example are on public TV one season and move to commercial TV next season, depending on contracts with the sports federation.

There are also local TV stations with only programs about a certain city or area of the country, there is a special sports channel, there is a special business related channel, a special music related channel...

Added to that certain channels depend on which TV provider you choose, or are on subscription basis only. The tough thing is that for example for me; a soccer fan; some games are available on the channel of my TV provider while some other games are broadcasted by another provide, as the clubs didn't all choose the same provider to make a contract with. So to see all games I'd need to swap provider but lose some other channels that only my provider offers. Luckily the commercial TV channel available to all also broadcasts summaries of all games but for live games the games you can watch depend on which TV provider you have. It was all a lot less complex in the past when there were no commercial and subscription based channels yet.

We have both US and UK shows as local programs. Programs such as South Park, The Simpsons, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, ... are examples of US made shows we have on our TV (with subtitles). From the UK we have shows such as Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, ... Then the Dutch speaking part of Belgium will offer some Dutch programs too, while the French speaking part may adopt some shows from the French TV. And then there are the own local Belgian TV shows. So it's a mix of local programs and international ones.

Of course we can also receive many foreign channels, such as BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, French and German TV channels, ... For sports there is Eurosport, which broadcasts all over Europe and available in a lot of languages.

Tsunami · 23 Sep 2012, 07:05 PM

PS: nowadays you usually get a total package including TV, internet broadband and telephone. So in many people's case in Belgium, their TV provider is also their ISP.

Hence the complex situation: the provider I have is better for internet, but the soccer games are mostly broadcasted on the other provider's own channel.

Foreign shows are available on all channels here, but on the French speaking side, it is a habit of dubbing the shows with French vocals. On the Dutch speaking side, subtitles are the norm.

FredOnline · 23 Sep 2012, 07:26 PM

As for television here in UK, I'm sure others will respond in depth.

Although I live in England, like "The Boss", I was "Born in the USA", so my viewing tastes are more US centric.

In more recent times, I've taken to downloading US TV shows immediately after broadcast.

It all started with "Lost" - so I could then also take part in US forums about the show - also finding the actors on US chat shows (Jimmy Kimmel for Lost, for example)

This show did subsequently did appear on UK terrestrial television - but not all the series, for some unexplainable reason.

The same with "The Walking Dead" - loved it so much I traveled to Georgia to visit the filming locations!

Again this series has appeared on UK television, but in obscure late-night slots.

I'm currently drooling over "Breaking Bad" - but for whatever reason, this has (to date) NEVER appeared on UK screens.

drew · 23 Sep 2012, 10:12 PM

I live in Sweden and like Belgium and UK? England?
We have a Public Service related to Swedish State
but they do say them are independent of State.

Not everybody agree with that. Many such stations.
Tv1 Tv2 Science Channel and Children TV and Sport.
Then we have the commercial stations that rely on
advertising but the time they are allowed to have such
are regulated. So the imported USA TV series often have
double time for commercials one see that they hint to
stay tuned and don't go away and then it restart instantly.

A commercial for USA that we did not have to look at.

State TV is free but you pay for owning a TV set even
if you never look at it and they have wanted that even
Mobile and Commputer should pay the TV license but
the resistance is big and they have now come up with
a compromise? To pay by taxes instead of volunteer
acknowledging that one have TV. Some pretend they
don't have to not pay the license so they chase these
and fine them heavily.

Apart from that a lot of TV you have to pay for.
BBC World and EuroSport and many many others
only shown if ypu pay. But if you subscribe to
Cable TV if your lucky to live in such apartment
then 10 TV stations are free and the other 100 or so
you need to pay for. different programs for different
providers. Each their own coctail for what is free
and what is not. Back in 1975 we had Canadian
TV to French speaking population free for a few years
and then they exchange that channel for EuroNews
and then they could not afford that one either and
we lost it. We had MTVEurope for free for some 20 years
and then they could not afford it and we have to pay for it.

If you have Sattelite then you have maybe 10 free and the rest
you have to pay for so you decide to only use those ten
and then add some fave or you subscribe to a package
with 30 or 100 or more Satellite Channels.

