In present-day language teaching the use of original news programmes received by satellite is becoming more and more important. It is a vital source of up-to-date linguistic material, and gives students a significant sense of direct contact with the country whose language they are studying. But the use of this material presents considerable difficulties. There is not much point in simply asking students to sit through television programmes in the form in which they are broadcast; they tend to fall asleep. Material has to be selected and edited, and a framework of concepts and questions must be constantly provided for purposes of study. Multi-media systems based on microcomputers provide the obvious way of doing this.