The Mercure Townsville is a very comfortable hotel. The rooms are exactly what you'd expect at Mercure, comfy beds, all the necessities. The service is impeccable, and the food is to die for. I thoroughly enjoyed my stay... for the most part. The one downside for us, was the fact that at all hours of the day, sun up to sunset, the manager in place at this hotel deems it acceptable to run Sky News on every TV set around the bar and restaurant. Politics in public spaces is never a good idea. Extreme political bias in public spaces, is downright uncomfortable. Every night we sat there at dinner whilst the typical Sky News opinion piece headlines flashed all over the multiple TV screens throughout what is supposed to be a relaxing space. These headlines were loaded with such extreme (and I would go so far as to say hateful) political bias, that I do not even feel comfortable writing them here, or attaching pictures, for fear that my review may get rejected for the use of the words contained in them. Regardless of your own political standings, I’m sure that the vast majority of reasonable people can agree with me when I say that it is never appropriate to broadcast such a politically charged news station in what is supposed to be an all-inclusive, welcoming space. And let’s not conflate fact as opinion here, it IS an extremely biased, politically charged station, who’s owner is the subject of a royal commission campaign, and who has only very recently been taken to court in the U.S and forced to concede that his media empire knowingly lies. I’m not sure what management is trying to achieve by the all day broadcast of such a controversial station, but it has most definitely resulted in the loss of my own, and my family’s business. Very disappointing, as we otherwise would have been regulars. This has nothing to do with being a “left wing snowflake”. It has nothing to do with being “woke”. This has to do with wanting to go away on holiday and leave politics at home where it belongs. Now, to be fair, we did approach the manager about this situation before coming to the decision that we will not return. The response was entirely unacceptable and in our view, unprofessional. He told us that he did change the station after our last visit, but that the regulars at the hotel asked for it to be turned back onto Sky News, and so he did. So on our next visit to the hotel, there it was again. We approached the manager again regarding this, and his response to us was that “he can’t win”. He then told us that he will make a note to ensure the channel is changed when we visit. We found this utterly demeaning, condescending and, to be frank, insulting. He doubled down on the previous reasoning that the regulars ask for Sky News because, in his own words, “It is the most informative”. Sir, there is nothing informative about the headlines we witnessed on this station during our multiple visits. It is not news, it is political “discussion” loaded with extreme bias
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