The Age - again

You can bet that the Melbourne broad sheet daily The Age never misses an opportunity to denigrate the monarchy. This time they mocked the fact, that 787,000 people watched the documentary "The Queen's Castle" on a commercial channel:

20/8/2007 - HE USED to be Australia's media watchdog, but Professor David Flint isn't much of a tastemaster. The national convener of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy emailed supporters urging them to tune into Channel Eddie's The Queen's Castle last week. But while 1.61 million tuned into Channel Seven's Border Security and Ten's Australian Idol drew a national audience of 1.44 million, just 787,000 Lizzie-lovers watched Nine. Even SBS topped that with Top Gear. And more good news for whoever runs the network, with a Flint suggestion to broadcast Trooping the Colour. "After all," he writes, "German audiences had more than one opportunity to see this, and they live in a republic." Flint pointed out that royal programs rate "very well" and "are probably not expensive to acquire" before giving the Sydney station's phone number. You can watch the The Queen's Castle tonight. Or … not.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/vincent-van-somebody/2007/08/19/1187462085298.html

My comment to the paper:

I take from you today's comment that you have doubts about David Flint's remarks about the huge success broadcasting "Trooping the Colour" has in Germany.

Since 1977 ARD, the German equivalent of the ABC, has been broadcasting live the parade in honour of Her Majesty with great success . Do you think they'd do that if nobody was interested? It is even repeated twice, once just before midnight and the following day on Phönix, der Ereigniskanal (The Event Channel).

If you know German, have a look yourself:

http://daserste.ndr.de/royalty/grossbritannien/2007/t_cid-4040644_.html

What a great pity we Australians have less opportunity to watch the Queen of Australia on TV than the citizens of the German republic.

Here's last year's announcement:

http://www1.ndr.de/unternehmen/presse/pressemitteilungen/ndrpr4766.html

But back to The Queen's Castle...only 787,000 viewers.....not bad for a repeat and for a programme available at most good DVD shops!

One wonders if you have ever watched either programme. The Queen's Castle is actually a very interesting documentary about how the royal house is run on a day to day basis. Pity then that the Australian edition is revoiced and cut down from the BBC original!