Unless they just changed it very recently you are completely wrong. Where’s Everybody offered to do that but PBS obviously refused.

How about this one

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/10/11/interview.html

Twanny Boy,

Azzopardi did support labour in 1996, but at least is man enough to admit it. He switched because, as anybody with a brain would, he realised that EU membership was best for Malta and Parrokku was definitely not.

As to Xarabank, I personally never last more then ten minutes before shuddering and changing channel (same applies to all Maltese TV) , but it sells. PBS makes a lot more money from advertising on Friday night then its pays for the programme. What would you rather have – Kalamita?

@Mandy. I totally agree with you – cannot stomach the expression of tqanzih.

No, I do not believe Joe Azzopardi when he siad he voted Labour – only a naive idiot would. And yes, it was a typo. And Xarabank is so “popular” because it has been allowed, with official blessing, to hijack every significant national event for years.

[Daphne – Give me one good reason why anyone would lie about something like that, when it is so very embarrassing and reflects so poorly on one’s (temporary) judgement. Joe is possibly the only person I know who still admits to it, instead of rewriting the facts in his own mind. For the first two or three months after the general election in 1996, I knew scores of people who crowed that they had voted Labour for a variety of reasons identical to the ones I am hearing now. But as it became increasingly clear that we were in for a really rough ride, and that they had misjudged Sant on the matter of EU membership (no, he could not be persuaded to change his mind), they drew in their horns, crawled back under their stones, and lay low until it was safe to come out again. From then on, it was as though they never voted for Sant. Interestingly, some of these very same individuals are now saying they will vote Labour ‘for the first time’ – and I can remember them saying the same thing back then, though after the election not before. Human nature would be more interesting were it not so very sad.

Xarabank is popular because it’s got the right formula. That lot know what they’re doing. Some people do actually know what they’re doing, Twanny, or do you like people only when they fail?]

Where’s Everybody IS a political machine. It does not go bust cos it is subsidised by taxpayer’s money in the form of guaranteed contracts with the pubic broadcaster.

Thanks for the “Joe Azzopardi is one of the people who brought Alfred Sant to power in 1996” joke. Made my day.

[Daphne – It isn’t a joke, Twanny. It’s a fact. Joe Azzopardi voted Labour in 1996. I assume he wasn’t lying when he said so publicly (you really have to keep up). As for your opening remark, it is a documented fact that Xarabank is Malta’s most-watched television show, topping the ratings every year. The management of a television station would have to be out of its mind (or have the business sense of a socialist) to axe it on the grounds that it doesn’t like the political beliefs of the people who own the company, even though one of them helped elect Labour – albeit ever so briefly, but that was not his fault – to government. And I trust your ‘pubic broadcaster’ was a typographical error, rather than a Freudian slip or worse, an attempt at wit.]

[Daphne – They are independent because they are independently OWNED, as distinct from being OWNED by a political party, a church, or a workers’ union. I trust you grasp this distinction. All newspapers have editorial LINES and editorial POLICIES. This means that they have declared VIEWPOINTS and take STANDS on ISSUES. The point about Godfrey Grima is that he pretends not to have a preference for either political party, but in reality he wants Joseph Muscat to become prime minister. He just doesn’t have the guts to spell it out because he doesn’t want to do a Marisa and lose the last few friends he might have ‘on the other side’. I’d have more respect for him if he said: ‘I voted Labour, will vote Labour and this is why….’. When I last wrote that he voted Labour, he sued me. He wasn’t amused when I asked him in court why he feels libelled when I say he’s a Labour voter. So….what? He advises Joseph Muscat, has cosy chats with him on how to proceed, and then votes…..PN, AD or Imperium Europa?]

We have our national TV station hijacked by a well-known company that is also pro-Nationalist. I think this is far more serious than Grima’s political observations or advice.

[Daphne – Let me see now. An independently OWNED production company produces programmes and sells them to the state-owned television station, taking up a mere tiny fraction of air-time, and that constitutes hijacking. How would you advise this independently owned production company to behave so as to meet with your approval: 1. sell its programmes equally to Super One and Net; 2. sell its programmes to nobody; 3. go bust, because it’s not a business but a political machine, 4. start selling clothes or open a wine bar instead. Perhaps you don’t know that Joe Azzopardi is one of the people who brought Alfred Sant to power in 1996.]