Tag Archives: media

The day Televisa impressed me

Posted on June 30, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Televisa (the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world) is not a company I have traditionally liked very much due to its very strong ties to the PRI, the party that dominated Mexican politics for 71 years.  Their operations have been usually extremely conservative with a tint of monopoly.   The company, however, holds  the rights for broadcasting the matches of the Mexican national football team together with its main rival, TV Azteca.

My surprise has been that in the year or two they have completely changed their attitude towards the internet, offering some of their TV content for free over the web, broadcasting live some matches of the national team (not the WC), and pushing Facebook and Twitter heavily in their mainstream media.

While I do not have enough information to know whether they have reacted this favourably because they have a solid online strategy or just through fear, it’s nice to watch Mexican news for a change even if the news items themselves are not that nice.

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The movie industry is killing itself with regionalisation

Posted on March 25, 2010 by | 2 Comments

I love watching movies, especially at home. I have a Sony full-HD TV & home theatre system at home and am planning to get a compatible Blu-Ray player of the same brand at some point.  My efforts to go HD with my movie collection have hit a snag, however: I don’t buy all my movies in Europe so I need multi-region players.  Sony doesn’t seem to sell multi-region Blu-Ray players, only DVD players.

Why wouldn’t I get all my stuff here? Simple, they don’t sell many Mexican or Asian movies here, and for Disney movies especially I like Mexican dubbing, just as for anime I prefer Finnish dubbing instead.  I don’t download movies nor buy pirated goods, so am especially annoyed by all the warnings in the movies I buy every time I play them.

Why would the movie industry punish me by treating me like a delinquent instead of a customer?  Why can’t enjoy media I pay for? Don’t they understand I’m a paying customer asking for a product, if they would only provide it to me?

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The price of fame

Posted on October 21, 2009 by | Leave a comment

By now everybody and their mother have heard about the “balloon boy hoax“: a kid was feared to have flown away on a balloon kept in his family’s back yard who garnered huge media and law-enforcement attention until it was found that first he was not there in the balloon and then that it had all been staged.

More than anything, I think it is a commentary on the length to which some will go in order to attain “fame”, even at the cost of everybody else.  They got their 15 minutes, but could end up with a 2 million USD fine and 6 years in jail.

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Not a fan of the Finnish or Mexican morning news

Posted on October 19, 2009 by | Leave a comment

If there is one thing that drives me insane is when I turn the TV to get my news fix and stumble into any bulletins by YLE or the MTV3  morning news (their evening news are OK, even if their sense of humour is on the very basic side of the scale).  Their focus on inane ultra-local stories (like a recent one on neighbourhood cats) reminds me of a sketch a comedian used when I was growing up called Ranch News, or Noti Rancho in Spanish.  The amount of navel-gazing is mind-numbing for a guy like me who needs to know what is going on with the world.

Mexican news programmes, on the other hand, focus on three things: the latest celebrity scandal, the latest political scandal, or the latest violent deaths caused by the drug situation (with as many graphic details as possible).

No wonder I’ll be stuck with the BBC for the time being, even if I couldn’t care less about cricket.

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Finnish tabloids

Posted on March 15, 2009 by | Leave a comment

In Finland you will find two nationwide tabloids: Iltalehti & Ilta-Sanomat. The Ilta-rags share a similar tone with their Mexican and British cousins, focusing on the main page on issues that are really not that serious.

The main difference I find between the local versions and others is also their focus on, how can I say it, jealousy. Not only will there be endless features on the Tax circus every year around tax retrun time, but also continuing coverage of the financial dealings of “celebrities” and other individuals.

This envy-as-a-social-phenomenon is something I hadn’t given much thought to unil I read Juoksuhaudentie, a novel about the Finnish dream of having a house of your own. The chapters where we see what the neighbours think about the main characters are quite chillng, as not only they disapprove completely, but express it freely and want to make their lives more miserable.

This kind of attitude is something that I tried to get rid of, as in certain circles where I grew up it can be quite common. I know in the case of a novel it’s just fiction, but are people really like that? Maybe it’s just human nature…

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Monocle does Mexico

Posted on February 25, 2009 by | 1 Comment

This month’s edition of Monocle, my favourite magazine, has an in-depth survey of Mexico (running at 36 pages) that features the best in current Mexican design, music, literature, business, media, hospitality and gastronomy.

It is very refreshing to see such a positive portrayal of the Mexican reality, as most international media tend to take the easy route, focusing only on what’s wrong (which we already know) instead of what’s right.  Highly recommended!

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Monocle’s Mexican fixes

Posted on December 24, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I'm a big fan of Monocle magazine, and was quite amused when they talked about their main tips for the Mexican government in the year to come, which I quote below:

  1. Streamline the tax system and make it easier for people to pay.
  2. Stop police corruption by hiring better-educated cops and paying them more.
  3. Create a third television network so the media is not in the hands of so few.

Even though all are relevant and rather urgent, the first one was the one that got me thinking.  One of the things that works especially well in Finland compared to Mexico is the taxation system. 

We might disagree on the amount of taxes you have to pay (that's a whole other discussion), but it is amazingly easy to pay them: you only give an estimate at the beginning of the year, get a tax card, give it to your employer and then taxes are discounted automatically during that fiscal year (which is the same as the calendar year). If your estimate was off the mark, you can check your pre-filled tax return the next May, and you may even get a refund the next December.  In 7 years I've never needed to ask any help from an accountant, and I've never had a problem.

No wonder Mexican tax payment levels are lower than Botswana's compared to GDP.  Can they try to improve this for the new year?

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Life photo archive

Posted on November 20, 2008 by | Leave a comment

I came accross this archive of Life magazine photos.  I became a fan in my childhood since my parents had one or two books with pictures from the magazine (I was especially a fan of this one by Robert Capa).

I immediately made two searches: Mexico & Finland, naturally.  Most pictures of Mexico are of the 60′s, around the time of the 1968 Olympics, whereas most pictures of Finland are of the 40′s, especially of the Winter War.

One of the images that impacted me the most, however, was of Viipuri, which back then looked just like any other Finnish city.  I’ve been there a few years ago on my way to St. Petersburg, and let’s say that there have been a few changes after it became part of Russia.

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Mexican TV

Posted on January 16, 2008 by | Leave a comment

CNN en Español
Originally uploaded by Chiva Congelado

Usually I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I noticed that there are two things I missed from the Mexican version: CNN en Español and Mexican football programmes.

Good luck trying to get those in Finland.

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¿El periódico global en español?

Posted on October 9, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Haciendo mi ronda usual de periódicos ahora que tuve un poquito más de tiempo, me topé con que El País de España ahora se hace llamar "El periódico global en español".  Contrastándolo con los contenidos de su página principal, que se concentran en noticias españolas, e incluso con el nombre del periódico (¿o qué, "El País" se refiere a otra cosa y no a ese pedazo de tierra entre Portugal, Francia, el Atlántico y el mediterráneo?), he llegado a dos conclusiones: o es un ejercicio fallido de mercadotecnia que no va a llegar a ningún lado o realmente se lo creen y son más arrogantes de lo que pensaba.

Actualmente ningún medio de habla hispana cumple la serie de requisitos que le pondría a un medio más global (nótese que no digo global) como CNN, France 24 o BBC World, nótese dejar de verse menos al ombligo y más al exterior.  Ese es un nicho de mercado que aún no está cubierto en nuestra lengua, pero francamente a Grupo Prisa no le veo cómo con su actual propuesta de valor, aunque acepto que desconozco mucho sobre el negocio del periodismo.

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