Over Arial you can see a few if you live near enough.
Maybe four is free for DvBT or what the name for Digital TV is.

They State TV try to have everykind of TV. News, Soap
Reality, Funny TV, Children, Science, Sport, Music and
They try to show quality Movies that are famous
and Brittish and Americans awarded series if they can afford
them. They used to have almost all Sport but now the Commercials
pay so much that the StateTV can not compete and have to
let the payed TV take care of the most attractive Sport.

But we did have Olympic Games from London 2012.

the commercials can not afford quality so they buy old
TV series from USA and a few Brittish and then a few
Australian programs like Border Control Australia or what
the name is. Drama when they take in forbidden food or
try to smuggle narcotics through the Custom Border control.

And a few Cops program and CSI and such often a season too late.
I tried to follow a SciFi TV serie BattleStartship Galactica and typically
they could not afford the two last shows in that series so I never
got to see how the series ended

And they sent it late late at night.
23.45PM or 01.15AM and with lots of commercial ads too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles..._miniseries%29
from 2003 and 2004 and we saw them one year or two too late.

From England they have a lot of Morse and Murder in Midsomer
Lyleys mysteries? and all the other quality series. They are rather okay.
And they show the Talent USA and XFactor and such Song shows.
Batchelor and Batchelorette and similar "Reality" shows.

We don't do as in Germany and Spain. We have subtitles in Swedish
and listen to the original voices instead of doing dubbing of them
in our Swedish. That is good for learning English one hear what them
say and read what the translator could manage to write down
and some words get explained that way. It is much more difficult
when one have no written text to follow as when I look at TED
and Yourtube things one barely get nothing due to them speak
too fast for the brain to catch up.

If I forgotten something then tell me.

PS a sad thing is that we have very few programs from our neighbors
Denmark and Norway. One have to pay or live close to some strong
station to see them at all. And they usually can not be seen on Internet
due to copyright reasons. Same with a lot of BBC due to copyright
they have no right to let us see them without paying for BBC.

Tsunami · 29 Sep 2012, 10:01 PM

Oh yes, silly me forgot about satellite TV, thanks Drew for reminding me of that. We of course have that in Belgium too but I wouldn't know the main differences in channels available since I have the regular TV with cable TV, ISP and such all integrated.

An oddity is that we cannot watch the German state owned Belgian channel, even when this is a government owned public channel! The population of Belgium is like 52 percent Dutch speaking, 47 percent French speaking and 1 percent other languages including German which is an official language in Belgium. Therefor the German speaking minority (about 80000 people living close to the border with Germany) have their own state-run TV station. But even when this is run by the government and while German is an official language in Belgium, we cannot see this channel in the Flemish side of the country and in Brussels (unless maybe by satellite but it's not in the cable TV offerings)

For a lot of sports I still go to the local pub who has cable TV or special subscriptions to UK channels like ESPN or Sky Sports. We don't have those on the list of available channels at home, so for live football in foreign leagues we rely on short summaries or, if we wish to see the full games, visiting a pub that has UK sports channels showing English, Scottish, Spanish and Italian football. Only one of the competing TV providers in Belgium shows English, Italian and Spanish soccer (and not an offering as wide as the channels you get in the pubs), for those who are not customers of those the pub is the alternative.

webecedarian · 26 Oct 2012, 11:34 AM

I was surprised to get such lengthy replies, so I had to wait until I had time to sit down with enough free time to give this attention.

David, yes, of cousre I meant to say "100% American." Sorry. Thanks for catching that. Do you not have any free television in Canada?

Tsunami, one thing I found particularly interesting in your case was the casual mention that you can receive Al Jazeera. I suppose somewhere in the U.S. that's possible, but it's certainly not offered in any standard cable television selection that I have ever seen. I was also interested that of the American shows, you mostly mention comedies. I wonder if other countries prefer our comedies to our dramas.

Fred, long ago, England had only two or three television stations - I assume that's changed by now? In the U.S., the Brrtish shows are regarded as better, or classier, or more intelligent. How do Brits regard American programs?

