What’s on your viewing menu this Sunday evening? Will you settle in on the couch to watch cooks face off or will you be watching politicians battle it out?

Well, happily (thanks to some quick rescheduling on the part of our pollies) you can enjoy both contests.

Kicking off at 6.30 pm is the hour-long debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. Then, from 7.30pm, a massive audience is expected to tune into the MasterChef Australia live finale on the Ten Network.

But what if you’re out and about and away from your lounge room?

If you’ve got a compatible Next G™ mobile we’ve got you covered:

• Telstra Next G™ customers can to watch the political contest live by purchasing a BigPond News Action Pack. It will set you back $3.95 for a day pass which also includes access to the latest breaking world, national, business, sport. More info on how you can access via BigPond News Action Pack . Mobile FOXTEL from Telstra subscribers can tune into either ABC 1 or Sky News coverage
• For the big cook off, Next G™ customers can dial into exclusive MasterChef coverage via the BigPond TV portal. The episode costs $1.95. More info here via MasterChef – Watch Live on Mobile.

Also, if you’re out and about but have your laptop with you, you can tune into live coverage of the political debate on BigPond TV.

Aussies already turning to their mobiles this election

If early figures are anything to go by, mobile TV, online browsing and apps like Twitter will make the ‘small screen’ of the mobile one of the most popular ways to interact with the upcoming Federal election.

We crunched some numbers this week and found our customers are turning into their mobiles to keep across the latest election news.

So far we’ve seen:

• Mobile FOXTEL on iPhone had its biggest-ever audience spike on 24 June as people around Australia tuned in to watch live coverage of the leadership spill on Sky News and ABC 1.
• Mobile FOXTEL on iPhone had a 20 per cent increase in streams on Saturday morning as people tuned in to watch Julia Gillard’s visit to Government House and the subsequent press conferences from both leaders
• Between 12 noon and 3pm on Saturday visits to the BigPond mobile news portal lifted almost 70 per cent compared with the same time last week.

We take our mobile with us almost everywhere. So it’s no surprise that it has become central to the way we connect with, share and comment on news.

Over to you. Will you be tuning in this Sunday? Are you finding mobiles a handy way to access or comment on the latest political news?