Oprah House in Sydney as Winfrey comes to Australia

The article is The Daily Telegraph’s report about the US talkshow host Oprah Winfrey’s plan to bring her final season of her program to Australia later this year. The piece has a creative pun in the headline which grabs the reader’s attention, and it begins with a description of how many tickets are available and how they will be distributed, which is the first thing fans of her show here would be interested in.

The article then goes on to describe details of the announcement, as well as the possible Australian celebrities who will be featured. The Daily Telegraph has also obtained show plans that reveals Oprah’s travel plans for her Australin trip, as well as how the Opera House episode will be staged. The article concludes with a mention that Tourism Minister Jodi McKay is expected to make an announcement, as well as a retrospective look on Oprah’s last Australian-themed event to promote the film Australia.

The story content is effective in communicating all the details from Oprah’s announcement to the plans of her trip here. There is much quoting and paraphrasing instead of direct interviews to seek opinions, but the article has managed to cover a lot of ‘story ground’ regardless.

As an online story, it is effective to an extent. It is posted under the ‘Sydney Confidential’ gossip column, with a single main image. It would be better if there were more images posted in a looping slideshow. Under the ‘Video’ tab, there is a video report on the same story from an external news organization, but it’s understandable since the Daily Telegraph specializes in the print medium and not broadcast. Above the image is a ‘Recommend’ button for Facebook, which encourages people to share the story with others. There is also a ‘Retweet’ button that serves the same purpose on Twitter, a microblogging site. There is a ‘Related Coverage’ sidebar that is non-intrusive.

Strangely, there’s two hyperlinks, “Opinion from The Punch: A thank-you note from Tourism Australia” and “Join our Oprah Winfrey coming to Australia Facebook page” that are inserted in the middle of the main story. This is very distracting and breaks the ‘reader flow’. A better design would be to isolate it under the ‘Related Coverage’ sidebar, or at the end of the article as a follow-up.

At the bottom are the comments submitted by readers, with an unrestricted post entry box that offers to remember your details and send an email notification once the comment is published. There are relatively few ads, and the coordinated purple and blue colour scheme gives it a slick and clean aesthetic.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/oprah-house-in-sydney-as-winfrey-comes-to-australia/story-e6frewz0-1225921438029

Junior MasterChef out-rates the adult show on debut

This article is a report by The Daily Telegraph on the TV ratings success of the premiere of Junior MasterChef. The cooking reality show by Channel Ten beat its adult predecessors with 2.2 million viewers tuning in, compared to last year’s first season (1.43m), this year’s second season (1.74m) and Celebrity MasterChef (1.36m) It was also the top rating program nationally for Sunday night, beating ABC’s Midsomer Murders (1.43m), Nine’s 60 Minutes (1.15m) and Channel 7’s The X Factor (1.074m) in its 7:30 pm timeslot.

There were several well-chosen subjects who were interviewed. The Ten chief programmer David Mott heaped praise on the show for its stunning performance, while Julie Goodwin, last year’s winner came admitting tearing while watching the show. The soundbites of her three teenage sons was a welcome insight into the opinion of the audience who are in the same age group as the contestants. They were very impressed by their peers’ talent and ability to cook, and humbly joked that they couldn’t cook just as well.

It would’ve been better if they had seeked the opinion of the competing channels, especially Channel 7, whose reality show The X Factor is the closest contender in terms of genre and audience segment.

As an online story, it is very successful in incorporating the various interactive devices that can only be possible on the Internet. The main images are played as a slideshow loop, with buttons to navigate back and forth. There is an ‘Others’ tab which appears to be an online poll which has closed, and has been replaced with a ‘Survey Monkey’ ad, presumably the survey service provider. There is a ‘Recommend’ button for Facebook above the main image, and below, a link to TV Editor Holly Bryne’s blog on the same subject. The results of the online poll and a box of ‘related coverage’ links is left-aligned in a sidebar, halfway down the main story, to invite reader attention while being non-obtrusive. At the bottom is a comments box with the three most recent comments, and below that is an unrestricted post entry box where you can even decide if you want the site to remember your details and an email notification to be sent once the comment is published.

There are a few banner ads, but these are mostly arranged on a far-right column and at the very bottom of the page, so they are not really distracting. Overall, site design can be made less cluttered with the removal of the banner ads (although realistically, this is not possible since it’s a commercial tabloid news outlet), but the site really exploits the exclusive properties of the online medium to full use.


http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/original-masterchef-julie-goodwin-a-fan-of-new-recipe/story-e6freuy9-1225919773959

Kate Ritchie stars in COPS LAC

This article is about Channel Nine’s new police drama Cops L.A.C. by eBroadcast. It begins the piece by describing the famous Australian actress Kate Richie as heading “an all-star cast”. It then goes into a brief synopsis of the premise of the show, with the requisite adjectives and superlatives that is the characteristic of a promotional blurb.

It then lists the various characters played by well-known names, before grabbing soundbites from Jo Horsburgh, the Executive Producer of the show. The quotes from Horsburgh, in particular, are more fascinating than the marketing plug of the previous paragraphs because it offers an insight into the inspiration behind the show, namely real-life Local Area Command centres in Sydney, which is where the story is set in.

It appears that the majority of the article is a straight copy of a press release or wire service since it describes the show in praising tones, though it could be possibly written by eBroadcast itself. It is understandable that eBroadcast is a television website that usually put the shows it discusses in a favourable light, much like entertainment magazines or TV guides. In a sense, it succeeds in promoting the show to its readers, who are naturally curious to know what it’s about. While it would’ve been more ‘newsworthy’ if there had been criticisms or unfavourable observations put in, that would’ve run contrary to the spirit of TV guides and other entertainment reports in stoking enthusiasm in its readers to watch the show. Objective criticism should be reserved to the TV reviewer, who will usually feature in a separate section or as a companion article to the ‘spruik piece’.

However, it has failed in fully utilizing the online medium. There is only a single photo that does not contain an embedded link to a higher-resolution version. There is a ‘Like’ Facebook button and an unrestricted comment box, but that’s about it. User interactivity can be improved by having a still gallery which invites user-submitted screenshots, or a link to the official site.

http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/enews/news/Kate-Ritchie-stars-in-COPS-LAC-010910.html