Drew, you really pay just to own a television set? Is it like a yearly tax, apart from the cost of buying the t.v.?

I notice that you all mention importing American television, but no one mentions importing Spanish or Italian or Russian programs.

I was recently thinking that an enormous amount of American television is now either crime-related, or realty shows that ar either focused on money grubbing or humliation. I dn't normally have paid cable television at home, but when I've been away, I keep flipping around the channels but find almost nothing I want to watch.

drew · 26 Oct 2012, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Drew, you really pay just to own a television set?
Is it like a yearly tax, apart from the cost of buying the t.v.?

When you buy a new TV set then there is a reminder
that you have to pay the license for owning a TV (and Radio)
But they have merged that into TV now.
So if you have no TV then most likely they don't care
that you have a radio.

They knock doors and show you a list and then you have to
either admit that you have a TV and they remind you to do
the payment or they fine you for refusing to pay. Very costly.

The license is suppose to make the "Public Service TV and Radio"
free from Party and Political dependence and also free from
Commercial considerations with ads and product placing

But during big sport events that get compromised due to
impossible to compete with big commercials that can pay
for Sport so they allow "Sponsors" money and they mention
them and show logotype for the Sponsor. And read from a list
of them. NPR in US seems to have something similar.

Many of us wish that either all of it should be advertize paid
so we can get rid of the license or that everybody should pay
over tax.

But the Lobby for being "Free" is too strong.

The extremely sad things is that we are not free from politics
only from "Party Politics" not free from the ideological bias
of the reporters and the Editorial consideration so it is very biased
in that it wants to educate us to ahve the right views on things.

Yes English crime stories like Murder in Midsomer or similar
do have better acting than CSI and similar from US.

I would say the commercial stations have almost exclusive
US and UK and Canadian and Australian material and mainly
crime and "Reality" shows or comic things.

No Italian or Russian or Spanish as I remember.
we had music programs from France a few times
and very intellectual Art programs from France.

No program from Arab or Middle East or India or China or Japan

oops maybe one crazy thing from Japan some humiliating show
Almost celebs that fall into water or get splashed with green slime?
The only thing being Japanese is the Speaker and the place but
all the others Swedes that fall into the water so the concept
where bought from Japan but the humiliated people where Swedes.

Ooops yes we have one such from France too. Surrounding France
and staff France but all the actors Swedes trying to score points
wrestling in mud or hanging in ropes above wild tigers trying
to find a key to Gold chambers something. Not my bag.

Tsunami · 26 Oct 2012, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webecedarian

Tsunami, one thing I found particularly interesting in your case was the casual mention that you can receive Al Jazeera. I suppose somewhere in the U.S. that's possible, but it's certainly not offered in any standard cable television selection that I have ever seen. I was also interested that of the American shows, you mostly mention comedies. I wonder if other countries prefer our comedies to our dramas.

Well; we had ER, we had The Sopranos, we had McLeod's Daughters (although I believe the latter is Australian) ... so we do show English language imported drama too. However, the number of comedies we import from the anglosaxon world is quite high indeed. Friends, Full House, Two Broke Girls, The Simpsons, South Park, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Keeping Up Appearances, Allo Allo, Fawlty Towers, Boy Meets World, ...

I think that those comedies mainly appeal to a younger audience to whom "americana" in general is appealing. A lot of teenagers still dream about America, going to the US, where everything is big and where all their favourite stars are from. I think this contributes to the appeal, as if those comedy shows give a sort of reflection of American youth, obviously a not very serious reflection but it somehow appeals to local youngsters here.

For adults, the vision of the American Dream is a lot different, to teenagers the US mainly reflects shopping malls, big big cities, lots of great music, films, ... Maybe this also contributes to the number of comedies we import. Similarly, local musicians are considered real stars only when they have achieved some success in the States. No matter how many records sold in Belgium itself, you're labeled a star once you also manage to reach the American market.

We do import foreign series from other countries, for example from our neighbours Holland and Germany (Der Schwarzwaldklinik comes into mind) but indeed the majority of imported programs on Belgian TV will be either American or British. Dito with films, we do have all types of films but the US made films outnumber the other foreign films we show.

