Seven is going hard promoting its Sunday night Bali Special, hosted by Seven reporter Anna Coren.

It’s going to be an interesting watch, but viewers will pay to read the
fine print in the TV guides. The series isn’t Seven’s or even
Australian-made. It’s Canadian, something that’s not been mentioned in
the promotion by the Seven Network.

At least one Australian survivor is worried about the special going to air, as this AAP report reveals: Bali victim hurt by TV documentary

Seven’s news and current affairs director Peter Meakin has told the ABC
he appreciates that some survivors were traumatised and might be
psychologically affected by the program. But basically it’s news, the
Bali tragedy happened, and no one has to watch it.

While Meakin does point out that the Bali doco is Canadian and features
two Australian survivors, you wouldn’t get that impression from Seven’s
promos.

What it does highlight, however, is the slowness of Australian TV
networks to show any interest of their own to look at and explore the
deaths of 202 people, including 88 Australians.

SBS ran an hour long doco by John Darling called The Healing of Bali;
the BBC has done a doco on the bombing which generated a lot of
publicity earlier this year, and now this Canadian documentary on Seven.

It sort of sums up the attitude of commercial TV to stories like Bali (and the ABC could have done better as well).