Easter – Let’s all remember Jesus’ sacrifice or, like, y’know, whatever

It's not all rants on this blog.

I love Easter, for example. It allows good Christian folk to revert back to their pagan roots, just like they secretly yearn to do. Jesus died on the cross at during Jewish Passover. Consequently, we must all eat chocolate eggs left in our garden by the Easter Bunny.

Excuse me? I think someone needs more practice operating their logic machine.

Ah, it's all good, though. Fact of the matter is, Christianity has always appeared to have a healthy relationship with paganism - and what could be wrong with that? A lot of Christian doctrine has a lot more in common with pagan ideas than with Judaism, from whence it supposedly sprang.

Your god dying and then coming back to life 3 days later (assuming for the moment that Sunday is three days after Friday)? Try out the (originally Persian, I think) god Mithras, the subject of a cult especially popular amongst Roman soldiers from around 300 BC, and who was being resurrected way before Jesus made it fashionable. Mithraism was spread out all over the Roman Empire – I can actually verify this having visited Mithras shrines myself in both Slovenia (in Ptuj) and on Hadrian’s Wall (Newcastle).

Yeah, I’m the man.

But getting back to paganism and made-up stories, how about the virgin birth? Unfortunately, already a well-worn pagan road - apparently Perseus, and, of course, Mithras again, were born of virgin mothers. Mithras also just happened to have been born on 25 December.

So why the rejection of Jewish doctrine, when Jesus himself was a devout Jew? That seems to be more a product of history – the four gospels found in the Bible were written just after the Romans had finally decided to rid themselves of their Jewish "problem" between 60 and 70 A.D., when they put down numerous insurrections and finally sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and burnt it to the ground (so, yes, when the evangelists wrote of Jesus predicting the fall of the temple, they were kind of writing with the benefit of what is known as hindsight). Anyhoo, the new Christian movement tried to distance itself as much as possible from the Jews of the time. Not to mention the fact that Paul was doing his best to convert gentiles left, right and centre, and was quite happy that they not undertake any Jewish ritual, so long as they accepted Paul’s version of Jesus’ message. Did I mention that Paul never met Jesus? No? How remiss of me.

Finally, once Emperor Constantine decided to make Christianity the new State religion in the fourth century A.D., and move its headquarters to Rome and appoint the heads of the church himself (“pontiff” is derived from the Latin “Pontifex Maximus”, who was the high priest of the Ancient Roman College of Pontiffs), Christianity was able to rid itself of its troublesome Jewish connection, re-establish its true pagan roots, and get into some serious anti-semitism for the next 2000 or so years. Glory be to the Highest!!!

Don’t worry about any of this, though.

Just eat your chocolate eggs. Not only do they boost the economy…they’re yummy!!!

PS As for Easter next year – just consult your local astrologer – the dates of Easter depend on the movements of the moon, just like any good Christian festival should.

PPS For the record, I'm a good ol' Irish Catholic with a passing interest in actual history.

Riley vs Channel 7 (Part the first)

It's been a while since my first, and only, post, so I guess I should fill this blog up with more, y'know, crap.

In that previous post, I alluded to previous correspondence I'd had with Channel 7 - unfortunately, this correspodence was not so amazingly successful as my Foxtel EPG one. Reading over it again, though, it's not so surprising that they failed to act on my reasonable, if vitriolic, suggestions.

Here 'tis:

Programming Department

Broadcast Centre

Channel Seven

160 Harbour Esplanade

DOCKLANDS VIC 3008

4 December 2003

Dear sir/madam

Attached is a letter I wrote back in September but which I eventually gave up on and didn’t send. I’ve been spurred on to send it as I see that it looks like Futurama has, yet again, been consigned to the dustbin while two-bit, nothing shows are variously given the very late timeslots previously occupied by Futurama. Please, if you do nothing else, just finish off the last season and let us move to other channels in peace.

Rilestar

Programming Department

Broadcast Centre

Channel Seven

160 Harbour Esplanade

DOCKLANDS VIC 3008

4 September 2003

Dear Sir/madam

I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a long time but lost the enthusiasm when my favourite shows – Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel – finished their seasons. The reasons I’ve decided to write are twofold:

• I saw in the Green Guide today that the sole remaining show that I really like on the Seven Network (Futurama) has yet again been shunted to who-knows-where with no thought of telling the viewers; and
• The Seven Network’s profit results and share price fall.

When I saw that, I thought that maybe I should have sent a letter earlier to help you guys out. Because I’m not sure if you see a connection, but I do.

The Age on 4 September reported David Leckie as saying that the Seven network would "fiercely target" the 25 to 54-year-old audience in the coming year and "would be able to add to programming" despite the clampdown on costs.

As I, a lowly viewer, see it, costs aren’t the problem – poor decision-making is the problem. Specifically, poor programming decisions and ill-treatment of lowly viewers such as myself. That said, I don’t know enough about the cost situation to make a proper judgment but I do know that simply sacking people without changing anything else will not a successful television station make.

And “fiercely target” the 25 to 54-year-old audience? Like it has been so far?

I’m a 30-year old lawyer, living in St Kilda. I think I represent part of that audience that David Leckie is coveting, so I’ll tell you something for free. We Generation X youngsters are a cynical lot but we know what we like and we also reward good service.

