Controversial US news programmes to be shown in Britain

http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,1207258,00.html

ITV are negotiating with CBS to show the segment of 60 Minutes in place of Tonight with Trevor McDonald at 20:00 today. Since showing the pictures CBS have insited that UK news programmes show a specific 40-second segment from the show, and that everything is credited toward them. CBS have insisted ITC show the programme in its entirity but ITV are only interested in this 13 minute report.

BBC News 24 are to show ABC's Nightline, with the names and pictures of all of the US servicemen who have died in Iraq since the war started. This will go out at 05:30 and 15:30 tomorrow. The programme has been seen as controvertial in the States and eight ABC affiliates are opting out on the grounds that it's "politically motivated".

Looks like ITV didn't manage to sort it out for Tonight.

Actually, it was seven ABC affiliates - all owned or operated by the Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcst Group. One of the stations in questiion, WTXL Tallahassee, Florida, is operated by Sinclair, not owned by that group; their owners have decided to go ahead and run tonight's Nightline .

One of the big questions about the Nightline broadcast is the timing of it; Memorial Day, considerd by most Americans to be the logical time to run this, is at the end of May. Conciedentally (or not so coincidentally if you're cynical about it), "rating sweeps period", one of three 4-week long periods (February and November being the others) used to determine advertising rates for networks and local stations across the nation. A side point to this (once again, if you're cynical about all of this) is that ABC's ratings have fallen off to historic lows; the network and their corporate parent, Disney, is not above stunts to improve said ratings.

You can imagine the amount of cynicism levelled here, even among those not politically inclined.

Nightline is now scheduled for 14:40 on BBC News 24.

1420 according to www.bbc.co.uk/whatson - but it hasn't started yet.

Which would make sense if it is a 40 min show? (Which presumably is much shorter than a UK 40 min show?)

I have to say, the BBC usually do very well on 'taste' grounds, far better than any other broadcaster... but putting a flourescent blue and orange ticker up halfway through the programme is a bit iffy.

Well it's quite a pleasant and tasteful show. At least they used the coffins instead of a head with a question mark

Mind you I have to agree about the ticker - if they had to put it on they could have at least used just the blue bit, or preferably a black one.

It was a typo. I'm not really with it today.

Did the original broadcast on ABC include breaks for advertsing?

ABC aired in its entirety san Adverts. Very tasteful. Its been revealed by CNN's Anderson Cooper during a special 30 min portion of his programme dedicated to this issue that Sinclair Broadcasting is a financial supporter of Bush and his reelection campaign.

And Sinclair owns and operates some of the crappiest television stations in America too.

couldnt agree more