A friend rang me up last night and said that they had seen this Y2K comercial on TV, not owning a tele I searched the papers this morning and found this artical; what do you Think? Timothy TV ads warn of date with destitute By BRAD HOWARTH 11jul98

THE Federal Government will tomorrow launch a world-first national advertising campaign to alert small business to the dangers of the millennium bug.

The advertising will be on all television networks, including the ABC and SBS, and aims to alert people to the significance of the problem.

In the first advertisement, the TV screen goes suddenly blank. A message flashes up saying all networks have gone off the air and warns this is what might happen on January 1, 2000, unless people act now.

Subsequent ads will concentrate on directing small business operators to information sources via a toll-free telephone number, 1800 11 2000.

Year 2000 Industry Program chairman Maurice Newman said businesses with less than 200 employees contributed 58 per cent of Australia's GDP.

While it was estimated that 70 per cent of these businesses had two or more systems that could be affected by the millennium bug, only 25 per cent were taking action today.

"If, as the experts predict, 10 per cent of these businesses fall over then the direct outcome will be 360,000 people out of work and the flow-on effect, of course, will be many more than that," Mr Newman said.

He said the awareness campaign was the only one of its kind in the world and the commercials were designed to present a clear message about the need to take immediate action on the problem.

Call centres had been set up in every State and Territory to help disseminate information.

Regardless of the outcome, the cost of fixing the problem and the impact of those businesses that failed to do so were sufficient reason for Australia to revise its economic forecasts.

"I believe that economic growth as we go into 1999 and, clearly, into 2000 will have to be revised downward," Mr Newman said.

While not convinced the millennium bug would have a greater impact than the Asian economic crisis, Mr Newman said it would be an additional problem that Asia was not immune from and might further compound problems in the region.

Deutsche Bank officials had upgraded the likelihood of an economic downturn from 60 per cent to 70 per cent, with a forecast drop in US GDP of 6 per cent.

) News Limited 1998

-- Timothy J Wilbur (timkaz@nor.com.au), July 12, 1998

Answers

Tim:

I would love to know what the reaction of the Australian public has been to the TV spots. Are they rioting? Killing each other in the streets? Running in circles flapping their arms? Or are they accepting the situation in a rational way? I think we would all like to be treated as adults and not fed the pablum that we are being fed.

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), July 19, 1998.

The great Oz public hasn't noticed a thing. They're all to busy sipping the amber fluid and watching the footie on telly. Y2K? Oh yes, that's the silly computer bug that the Banks have fixed already, isn't it? Heck, I doubt it gets that much thought, guys.

-- Sydney Sam (Sam@nowhere.man), July 20, 1998.