Ten serious about online (at last)

Good to see Channel TEN has finally relaunched its official website: www.ten.com.au

TEN's younger audience has been patient with the limitations of the network's former site, rarely updated, and only supplying bland info with next to no interactivity. It was a peculiar oversight for the network with the youngest audience.

The new site has a slick look with lots on offer. Show info, guide, video downloads, forums, interviews and a good deal more are available. And it isn't likely to stop there. TEN has been basically the last commercial network to embrace the web, and the upside of this is that it isn't locked into old technological databases. Rather than draw fans into the home brand TEN is planning to capitalise on loyalty to program brands.

Hopefully there's still some fine tuning. It's a bit annoying having the same video replaying at you everytime you navigate through the homepage.

Certainly TEN isn't the only network to be slow off the mark. Nine has been lazy with its MSN affiliation. There have been some slight improvements recently, but I can't help feeling there are some sassy web producers who could zip the site up with a lot more on offer. Read more...

Seven wins first week

The Seven Network has won the first week of national ratings - just.

Seven scraped through with a 29% share to Nine's 28.9%. Ten had 20.6%.

Nine won in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide while Seven won Sydney and Perth.

It should be noted that normal programming doesn't really kick in until this week, when Ugly Betty, Dancing with the Stars, Grey's Anatomy, Australia's Got Talent, What About Brian?, 60 Minutes and the full CSI franchise rejoin the schedules. That's even worse news for Nine. Failing a big breaking news story that draws people to Nine, next week is as good as won for Seven too.

Last week saw the final cricket telecast and non-competitive scheduling from Seven movies in key Sunday and Tuesday slots.

But the win is a morale boost for Seven as it seeks to re-assert itself with the viewing audience.

Nine still has some serious firepower in its arsenal including and possibly Sea Patrol, Lost Tribes, Monarchy and possibly Primeval.

But what are they waiting for?

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First Review: Rosie's Family Cruise

This is one of the most uplifting documentaries you are likely to see all year.

In 2004 Rosie O'Donnell and partner Kelli hired a Norwegian cruise liner and invited gay familes for a 7 day Caribbean holiday. 1,500 people participated: mums, dads, kids, teenagers, grandparents and their straight supporters. Freed of a life as a minority these families burst with pride on a floating sanctuary. They are there in all shapes and sizes, colours and religions, but they share one thing in common: a new definition of the American family.

The whole documentary has a liberating holiday feel. There are marriage ceremonies, sessions on adoption and IVF, workshops where teenagers share their experiences of growing up with gay parents. There's nightly queer cabaret and broadway showstoppers (watchout for the boys doing the Dreamgirls number). You'll see gay men negotiating to become sperm donors for lesbian women.

They stop off in the Bahamas to religious protests (the sole ugly moment in the film), although some locals openly welcome them.

And by the end of course, nobody wants to return to the real world.

Captain Rosie requests your company on this truly remarkable Love Boat.

Screens Tues 27th Feb 10:00pm on SBS.
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