Question for those who do not live in the US

Chalet · July 17th, 2007, 03:25 PM

It seems that the US exports films, television shows, and music all over the world. Do you see tv shows on cable tv or on your regular stations? Is there a US channel in particular?

We really don't get as much worldwide movies as we used to, just the well known ones. I'd love to see more films but they aren't being exported.

Do you listen to music from countries all over the world?

I don't have cable tv anymore, but do you have stations that (for example) show Canadian, Australian, Italian and French tv shows?

I also wonder about the papparazi. Does the world care about Britney and all the Jessica's? Are they that famous? Are there extremely famous actors/celebrities in your country who can't walk down the street, but we don't see their photos that often?

Laurent · July 17th, 2007, 03:29 PM

American here, but I do notice that in the UK at least, Take That and Robbie Williams seem to be really famous. I hadn't the foggiest idea who they were until I came to GR. Still don't really, but I get that they're supposedly really famous in other countries.

DVS_one · July 17th, 2007, 03:54 PM

OH hell Hasselhoff is famous in Germany. WHY???

I wish I knew the answers to some of your questions Chalet.

Grimmlok · July 17th, 2007, 03:57 PM

Most celebrities who come to Canada are pretty much left alone for the most part.. they go shopping in Toronto's upscale yorkville area and nobody really bats an eye. It would be gauche and rude to do the whole celeb-chasing thing.

Apparently celebs like it up here cuz nobody bothers them too much.

A*O · July 17th, 2007, 04:46 PM

We have a real mix here in Oz. The terrestrial channels have mostly local content (soaps, gameshows, news, doccos, kiddie progs, etc) with a scattering of really popular US dramas like House, etc. We have an excellent free channel called SBS which broadcasts foreign news bulletins (Chinese, German, Indonesian, Spanish, etc) and quite a lot of sub-titled foreign doccos, dramas. We also have a World Movies cable channel which is self-explanatory.

The cable channels are much more US-oriented and broadcast all the usual suspects but we don't have exclusive US-only channels. There is a UK-only channel which is popular with poms and nostalgic expats!

The cult of celebrity is alive and well here with paps snapping anyone who's around. We have 4-5 weekly trash/gossip mags so they keep the paps in business but they don't seem to be as aggressive or intrusive as the US/UK paps. Generally speaking celebs are left alone to do their shopping, have a coffee, pick the kids up from school etc.

Voodoo Child · July 17th, 2007, 05:34 PM

^^What she said!

Novice · July 17th, 2007, 08:02 PM

When I had satellite TV I used to watch Arabic (in english) news, & German & French TV. We have a lot of different music, plus the American stuff. We have a lot of home-made tv shows, plus American stuff. There is a channel called Five US that runs American programs (the shield; CSI LV/NY/M; Vanished, etc).
We have Film Four which shows films, a number of them are made by or subsidised by Channel 4 (a tv station), but they made good independant films. We don't have as much money for our films, but we make some good ones.
We still get all the Banned/Titny/Blohan coverage in silly womens magazines, & the Beckhams.... but quite a mixture.

Chalet · July 17th, 2007, 10:51 PM

Thank you for all your answers!

Sometimes I like to look at the foreign rags like Paris Match, Hello and Tattler (UK). They mostly have their country's celebs mixed with US celebs. I know some of them but not all. They are really really famous in their own country but don't make it over to the US magazines. I love to look at all the royals and all that nonsense.

I wouldn't mind having satellite tv. I love to see a country's own news channels.

Chilly Willy · July 18th, 2007, 02:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DVS_one

OH hell Hasselhoff is famous in Germany. WHY???

That's a vicious lie and everyone who repeats it will be sued for libel!

pacific breeze · July 18th, 2007, 02:18 AM

We are pretty much inundated with American TV in Canada. We get all the major networks, plus lots of cable and satellite stuff. We have our own channels -- although a lot of the content is American, unfortunately. Only the news is all Canadian, especially on the CBC, the national broadcasting network, but the style is becoming more and more entertainment-oriented and less content rich in the American style.