As for Al Jazeera, I think this is more or less a global channel now that is on cable in many countries. Add to that that Belgium has a large immigrant population from Arab language countries, I even have a Moroccan channel on my TV showing programs in Arabic only.

Tsunami · 26 Oct 2012, 08:51 PM

How could I possibly have forgotten we have Baywatch as well, imported to Belgian TV. The Hoff, what a legend

robert@fm · 27 Oct 2012, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webecedarian

Fred, long ago, England had only two or three television stations - I assume that's changed by now?

I think the progression of UK channels is:

BBC One (originally "BBC Television"), 1936-39 and 1945-present; the world's oldest scheduled TV service

ITV1 (originally "ITV"), 1950s

BBC Two, also 1950s (may have been before ITV). In 1967, became the first UK channel to get colour (PAL encoding).

Channel 4, 1980s

Channel 5, 1997; the last of the analogue TV channels to be launched. The first commercial it showed was for Chanel No. 5.

Of course, we now have digital TV (the analogue transmitters were finally turned off in April this year) and the dozens of channels which go with that. BBC and ITV now have at least four channels each, as do Channel Four and Channel Five (which are apparently independent from ITV), and there are other companies s well.

Quote:

Drew, you really pay just to own a television set? Is it like a yearly tax, apart from the cost of buying the t.v.?

Drew is in Sweden, but the UK system is similar to what you describe; if you watch broadcast TV by any means (TV, TV tuner card/stick for your computer, VCR, DVD recorder...), you need to pay an annual licence fee which goes to fund the BBC. However, if your only use of a TV is as a closed-circuit monitor (e.g. for a DVD player with no recording capability,or a games console), you don't need a licence (this was established in a 1984 test case). On the other hand, if you use a VCR or a DVD recorder, you need a colour licence even if your actual TV is black-and-white, as the recorder is a colour device (this has caught out many people).

webecedarian · 19 Nov 2012, 05:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robert@fm

I think the progression of UK channels is:

BBC One (originally "BBC Television"), 1936-39 and 1945-present; the world's oldest scheduled TV service
ITV1 (originally "ITV"), 1950s
BBC Two, also 1950s (may have been before ITV). In 1967, became the first UK channel to get colour (PAL encoding).
Channel 4, 1980s
Channel 5, 1997; the last of the analogue TV channels to be launched. The first commercial it showed was for Chanel No. 5.

Of course, we now have digital TV (the analogue transmitters were finally turned off in April this year) and the dozens of channels which go with that. BBC and ITV now have at least four channels each, as do Channel Four and Channel Five (which are apparently independent from ITV), and there are other companies s well.

Drew is in Sweden, but the UK system is similar to what you describe; if you watch broadcast TV by any means (TV, TV tuner card/stick for your computer, VCR, DVD recorder...), you need to pay an annual licence fee which goes to fund the BBC. However, if your only use of a TV is as a closed-circuit monitor (e.g. for a DVD player with no recording capability,or a games console), you don't need a licence (this was established in a 1984 test case). On the other hand, if you use a VCR or a DVD recorder, you need a colour licence even if your actual TV is black-and-white, as the recorder is a colour device (this has caught out many people).

Right, I think I was in England in the 1980s and thought the paucity of channels was odd.

But, wow, paying a licensing fee amazes me. Drew's description of someone knocking at your door makes me think of fascist governments where they went around confiscating radios!

Adrian Bell · 19 Nov 2012, 05:44 AM

Here's the list of non-subscription based UK channels:-
http://www.freeview.co.uk/Channels
(a TV licence is still required though)

Here's what's on:
http://www.freeview.co.uk/TV-Guide

In my opinion once you get past Dave most of them are a load of rubbish (and Dave's not that good). BBC4 has some interesting programmes, but all of the channels tend to repeat things a lot now.

There are also subscription based services such as Virgin and Sky

FredOnline · 19 Nov 2012, 06:03 AM

Do you reckon the Angel of the North would make a good TV aerial?

