Televise in Samoa

Last week, a new free to air TV channel went to air in Samoa. TV3 is a locally owned err.. free to air TV Channel. Here's some more info on that. But not much more.

Living in town, I get decent reception of all Free to air TV station. I even get some of the not free to air stations. However, I'm always out getting boozed, or at work or out getting boozed instead of watching TV so truthfully another station has had little impact in the daily maintenance of my life. Except perhaps, much to the annoyance of my family, it has intensified my morbid impulsive channel surfing habit. Click. Watch this? Nah. Click. Click. Ads. Click.

I did notice however that they have brought over popular shows The OC, Everybody Loves Raymond and One Tree Hill. Even if they are two seasons behind. They've also launched a few new local shows as well including "Teen 90", which has already taken a beating in the papers from trigger happy defenders of the virginity and purity for the common good. A few letters to the editor complained at the suggestive nature of the stripper dancing on the show tainting the innocence of our young. We're a predictable bunch aren't we.

I get the impression that TV3 are targeting a younger age group. And it's about time too because sometimes I think the programming on LauTV and SBC One is aimed at geriatrics. William and Mary? Hardtalk? Come on. I’m keen to see what other local programming they have coz truth be told the local programming on LauTV and SBC TV One is pretty... crap (to put it tactfully).

LauTV aside bring me my Hurricanes fix every week has deteriorated since it's flop launch at the start of the Super 14. By that I mean, I've seen that same episode of Scrubs at least five times. And the amount of TV I watch, that's pretty impressive. TV3 at this, it's inception seems a much more together outfit, but time will tell. SBC One I think has done well to withstand the competition by getting rights to screen many upcoming major sporting events overseas and revamping some of it's shows. Namely Star Search where they've replaced the old (literally) presenters with younger presenters. I cracked up on Sunday when the presenter (smoothly named Mr. T) introduced guest performer Richard Parker as Rijerd Bugger. Hehe. I love my gountry. Well, the coming months will be a telling time for all 3 stations and it will be interesting to see which companies survive the long (or even medium) haul.

So that is my rather mediocre intro/ review of Televise in Samoa. One things for sure though, no matter how shite the programming/ editing is on Samoan TV stations, there are still moments to smile about sitting in front of the box. On Sunday just gone, while watching TV3’s version of Idol – SamoaTel Showtime (where according to the judges every performance is “Great!”) with my younger cousins, a duet of two young girls came on to perform wearing completely uncoordinated outfits. One was in a plain purple too large puletasi and the other was in a brown floral frock. While I was thinking to myself about who could have convinced these poor children to strain not just people’s hearing but their eyesight as well, my twelve year old cousin piped up knowingly with a disgusted tone in her voice. “I bet their mom’s made them wear it”