I watch/listen to the CBC and the BBC quite a bit -- one of the things that bothers me when I'm in the States is how little foreign news there is, and how much of that news is slanted toward the U.S., or just plain doesn't get covered.

it's quite a bit more balanced here. The CBC and the BBC, both radio and TV, do a pretty good job of that. Of course, budgets have been slashed big time here in Canada, but CBC is considerably better than NPR even with the cuts.

Canada also has virtually every American magazine dumped on our market, not to mention films and music. There have been quite a few attempts over the years to controi it somewhat, like the French have done, but the American business lobbyists have crushed these initiatives, along with weakass Cdn politicians. It's shocking to think that Canadians have to fight to have Canadian media content in their own country, but that's the way it is. Video stores here have a "Canadian" film section, something that always makes me shake my head in disbelief.

A lot of good filmmakers, musicians, actors etc. give up and go to the States. They have a better chance of telling Canadian stories there than here, as twisted as that sounds. Then they come back here and they are big stars instead of struggling nobodies who were ignored in their native land.

A*O · July 18th, 2007, 04:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pacific breeze

I watch/listen to the CBC and the BBC quite a bit -- one of the things that bothers me when I'm in the States is how little foreign news there is, and how much of that news is slanted toward the U.S., or just plain doesn't get covered.

Same in Oz. Very parochial news reporting, especially on the commercial channels. Or we get headlines like "1000s Dead In Massive Peru Earthquake - 2 Australians Slightly Injured". I watch SBS (see above) for world news coverage (in English!). We get the excerable BBC World news channel on cable but it's truly about the worst 'news' channel out there. I'd prefer to watch Fox News!

yanna · July 18th, 2007, 12:48 PM

I live in Greece so let's see whether I can answer some of your questions.

Quote:

It seems that the US exports films, television shows, and music all over the world. Do you see tv shows on cable tv or on your regular stations? Is there a US channel in particular?

I don't think that there is one US channel. We don't really get American news or anything like that. American TV shows and movies are everywhere but the shows are usually quite late compared to when they air in the US or some channels just buy one season of a show and play it over and over again.

Quote:

Do you listen to music from countries all over the world?

Yes,. definitely. I listen to an even mix of American, Canadian, European, Australian and of course Greek artitsts. I mostly listen to metal and I would say that I mostly listen to European bands from all over but I like many American bands and musicians as well.

Quote:

I don't have cable tv anymore, but do you have stations that (for example) show Canadian, Australian, Italian and French tv shows?

Yes, definitely. Italian not so much, I can't really think of any but I grew up watching Degrassi, Neighbours, Heartbreak High and some awful French thing called "Ellen", I believe.

Quote:

I also wonder about the papparazi. Does the world care about Britney and all the Jessica's? Are they that famous? Are there extremely famous actors/celebrities in your country who can't walk down the street, but we don't see their photos that often?

There are a lot of gossip news on TV and in the papers. Esp. about Paris Hilton, Britney and the rest. Greek paparazzi are pretty aggressive from what I've gathered. Celebs who come to Greece on vacations are usually hounded mercilessly. I don't know whether we have some internationally famous celeb who is huge here and virtually unknown in other countries. We do have some Greeks who are superstars here but I think they could still more or less walk down the street without being assaulted.

Chalet · July 19th, 2007, 12:45 AM

Thanks Yanna. So they care about Paris etc. Scary!

yanna · July 19th, 2007, 01:22 AM

^ Oh, they do care about Paris, esp. because she has been dating Greeks and all. Her arrest and all that made the news here. But then again it was on CNN international too, non stop... I was disgusted with all this, Paris should not be in the news.

sputnik · July 19th, 2007, 03:31 AM

french television is the worst on the planet. well, i might be exaggerating but it really sucks. american shows are late and dubbed into french - i think dubbing should be outlawed and people should just suck it up and read the subtitles.
anyhoo, since moving back to switzerland, i just download the shows i want to watch and only watch tv for news, french films and watching dvds. swiss tv is marginally better - there's an audio function that lets you watch shows in either original or dubbed versions but still, they are shown much later and also the choice is quite limited and they rarely pick shows i like.