Sounding off

Darn Kazaa. Screw RIAA.
Can't a guy rip off some super rich record company which is earning super-supernormal profits? I mean, it is bad enough that they shut down napster, now they are flooding Kazaa with screwed-up versions of songs. And to those stupid idiotic Kazaa users that keep the screwed-up file, delete it now! You are misleading a whole bunch of fellow music-lovers which do not feel that CDs are worth spending on!
Man, what kind of world is this? I refuse to pay for something that I got for free before.
End sacrasm.
Despite that above tirade, I don't really see the need to download stuff nowadays. The songs being played on the radio and really lousy, most of them are hip hop songs which I don't appreciate. Well, I guess one man's meat is another man's poison, but the fact that most of such songs sound vaguely familiar has not escaped my notice.
Sighz. Local television is in a sad state, local shows are crap, too many crappy shows that really insult people's intelligience eg. Bachelor, lousy imitations of western gameshows, family dramas that become atypical after a while eg. Holland V, the drivel of television they call reality TV, and most of all the frequently repeated lousy movies they term "blockbusters" eg. Rambo pick a number. Shows like the practice are given late timeslots, while they allocate mind-numbings shows like 30 seconds of fame on prime time. And the worst thing is they do not have quality children's programming.
I am so disgusted with local TV that I only watch football on cable, maybe news, or TAR if I have the time. Mediacorp is really guilty of the monopoly problem, no desire to improve as mediaworks is really a very lousy competitor.
It can be argued that as Singapore is a very small country, television broadcasting can be seen as a natural monopoly as if there are anymore companies the EOS enjoyed will really be too little. But still, that is no excuse to give poor quality broadcasting.
But really it is quite futile. Mediacock is governed by market forces, so as long as the majority of the population enjoy shows such as survivor, bachelor, fear factor and what not, they will continue to show it.
Sighz. Let it be said that I am not an elitist and view such shows as degrading. I agree that such shows are entertainment, and they serve their purpose. It is just that I believe prime time can be used by showing other shows.
Below was the letter I sent to Mediaworks over their misguided decision to remove Beast Wars from their programming. In the end, I received no response, shows a lot of their willingness to listen to the viewers.
On hindsight now it is not the best way to approach the situation, but I just hecked care and gave it the best I got.

I refer to your decision to remove the show "Beast Wars" from your TV schedule.

I feel that it is extremely unfair of the station just to remove the show just like that. No doubt, "Beast Wars" is a cartoon, but does it mean that just because it is a cartoon, the station can take liberties with it as most likely the audience would be too young to understand why it has suddenly disappeared?

It is safe to say that "Beast Wars" is a critically-acclaimed show. It is the second ever show to use state of the art CGI technology to produce a cartoon. Backed up by an interesting plot and characters, it has won many awards. I am sure that is why your station bought the rights to it in the first place.

However, I believe it is because of low viewership and that is why you removed it. I beg to differ. What viewership can you expect at 10 a.m on a Sunday morning? Please be realistic. Anyway, I don't think your choice of its replacement is very good either.

I believe that the reason for its low viewership is because of the fact the station has not done enough to publicise it. There are many Transformers fans out there who do not know of the fact that "Beast Wars" were being shown. I know of 6-7 of them. Maybe with more publicity, viewership will increase. Do not forget that Trasnformers is officially the most successful toyline ever. Hasbro, the company that owns Transformers are famous for that. The firm that animated "Beast Wars", Mainframe, gained international recognition immediately after the show was shown.

The station only needs to air 11 more episodes and that's the end of it.

I know of people who love this show. We Singaporean Transformer fans feel short-changed by the fact that in 1998-99 MediaCorp did not show the second and third season of Beast Wars. We were naturally elated to know that MediaWorks decided to show it. However, we are all now shattered to know that it has been removed. Interestingly, the series ended in America in December 1998. We, Singapore, will end the series, if it were to continue as per normal, at December 2001. 3 years. Doesn’t the station care about a potentially strong group of viewers, or is it just interested in raking in the numbers?

Once again, I do not see the rationale, purpose and motive behind removing Beast Wars. Ask around. Anyone who watched Transformers as a kid will love to watch this series. There is something alluring about transforming robots. The Transformer line started in 1984 to present day. There is a Transformer convention held every year in America. I bet that the station doesn’t know that. The station cannot just mess with something many people in the world hold dear to them.

You may just dismiss me as a fanatic, and send me a "polite" reply giving a lot of excuses. But the station knows what it has done. It has broken the hearts of many Transformers lovers in Singapore.

I won't be the only one. There would be more of us, Transformer fans. It is not a lot to ask for. Just 5.5 hours of your precious broadcasting time.

Damm, why am I so kaobeh today? Must be PW....