Chump Channel Contempt
Harold Hark
14 July 2003

Last time I looked there were over 140 documentaries on Hitler in my video collection, mostly recorded from the SBS. Why do I have so many docos on Hitler? It's not like I'm all that interested in the madman. It's just that, back in the early 90s I recorded a series called Hitler: A Profile. Then Hitler's Henchmen came along. In between there were Hitler vs the Catholics, Hitler and Stalin, a series on Anne Frank and so on. Before I knew it, I was recording everything on the subject, almost against my will. There appears to be no end to docos on Adolph.

So it was with reluctant anticipation that I set aside two hours beginning on Sunday night at 8:30 for the chump channel presentation of Hitler: the Rise of Evil. Melbourne's Channel 7 was presenting the mini-series over two nights. My wife and I rushed through dinner, our daughter repaired to the furthest corner of the house to avoid the show, and promptly at 8:25 I was ready, with a trigger finger on the remote to pause the video during the interminable series of ad breaks we could loathingly look forward to. By so doing I would be able to reduce the scheduled 120 minutes to the actual content of the show, say 85 minutes.

At 8:33 the previous program, Deal or No Deal, was still grinding on. I looked at my wife. She looked at me. Neither of us ever watch the chumps, unless it's over pizza on Friday night, when we combine our munching for the first quarter of a delayed telecast footie match. When the pizza is gone, the chumps go too.

At 8:40, the git hosting Deal or No Deal, promised to be right back after the break. By this time I was expelling bits of furious saliva as I yelled insults at the dumb television.

At 8:46 I ran, not walked, to the office for the telephone book, found the number of Channel 7, waited a full minute before someone answered--I could swear the bloke said "Security here"--and proceeded to serve him an entrée of invective followed with a main of abuse topped with a dessert of death by epithets. Of course he hung up.

I returned to the lounge room to find the Optus clock atop the TV ticking over to 8:50 as the final two contestants discussed their situation with the featureless host.

So much for the great Robert Carlyle starring as the odious Adolph Hitler.

You would think that after all these years I would have been prepared for the routine contempt the chump channels have for their viewers. But no, I was sitting before the klutz klutcher as does every other chump in the land, believing they would show the scheduled program at the scheduled hour. At first I thought Channel 7 was being clever by feeding anti-chump channel viewers (who would have been tuning in because of this unusual departure from pap) a little of their regular Silent Majority programming, in this case yet another game show, in the hopes that the new viewer would return next week. But could they reasonably expect us to swallow 20 minutes of lateness?

I looked at my wife. She looked at me. I switched the fucking show off.

Our 12-year-old daughter--whose frontal lobe growth fits the demographic to which all commercial television is aimed--doesn't mind the nauseating regularity of programs starting late because the previous show had crammed too many ads into the half hour. She is too young to know that every minute she spends watching these channels is a cynical insult to her intelligence.

Well, it's never too late for us adults to learn. My wife and I vowed never to watch commercial television again (except for the throwaway half hour on Friday night), even were they to show the live execution of John Howard for crimes against humanity.

Instead of Robert as Adolph, we watched a recent Pay TV offering, "The Contender", a timely film on the warped minds of the American right wing. Of course it could have been about John Howard's party; they're all the same. Of these born-yesterday hominids, the film said: "They're not hypocrites or even ultimately evil, they simply have no idea."

Amen to all that.

Here follows two letters from The Age Green Guide, 17 July:

Channel Seven has once again disgraced itself by treating its viewers with contempt by starting the Hitler miniseries on Sunday extraordinarily late. This ploy was no doubt a poor attempt to get viewers to watch the last portion of their new game show. The same also regularly occurred with 24 and The Great Outdoors. I can't wait for the next ploy at tacky commercialism.
Rowan Dever

Channel Seven noted this week that one of its programs was going to be on at the "special time" of 7:30pm. I took it that this must mean it will really start at 7:30pm, the normal time. As we all know, Channel Seven is usually 30 minutes behind everyone else, illustrated by Sunday's episode of Hitler: the Rise of Evil, billed to start at 8:30pm (Channel Seven time) but really starting at 9pm (normal time). Before this engrossing story had finished, it summarised all of the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazis agains the Jews. While I was trying to read the information and take it in, Voiceover Man came on to shout at us in his usual over-the-top way about some upcoming trash on Channel Seven. So in keeping with the sombre moment. Well done, Channel Seven, you fudged-up again.
Michael Mortarotti

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