23 Sep 2012, 04:42 AM	#1
webecedarian Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 483	Non-American members: Television? I love that this is a fairly international forum - as a matter of fact, I don't even know where EMD is based, which would normally make me leery - since most of the forums I participate in are close to1% American. And I realized that there are a bunch of questions I've been curious about, with not many opportunities to ask, so I should try here, especially since the Lounge tends to be rather languid. I've often wondering about television in different countries, and was very interested to hear the other day, that in Myanmar they had been watching the American television program "The West Wing" to learn about democracy. Which I thought was charming. (Especially because I loved that show.) So I'm wondering...Do you have a lot of channels? Is it essentially free channels, or do most people get paid service for other channels? Do you import a lot of American television, and if so, which programs, and are they popular? Does your own television tend toward certain repeated subjects? (In the U.S., constant subjects for drama are police/crime subjects and medical/hospital plots.) Are there restrictions to advertising, either in content or how much time? (In the U.S., for instance, cigarette and liquor commercials are banned.) Are there certain products that dominate television commercials? (In the U.S., there is a heavy dominance of a few things, like cars and pharmaceutical products, but household products, like soap, have almost disappeared.) Is your television becoming progressively coarser, as ours is? Myanmar Officials Watched 'The West Wing' To Learn Democracy http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1899897.html

19 Nov 2012, 05:44 AM	#14
Adrian Bell Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Darlington, UK Posts: 938	Here's the list of non-subscription based UK channels:- http://www.freeview.co.uk/Channels (a TV licence is still required though) Here's what's on: http://www.freeview.co.uk/TV-Guide In my opinion once you get past Dave most of them are a load of rubbish (and Dave's not that good). BBC4 has some interesting programmes, but all of the channels tend to repeat things a lot now. There are also subscription based services such as Virgin and Sky Last edited by Adrian Bell : 19 Nov 2012 at 05:51 AM.

23 Sep 2012, 08:54 AM	#2
David Ultimate Contributor Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Canada. Posts: 10,355	Did you mean to say "100 % American" webecedarian. I live in Canada and do not own a TV set. The service (American shows and all) is just not worth the money, IMHO

23 Sep 2012, 07:01 PM	#3
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	In Belgium the situation is complex. First of all there is the state owned channel, which is run by the government and receives subsidies. Of course there are multiple such channels, because we have three official languages so for each language there is 1 or 2 state run channels. The reason why there are 2 for the two biggest language communities is because they tend to have different type of shows. For example the first one offers quiz shows, soaps, talk shows etc. The second one will show kids programs during the day and more artsy shows during the evenings (eg concerts, documentaries, etc). They also show sports live. Since the TV station is government owned they also broadcast the King's speaches, messages from the government, messages about missing persons, etc. Then we have several commercial TV stations. They are not financed by the government so they have commercials in between the programs and sometimes a program is interrupted once or twice for a set of commercials. The programs are again soaps, sitcoms, talk shows, quizzes, sports, kids shows, ... This doesn't mean there are no commercials on the state run TV, but they are very low in numbers while on commercial TV the commercials are high in numbers. The sports is a tricky thing, because each sport is run by its own federation; eg Belgian soccer federation, Belgian basketball federation etc. and some leagues are run by a pan-European federation. Each federation negotiates with TV channels who can bid on the rights to broadcast the games, so it can happen that the soccer games for example are on public TV one season and move to commercial TV next season, depending on contracts with the sports federation. There are also local TV stations with only programs about a certain city or area of the country, there is a special sports channel, there is a special business related channel, a special music related channel... Added to that certain channels depend on which TV provider you choose, or are on subscription basis only. The tough thing is that for example for me; a soccer fan; some games are available on the channel of my TV provider while some other games are broadcasted by another provide, as the clubs didn't all choose the same provider to make a contract with. So to see all games I'd need to swap provider but lose some other channels that only my provider offers. Luckily the commercial TV channel available to all also broadcasts summaries of all games but for live games the games you can watch depend on which TV provider you have. It was all a lot less complex in the past when there were no commercial and subscription based channels yet. We have both US and UK shows as local programs. Programs such as South Park, The Simpsons, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, ... are examples of US made shows we have on our TV (with subtitles). From the UK we have shows such as Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, ... Then the Dutch speaking part of Belgium will offer some Dutch programs too, while the French speaking part may adopt some shows from the French TV. And then there are the own local Belgian TV shows. So it's a mix of local programs and international ones. Of course we can also receive many foreign channels, such as BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, French and German TV channels, ... For sports there is Eurosport, which broadcasts all over Europe and available in a lot of languages.

