The Australian TV Book
Language: English
Pages: 253
ISBN: 2:00305658
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A comprehensive introduction to the television industry in Australia.
Television is the most pervasive mass medium of the industrialised world. It is blamed for creating alienation and violence in society, yet at the same time regarded as trivial and unworthy of serious attention. It is the main purveyor of global popular culture, yet also intensely local.
The Australian TV Book paints the big picture of the small screen in Australia. It examines industry dynamics in a rapidly changing environment, the impact of new technology, recent changes in programming, and the ways in which the television industry targets its audiences. The authors highlight what is distinctive about television in Australia, and how it is affected by international developments.
This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Australian television today.
Stuart Cunningham is Professor of Media and Journalism at Queensland University of Technology. Graeme Turner is director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland. They are editors of the leading textbook The Media in Australia and authors of many other works on the media.
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mix of typical PSB programming—plays, concerts, news and current affairs, children’s programming, religion (Inglis 1983: 203ff). Once tape was widely used, there was a high level of imports from the BBC with whom the ABC had a standing contract (Inglis 1983: 197) (but also later from the ITV system), mostly in the area of drama. However, from the very earliest days of ABC television, locally produced drama had an important place (Jacka 1991: 13–17). In its first twenty-five years the ABC placed
entertainment genres and of a decline in ethical standards. They remain, however, the frontline in the competition between networks for Australian audiences. TELEVISION NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS IN AUSTRALIA News has been fundamental to television in Australia from the beginning. The BBC was slow to exploit the visual capacities of television in its early newscasts (initially it just ran the radio news over a slide of the BBC logo!) and the first PDF OUTPUT c: ALLEN & UNWIN r: DP1\BP4306W\MAIN
the television studied by what she describes as ‘television studies’ (in the Northern Hemisphere, at least) remains ‘textualised’: The concentration was on programmes and genres rather than industry and economy. This was not, in general, a television discussed in relation to issues of working practices, labour relations, exports and national and international legislation. In contrast to the emphases of literary and dramatic criticism, it was a television of low and popular culture. A television
identified itself with conventional news programs, the ultimate consequence of this ratings contest was that by 1994 they had all been replaced by a 10.30 p.m. conventional news bulletin. At the time of writing, there are still three substantial late-night news bulletins in the timeslot, with the ABC running its high-end current affairs program, Lateline, there as well. Although it is customary to accuse television of dumbing down its programming in order to chase audiences, the development of
BBC’s highly promoted Eldorado, succeeded. The fact that they were produced at all, however, indicates the extent of the British television industry’s attention to the unexpected and unsettling success of imported product. PDF OUTPUT c: ALLEN & UNWIN r: DP1\BP4306W\MAIN p: (02) 9438 3722 f: (02) 9438 3733 e: documail@docupro.com.au 92 CHANDOS STREET ST LEONARDS NSW 2065 129 180 × 230 Chapter Nine David Rowe Sport: The genre that runs and runs SPORT ESTABLISHING AUSTRALIAN SPORTS TV As