I’m watching the 6:00 O’clock news right now. To me this is one of the cooler parts of the Internet. The picture is great direct from Australia on Nine Network Sydney.
If you didn’t know better you’d think everyone in Australia is Caucasian. I saw no Asians, no people of color. I know they’re there, but on TV they seem invisible. Think US TV in the early 60s.
I didn’t see the top of the broadcast. Hopefully that’s when the heavier stories ran. By the time I tuned in it had devolved into Kate Winslet’s marriage and a Tiger and Elin Woods’ sighting (lifted from TMZ).
Birdseye and Target were both represented in the commercials, of course with an Aussie accent (Tah-get). The rest of the commercials were definitely local, but for the products you’d expect on TV–beer, soda, insurance, paint. They were cleverly done with high production values.
I sat through the sports (except for the injured David Beckham I didn’t recognize one name or team mentioned) so I could see the weather.
OK–it’s Australia. Usually weather isn’t a major focus on the news especially on this (for them) late summer’s day. The presenter was Natalie Gruzlewski.
There’s a lot of Natalie on the Internet. In a nation of beautiful women she stands out! She is gorgeous and in the past has not been shy about appearing on camera doing travel pieces in a bathing suit… a small bathing suit.
Natalie was either reading or following along from a well scripted briefing. No turning and pointing to her maps. In fact she often stood directly in front of what she was referencing–even the extended forecast icons. She seemed disconnected from the content, but I’m looking at this from my own perspective and it’s likely Australians are used to and expect something totally different.
In the past in some dreamworld fantasy I thought it might be cool to arrange a swap where I filled in doing the weather somewhere else in the world while that person filled in for me. Selling my bosses on Natalie would be easier than selling Natalie’s bosses on me. Much easier.