More Not On The TellyIt seems from
the Guardian that attendees at English Premiership matches are mostly middle-aged and middle class.
Well, I'm not because according to various stats, I'm more or less - gulp - old, and classless. Anyway I can't get to games and if I could I doubt that I could afford a season ticket. But no matter because a. I'm in Indonesia and b.
Charlton isn't in the Premiership. However, even if they were I wouldn't be able to watch
my team on the telly.
ESPN/Star gives us previews, prognostications and postmortems on the Premiership, but no matches, and it's incredibly tiresome listening to the waffle about the supposedly four clubs who will win everything.
For the two Addicks in Indonesia - yes, there is definitely one more, we have
Football Crazy whose presenters are a fat Malaysian DJ, a former Australian professional footballer, Singaporean Jamie Yeo with absolutely come hither charms, and Brit Andy Penders who I don't like but who, fortunately for us, supports Southampton who are in the Championship alongside Charlton. I say 'fortunately' because it does mean that we get to see a goal or two from Charlton each week.
Assuming we score.
I don't know what programmes Col in Thailand and other Addicks in south-east Asia get, although as ESPN/Star broadcast from Singapore I assume that Singaporeans get the lot. What I do know is that in Indonesia not only do we not get the Olympics
* but the few subscribers to the Malaysian satellite channel, Astro - who
I castigated last year - have now been deprived of their monopolistic right to broadcast Premiership matches live, presumably through quasi-legal government intervention. (I have yet to see this story in the mass media.)
Obviously, what I hope for, and presumably Col and other 'local' Addicks too, is for a TV channel, sorry -
any TV channel - to secure the broadcasting rights to the Championship, England's second tier. Why should football fans be deprived of the opportunity to watch some quality football action?
In a footnote last week,
I reported that there is next to no coverage of the Premiership in China either. The Premier League sold its broadcasting rights to a pay-TV station with only 30,000 subscribers, from where they hope to "build the brand".
Charlton has the captain of the Chinese national team,
Zheng Zhi, in the squad. It's possible that they can't afford his salary, but if China has virtually no Premiership matches on TV, then what better incentive is there for the so-called Championship to market its broadcasting rights?
This has been a party political polemic on behalf of Indonesian and Chinese football fans and my fellow Addicks everywhere.
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*The state-owned TVRI crowed that they'd bought the rights to the Olympics, which meant that Indonesians have since wondered why they haven'tbeen able to watch any action. That's because TVRI only bought seven hours-worth. The only other access to the world's greatest (computer generated) spectacle has been though South African TV, assuming you've got a super-duper satellite dish, or via a new pay-TV service, Aora TV, set up by a former Minister of Trade and the President Director of Astra, Indonesia's largest conglomerate, Rini M. Soemarno with her brother Ongki.(Info from What's New Jakarta newsletter which I have subscribed to - twice - but have yet to receive. I was forwarded the info.)
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