23 Sep 2012, 07:05 PM	#4
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	PS: nowadays you usually get a total package including TV, internet broadband and telephone. So in many people's case in Belgium, their TV provider is also their ISP. Hence the complex situation: the provider I have is better for internet, but the soccer games are mostly broadcasted on the other provider's own channel. Foreign shows are available on all channels here, but on the French speaking side, it is a habit of dubbing the shows with French vocals. On the Dutch speaking side, subtitles are the norm.

23 Sep 2012, 07:26 PM	#5
FredOnline The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 2,616	As for television here in UK, I'm sure others will respond in depth. Although I live in England, like "The Boss", I was "Born in the USA", so my viewing tastes are more US centric. In more recent times, I've taken to downloading US TV shows immediately after broadcast. It all started with "Lost" - so I could then also take part in US forums about the show - also finding the actors on US chat shows (Jimmy Kimmel for Lost, for example) This show did subsequently did appear on UK terrestrial television - but not all the series, for some unexplainable reason. The same with "The Walking Dead" - loved it so much I traveled to Georgia to visit the filming locations! Again this series has appeared on UK television, but in obscure late-night slots. I'm currently drooling over "Breaking Bad" - but for whatever reason, this has (to date) NEVER appeared on UK screens.

23 Sep 2012, 10:12 PM	#6
drew The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,626	I live in Sweden and like Belgium and UK? England? We have a Public Service related to Swedish State but they do say them are independent of State. Not everybody agree with that. Many such stations. Tv1 Tv2 Science Channel and Children TV and Sport. Then we have the commercial stations that rely on advertising but the time they are allowed to have such are regulated. So the imported USA TV series often have double time for commercials one see that they hint to stay tuned and don't go away and then it restart instantly. A commercial for USA that we did not have to look at. State TV is free but you pay for owning a TV set even if you never look at it and they have wanted that even Mobile and Commputer should pay the TV license but the resistance is big and they have now come up with a compromise? To pay by taxes instead of volunteer acknowledging that one have TV. Some pretend they don't have to not pay the license so they chase these and fine them heavily. Apart from that a lot of TV you have to pay for. BBC World and EuroSport and many many others only shown if ypu pay. But if you subscribe to Cable TV if your lucky to live in such apartment then 10 TV stations are free and the other 100 or so you need to pay for. different programs for different providers. Each their own coctail for what is free and what is not. Back in 1975 we had Canadian TV to French speaking population free for a few years and then they exchange that channel for EuroNews and then they could not afford that one either and we lost it. We had MTVEurope for free for some 20 years and then they could not afford it and we have to pay for it. If you have Sattelite then you have maybe 10 free and the rest you have to pay for so you decide to only use those ten and then add some fave or you subscribe to a package with 30 or 100 or more Satellite Channels. Over Arial you can see a few if you live near enough. Maybe four is free for DvBT or what the name for Digital TV is. They State TV try to have everykind of TV. News, Soap Reality, Funny TV, Children, Science, Sport, Music and They try to show quality Movies that are famous and Brittish and Americans awarded series if they can afford them. They used to have almost all Sport but now the Commercials pay so much that the StateTV can not compete and have to let the payed TV take care of the most attractive Sport. But we did have Olympic Games from London 2012. the commercials can not afford quality so they buy old TV series from USA and a few Brittish and then a few Australian programs like Border Control Australia or what the name is. Drama when they take in forbidden food or try to smuggle narcotics through the Custom Border control. And a few Cops program and CSI and such often a season too late. I tried to follow a SciFi TV serie BattleStartship Galactica and typically they could not afford the two last shows in that series so I never got to see how the series ended And they sent it late late at night. 23.45PM or 01.15AM and with lots of commercial ads too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles..._miniseries%29 from 2003 and 2004 and we saw them one year or two too late. From England they have a lot of Morse and Murder in Midsomer Lyleys mysteries? and all the other quality series. They are rather okay. And they show the Talent USA and XFactor and such Song shows. Batchelor and Batchelorette and similar "Reality" shows. We don't do as in Germany and Spain. We have subtitles in Swedish and listen to the original voices instead of doing dubbing of them in our Swedish. That is good for learning English one hear what them say and read what the translator could manage to write down and some words get explained that way. It is much more difficult when one have no written text to follow as when I look at TED and Yourtube things one barely get nothing due to them speak too fast for the brain to catch up. If I forgotten something then tell me. PS a sad thing is that we have very few programs from our neighbors Denmark and Norway. One have to pay or live close to some strong station to see them at all. And they usually can not be seen on Internet due to copyright reasons. Same with a lot of BBC due to copyright they have no right to let us see them without paying for BBC.

