I originally was going to title this post “Now they are just trying to piss me off”.

Tonight, I turned on the TV to 9 HD, and was greeted with this watermark:

I have not doctored this image. This is what Channel 9 were showing on their HD TV station here in Australia, 10:38 PM EST.

As you can see, it is the usual watermark, but in two different locations. After a few minutes they finally made up their minds and went with this:

Back to normal. But actually I’m not so sure. Have they shifted the watermark just a little to the right? Well, let’s compare to a shot I took back in May:

Yes, it appears they have moved the watermark just a little to the right. I’m not sure if this transition took place tonight while I was watching TV live, or happened some time back.

Regardless, it still is not enough. Not even close.

I’ve written on numerous occasions about watermarks, and more recently about the ABC in particular.

Today I thought I’d revisit the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and look at their HD offering – ABC HD.

First, let’s compare the watermarks. This is ABC 1.

And this is ABC HD.

Yes, John Clarke is looking away from that disaster of a watermark in disgust.

Here are those watermarks close up:

What the hell is going on with the ABC? Is that a “HD” or an “I-D”? Why is the D cut off by the green bounding box? Why is the “1″ a different font from the “HD”? Why is there a huge vertical gap between the ABC logo and the text? Why is the colour of the ABC logo odd (grey?) in the HD watermark? Why is the watermark still not over towards the right edge of the widescreen image?

Why is there a watermark at all on a non-commercial station owned and paid for by the tax payers?!

The entire industry is run by old men with no idea about technology. They don’t get typography. They have no sense of style. And they’re letting the hacks digitally damage everything we watch.

And they wonder why people are turning away from Free-To-Air television.

As a boy back in the 70s, my Father once told me that the free-to-air TV stations in Australia were fined if a programme ran over its advertised time. This mechanism was there to stop them purposely starting a programme late in order to make you miss the advertised time of another programme on another station (and thus not change stations).

To me, this fine seemed a good way to keep the stations honest, and as a boy TV stations tended to run their programmes to schedule.

Fast forward to today.

A week or so ago I was recording Channel 9′s “Scorched”. It was advertised as running from 8:30pm to 10:30pm on a Sunday night. At 10:40pm that night Channel 10 were showing an episode of “Dexter”. I set my PVR accordingly.

At 10:40pm, Scorched was still running. It stopped at 10:45pm – 15 minutes late.

Fortunately Dexter started 10 minutes late, so it worked out in the end. But only because both stations abused their schedules, and I came in and checked on it and ensured it didn’t switch stations until Scorched finished (yes, I need another tuner).

Was there any reason why both stations delayed their broadcasts? Was there a big news story that day? Not that I could see.

The next day I discussed this with some friends. One of them noted that his PVR only allows him to set a buffer of 10 minutes on a TV show. So basically he missed the last 5 minutes of Scorched. I haven’t watched Scorched yet, so I can’t tell you if he missed anything – it was Australian drama after all, so chances are high he didn’t.

So, what has happened to keeping the stations honest? I can only see three possibilities here:

• My father was wrong about the fines, and the TV stations were just more honest 30 years ago.
• They no longer fine the TV stations.
• The fine is still at a 70s monetary value, so abusing the schedule ensures more money is made than is lost in paying the fine.

Whatever the reason, this isn’t good enough. Anyone who watches Australian TV knows that programmes are always running overtime (the exceptions being the government broadcast stations ABC and SBS). I have my PVR set with a buffer of 30 minutes each way (!) and even that has missed shows on occasion.

Who is to blame for this. Well, obviously the TV stations hold some of the blame, but they aren’t the only ones. It is the government body that oversees this industry that is at fault here. We see the abuse every day, and the government does nothing – abused schedules, advertising popups all over programmes, massive watermarks obscuring vision, disrespect for programmes, disrespect in general.

Enough is enough. Anyone up for creating a new political party “The TV Party” with a platform on clearing up the Free-to-Air networks, revoking licences, and stopping the madness?

Channel Ten has a new “dating” show that started this week – Taken Out. Here’s a one line summary: this show should be Taken Out…and shot!. What horrible, superficial human beings. What a stupid, uninspired game show.

Australian TV just sucks.