Early this morning, I switched on my LG television to watch the news. Recently, it has started to invite me to watch various unwanted channels, causing me the delay of declining their offer before I get to BBC One. But today, it invited me to watch Euronews. Hurrah! Maybe it is using AI to discover what might actually match my tastes and viewing patterns.
What I want from the morning news
What I look for in my early morning viewing (at 6am UK time) is a summary of world news, plus a detour to local news with the weather forecast for the south east. About half an hour is enough.
Ever since I returned in 2017 from residence in South Africa, I have been frustrated by not being able to connect to BBC World Service from Freeview. I pay for the BBC licence, but this evidently does not include the quality offerings of the BBC World Service. (In my paranoid moments, I suspect there are some political reasons for blocking world news, as collected and edited by our public broadcaster, from the British home public. But it is probably just the financial cost of satellite links?)
Paywalls or political walls?
When in South Africa, I particularly valued the round-up of business news presented by Sally Bundock, which was available at 6am SA time on the World Service. I can actually get it on my TV in England at the same time, but in the UK, that is when I am still asleep. If I try to get the same on catch-up an hour or so later, the system does not let me, as the only reception allowed is that of the UK BBC at that time. The converse applies in Brussels, where I can get the World Service but cannot access UK BBC. Is this due to paywalls or political walls?
I want to watch BBC home news to stay in touch with current concerns here. But when sport dominates the time slot, as it does from 6.35 to about 6.50, on both BBC and ITV, I switch over to get the international news, now often not fully reported on BBC. I have been turning to Al Jazeera for that. They have the money to cover some topics in more depth, particularly in their Witness programme, which spotlights parts of the world the BBC does not cover.
Top TV news channels
It is a futile exercise to try to ascertain what are the ‘top TV news channels’ outlets, as the criteria are unclear. My search produced a list that put Fox News and CNN at the top. Then came the BBC and Sky, followed by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. Euronews is in position 8, followed by outlets from India and Pakistan. I am sceptical of a list that does not include China (CCTN) in the mix, as the size of its population should push it into the top 10. Not all the listings give size of audience or even how many countries receive the transmissions.
For Euronews, however, it states: “broadcasted in 166 countries. It reaches over 170 million European households.”
Euronews has been broadcasting from 1993 with headquarters in Lyon, France. It is now financed by a Portuguese investor. What I tuned into was badged Brussels My Love, which flicked this motto between EU languages throughout the show, a rather endearing distraction in the bottom left corner.
A morning with Euronews
This morning, I caught three news items and one feature report. The news was some discussion about how President Macron of France is going to find a way forward after the French elections, which showed up more support for extremes of left and right, making it extremely difficult to form a viable coalition for governing.
The next item went to Germany, focusing on the aftermath of the stabbing atrocity in Solingen by a banned refugee from Syria. It superimposed a text message “Stabbing a victory for the far right?” It gave the information, which I had not realised via BBC news, that Germany has actually now expelled back to Afghanistan some refugees who have been convicted of crimes, a decision that violates the international human rights charter that has been signed by Germany.
The third item was about an agreement between France and Serbia, by which Serbia receives French fighter planes. This is controversial because there is a fear of Serbia aligning with Russia, and also, it is regarded as a potential aggressor by some of its neighbouring countries. The feature item, lasting about 10 minutes, was from the Netherlands, and it was about new communal housing for the elderly where young people can also rent.
Easy for English speakers
All the items were subtitled with English translations where people were speaking in their own language. Some of the discussion took place in English, with good slowish delivery and clear pronunciation, though sometimes accented rather than RP (received pronunciation), as with the French and Irish speakers. If I were still teaching TEFL classes, I would certainly be happy to use material from Euronews to assist with oral English competency. The subtitling was good too. I felt I could almost learn Dutch through the feature item!
When the Dutch feature finished, I clicked across to Al Jazeera to catch news from the Middle East and Africa. When I went back to Euronews during the next hour, I found the same programme showing that I had started with. They are evidently on a repeat loop, circling through their main productions, such as Global Conversation, The Big Question and Brussels My Love, during the course of a day. That is sensible programming, assuming their listeners are like me – just wanting to clock into the main news from a Euro perspective for about half an hour, without lolling into entertainment.
So, if you are a TV viewer of progressive internationalist inclinations wanting to tune into Euro views, I can highly recommend you make a habit of tuning in to Euronews.