29 Sep 2012, 10:01 PM	#7
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	Oh yes, silly me forgot about satellite TV, thanks Drew for reminding me of that. We of course have that in Belgium too but I wouldn't know the main differences in channels available since I have the regular TV with cable TV, ISP and such all integrated. An oddity is that we cannot watch the German state owned Belgian channel, even when this is a government owned public channel! The population of Belgium is like 52 percent Dutch speaking, 47 percent French speaking and 1 percent other languages including German which is an official language in Belgium. Therefor the German speaking minority (about 80000 people living close to the border with Germany) have their own state-run TV station. But even when this is run by the government and while German is an official language in Belgium, we cannot see this channel in the Flemish side of the country and in Brussels (unless maybe by satellite but it's not in the cable TV offerings) For a lot of sports I still go to the local pub who has cable TV or special subscriptions to UK channels like ESPN or Sky Sports. We don't have those on the list of available channels at home, so for live football in foreign leagues we rely on short summaries or, if we wish to see the full games, visiting a pub that has UK sports channels showing English, Scottish, Spanish and Italian football. Only one of the competing TV providers in Belgium shows English, Italian and Spanish soccer (and not an offering as wide as the channels you get in the pubs), for those who are not customers of those the pub is the alternative.

26 Oct 2012, 11:34 AM	#8
webecedarian Essential Contributor Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: NYC Posts: 483	I was surprised to get such lengthy replies, so I had to wait until I had time to sit down with enough free time to give this attention. David, yes, of cousre I meant to say "100% American." Sorry. Thanks for catching that. Do you not have any free television in Canada? Tsunami, one thing I found particularly interesting in your case was the casual mention that you can receive Al Jazeera. I suppose somewhere in the U.S. that's possible, but it's certainly not offered in any standard cable television selection that I have ever seen. I was also interested that of the American shows, you mostly mention comedies. I wonder if other countries prefer our comedies to our dramas. Fred, long ago, England had only two or three television stations - I assume that's changed by now? In the U.S., the Brrtish shows are regarded as better, or classier, or more intelligent. How do Brits regard American programs? Drew, you really pay just to own a television set? Is it like a yearly tax, apart from the cost of buying the t.v.? I notice that you all mention importing American television, but no one mentions importing Spanish or Italian or Russian programs. I was recently thinking that an enormous amount of American television is now either crime-related, or realty shows that ar either focused on money grubbing or humliation. I dn't normally have paid cable television at home, but when I've been away, I keep flipping around the channels but find almost nothing I want to watch.

26 Oct 2012, 08:51 PM	#11
Tsunami The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: in between the bright lights and the far unlit unknown Posts: 2,341	How could I possibly have forgotten we have Baywatch as well, imported to Belgian TV. The Hoff, what a legend

19 Nov 2012, 06:03 AM	#15
FredOnline The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 2,616	Do you reckon the Angel of the North would make a good TV aerial?