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SCMP Reporter

There is definitely something strange going on with tonight's schedules.

 This time last week, ATV were blasting trailers for the upcoming Monday night Rambo season, which was supposed to start tonight with First Blood, the original Rambo movie.

 As of Saturday, it appears Rambo hasn't quite been able to fight his way on to our screens after all.

 Instead we are offered Arizona Dream (World, 9.32pm), an oddball Johnny Depp movie (are there any other kind?) about a dreamy kid summoned to help his sleazy uncle (Jerry Lewis) run a used-car business.

 TVB have no cause to look smug however. Cape Fear (Pearl, 9.32pm ) only appeared on its schedules on Friday. Before that we were all looking forward to something called Cold-blooded, starring Jason Priestly (Brandon from Beverly Hills 90210 ) as a dreamy kid, sent to learn how to be a hitman.

 Why all these last-minute changes? There are all kinds of possible scenarios, but the most likely one is probably something to do with advertising. TV stations like to get one advertiser to support every ad break in a programme. There is a certain up-market shopping mall that attaches itself to a certain medical drama every Tuesday, for example, or a water supplier who likes to be connected with documentaries on Fridays.

 Big movies almost always run with this kind of deal attached. It costs so much to buy the rights for them, that it doesn't really make sense to screen them otherwise. But in the current climate advertisers are unpredictable beasts, and all media organisations are finding it harder and harder to persuade them to sign up.

 ATV have always been the underdog in this department, partly because the station has traditionally targeted the high brow end of the market, and partly because TVB have local advertising revenue business so tightly sewn up. It is therefore rather ironic that it should be something so inarguably low brow as First Blood that is being pulled.

 Very often, the TV stations deliberately throw all their resources into head-to-head battles for ratings on one particular night. In tonight's case, we may well have seen TVB decide to trample on ATV's Rambo trilogy plans by upstaging them with Cape Fear. Then at the last minute ATV made a rather bold counter move and postponed First Blood anyway.

 This leaves TVB going head-to-head with something relatively unimportant, at least from a rating point of view, forget the aesthetics.

 Or maybe the two last-minute scheduling changes are totally unrelated, and nothing to do with advertising at all, just a desire to keep poor TV editors like me on my toes, and viewers like you, guessing. Or should that read, cussing.



Exit Rambo