• The Age, Wednesday, August 16, 2006 11:45 AM

Huge "360-degree televisions" in shopping centers are screening Australian Broadcasting Corporation updates in news, business, sports and weather--complete with advertising--in a move that has upset some folks Down Under, reports The Age. Says Friends of the ABC spokeswoman Glenys Stradijot: "Broadcasting of ABC news with advertisements damages the integrity of the ABC and its news service." She is also concerned by what her group sees as a too-cozy relationship between the public broadcaster's commercial arm and its news and current affairs division. But ABC Enterprises' director Robyn Watts defends the practice. "Certain advertising is permitted but to strict guidelines, and ... the ABC maintains full editorial control of the content that it licenses," she says.

Read the whole story at The Age »