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Where did you migrate from? And what was the news like there?

I migrated from Western Europe. The main difference I see is that there is no breaks to show TV-ads in the middle of the news. Traditionally the news is from 8pm to 8.40pm, uninterrupted, followed by 5 to 10 minutes dedicated to the weather, and then a 90 to 120min movie with one break in the middle.

Nowadays, there are more options: some news program air earlier (7pm for example), some are shorter (20minutes), etc. But the key is that there is no ads either in the middle or around the program. From my point of view, this is the difference that is driving this race to the sensational.

PBS would be the equivalent here but as you said, no where near as interesting to watch.

Interesting. So there are no 24/7 news channels?

Depends on the country in Europe.

I know about BBC News in the UK, and in France, there are now 4, and soon, 5 (BFMtv, ITele, LCI, France 24, France Info).

They started doing it yeah. But I believe that there are still very little commercials. The reason being that they are part of all the standard channels everybody gets, so they get money regardless of the viewer count and don't rely on ad-income.

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