DIARY: Rant

<p>Never have I seen anything as cold-hearted, ill-conceived and </p><p>brutal as the Hong Kong Cable TV subscription ad, which appeared in the </p><p>business section of the South China Morning Post on September 13, just </p><p>two days after religious fanatics rammed two planes into the twin towers </p><p>of the World Trade Centre in New York. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>It amazes me that at this very sad time, some companies see fit to </p><p>profit at the expense of the suffering of others. Imagine the </p><p>callousness of showing the two burning towers - despite knowing that </p><p>thousands perished when both superstructures collapsed in on themselves </p><p>- and a headline which read: "Cable News. Watch it as it happens!". It's </p><p>appalling. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The speed at which Cable TV's marketers managed to get this ad out into </p><p>the public domain showed up two things about what the company staff </p><p>probably thought about themselves: that they are marketing geniuses and </p><p>that everyone else with half a brain would feel the same. Unfortunately, </p><p>the following few days revealed that the industry actually has quite a </p><p>sizeable number of people who think with half a brain or less. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>And they don't just live in Hong Kong. From Singapore, I received this </p><p>email titled "Weekly Newsflash from Channel News Asia". The first </p><p>paragraph went like this: "As America reeled under the terrorist attacks </p><p>on Tuesday 11 Sep on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, some </p><p>800,000 people in Singapore tuned into Channel NewsAsia ... Compared to </p><p>the week before, this is a three-fold increase of viewers aged 15 years </p><p>and above." Did they honestly think advertisers were going to go ga-ga </p><p>over such viewership levels? </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Whoever you are, and whatever you want to get off your chest, send your </p><p>rants to rant@media.com.hk, and we'll print them anonymously. </p><p><BR><BR> </p>