In relation to television programs, I like good stories and quality humour. I despise reality television with a passion. I’m not saying you need to get rid of it just for me but I’m just letting you know my tastes. (Having said that, I really enjoyed The Amazing Race, which was on before Futurama for a while (and the reason I ended up watching it), though that was more of a game show than reality television). On the Seven Network, my faves are Buffy, Angel and Futurama. On the Nine Network, the only show I watched was Micallef; now that that’s been axed I don’t think there’s anything that I watch on Nine. Channel 10 for a while had a lot of my favourite shows, like the Simpsons, Seinfeld and the X-Files but I tend not to watch those as much anymore. I also watch a lot of documentaries and quirky movies and things on the ABC and SBS and the Law and Orders on Channel 10.

But let’s get back to Channel 7. As you see, out of the few shows I follow these days, 3 are on your network. Yet I feel that you treat me and my fellow viewers with little respect. I refer here primarily to programming decisions.

As you would be aware, Buffy sadly finished a few weeks ago and there were a few cross-overs between Buffy and Angel. In order to line them up properly, Channel 7 ended up playing a few repeats of both shows in between. It was strange and something that I wouldn’t have ordinarily been concerned about (especially as I hadn’t seen some of them) except that all this was done with no communication by Channel 7 whatsoever. It would have been nice to get a message at the end of an episode of Buffy or Angel saying “For the next few weeks, we’ll be showing some episodes from Season 6 so that we can properly synchronise Buffy and Angel” or something similar. INSTEAD, we get Bec, f***ing, Cartwright saying “Don’t forget to buy my new album”! Every week!! Excuse me?!?! I’m not sure that she (or Channel 7) has done her market research properly, but I’m not sure that Buffy and Angel fans are necessarily the right demographic for her pop brilliance (I assume she’s a pop singer, by the way – I don’t know and now, especially now, I don’t care).

OK.

Sorry about that tirade but after a month of hearing her inane voice advertise her soon-to-be-forgotten record while I was waiting for some kind of explanation about what was happening with the final episodes of Buffy, I had some frustration to release.

So. Communication was not Channel 7’s strong point in that regard.

The same goes for when Angel was being moved around, back and forth between Wednesday and Thursday nights. A bit of communication would go a long way.

Which brings me to my other favourite show and seemingly the bane of my television-watching existence: Futurama. Whenever Angel was moved, it was Futurama that got kicked off. And then Angel moved back but Futurama was nowhere to be seen. I called up and was told that there was no room for it in the scheduling but that it would come back eventually. Right.

As it was, it came back, with no advertising whatsoever, at 11:30pm on Tuesday nights (I don’t know what was there before but obviously something important). At least, it reappeared briefly. It’s gone again next week and I don’t know if it’s a temporary absence or a move to a different timeslot or what.

Communication.

Anyway, I was going to give you some advice about how to fiercely target me and my market.

I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but Futurama is made by the same guy who made The Simpsons. The Simpsons is the most successful and longest running sitcom ever. Channel 10 has got a ton of mileage out of that show and continues to do so. It also plays it at prime time.

I realise that Futurama is a very different show to The Simpsons – I personally find it funnier than The Simpsons but I know a lot of people who don’t. I also know a lot of people who don’t know about Futurama because they’ve never seen it. I tell them that’s because Channel 7 doesn’t support it, doesn’t give it a proper chance to get an audience and, sometimes, doesn’t show it all…

Channel 10 has also been giving “Charmed”, a lousy Buffy knock-off, good airtime, advertising and timeslots, no doubt racking up a fair few viewers. You had the original and better show, yet put it on late, seemingly on whatever day took your fancy.

I’m not sure if anyone at Channel 7 has been keeping tabs on DVD sales, but the Futurama Season 1 boxed set (and then Season 2) was consistently in the Top 5 charts of DVDs being sold for much of 2003. The same can be seen on Foxtel – Futurama (and Buffy and Angel) are consistently plugged by Foxtel 8 and, I think, highly regarded. It may be a bit of cult show (and that’s not surprising, considering how difficult it is to watch it) but there is clearly a market for Futurama.

It’s all a bit late now, but here’s my posthumous advice and what you could have done and, possibly, what you could do in the future.

• Put these good shows, well targeted to the 24-35 year old audience, on at decent times. By decent I mean up to 9:30pm (although even 10:30pm is better than 11:30pm – or midnight like for the Lone Gunmen which has also disappeared);
• Find a timeslot and leave the show there. Give it time (and promote it properly) so that it can build up a core of regular viewers;
• If you are going to move it to a different timeslot – tell people; and
• Provide some means for viewers to communicate with you. I couldn’t find any way of getting this message to you on your website and I don’t think there are any ways of e-mailing comments or complaints, meaning I had to track down the address from whitepages.com.au (and I don’t even know if this letter will reach anyone). You may not like everything you hear if you do provide an e-mail address for comments (as opposed to a messageboard, which may be a bad idea) but at least you’ll be getting some feedback. It’s free market research! On the other hand, there’s no better way to show people you don’t care what they think than by making it difficult for them to contact you.

Simple ideas, yes?

Good luck next year.

Yours faithfully

Rilestar

A Viewer

I think we can all agree who won that little battle.


Channel 10.