Australian media - TV
There are 5 free-to-air TV stations in Australia. There are also a couple of Pay-TV stations; the best-known of these is probably Rupert Murdoch's FOX network. FOX hasn't reached plague proportions yet as it has in the USA, but it can't be far off. For the time being, most Australians don't really watch Pay-TV in significant numbers, except for FOX Sports, which has steadily grown over the last couple of years. For the purposes of this blog, let's concentrate on free-to-air.
The 5 free-to-air stations are the 3 private stations (Channel 7, Channel 9 and Channel 10), as well as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC (federally funded, comparable to the BBC and state stations in Asia and Europe), and possibly one of the best TV stations in the world: SBS, Special Broadcasting Services. Seriously, go check out the SBS website, it's a great station. News from all over the world, great international films and shows, and of course they've got the football (hence the nickname they got from the non-football lovers: Soccer Bloody Soccer. This is Australia, so of course they're not calling it "football" like the rest of the world but "soccer", like US-Americans). The only channel I've ever seen where you could watch Real Madrid play Dynamo Kiev, followed by a Brazilian soap opera, followed by an in-depth report about the PKK in Kurdistan, followed by some great Japanese anime.
Pity that no-one watches it. It's too international and, dare I say, intellectual for your average Australian couch potato, alas. SBS is also extremely vulnerable as 90 percent of their funding comes directly from the Federal Government. The best broadcaster in Australia is comprehensively marginalised and hence not typical for contemporary Australia - even though, of course, they should be.
So should be the ABC but almost the same thing applies. Hardly anyone watches the "Australian arm" of the BBC (in my house, "ABC" stands for "Another British Comedy"), and most people would agree with the statement that the ABC is too left-wing in its political stance. You have to live in Australia to understand how something as staid, white upper-middle-class, anglocentric and conservative as the ABC could possibly be seen as left-wing...
In general, Australian TV can be summed up thus:
"On the radio and in television, the ABC still continues to act as a branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the programs of the commercial stations are almost pure Hollywood. The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is the only national medium that ventures beyond Britain and the United States, both in its news and public affairs services and in cultural programs. As a result, in an often asserted 'multicultural society', the communications media and public institutions remain almost entirely monolingual and monocultural." (Jamrozik pp. 144-145)
Channel 10's majority share holder is Canada's CanWest Global Communications Corp. Channel 9 is owned by a man called Kerry Packer - he's basically what would've happened to Rupert Murdoch had the latter not globalised his enterprise. Finally, Channel 7 is majority-owned by Australian businessman Kerry Stokes.
In short: if you want to know what Australia REALLY IS, as opposed to what it could be but has chosen not to be, just look at the commercial stations. I'll post updates each week about the 10 most watched TV shows in the previous week and let you count the number of American shows that make the Top Ten. They're lifted holus bolus from American networks (so are a lot of the "news" on the commercial channels) and Australians love it. Incidentally, I might do the same for films, as the situation concerning films is even more drastic. We'll see.
The 5 free-to-air stations are the 3 private stations (Channel 7, Channel 9 and Channel 10), as well as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC (federally funded, comparable to the BBC and state stations in Asia and Europe), and possibly one of the best TV stations in the world: SBS, Special Broadcasting Services. Seriously, go check out the SBS website, it's a great station. News from all over the world, great international films and shows, and of course they've got the football (hence the nickname they got from the non-football lovers: Soccer Bloody Soccer. This is Australia, so of course they're not calling it "football" like the rest of the world but "soccer", like US-Americans). The only channel I've ever seen where you could watch Real Madrid play Dynamo Kiev, followed by a Brazilian soap opera, followed by an in-depth report about the PKK in Kurdistan, followed by some great Japanese anime.
Pity that no-one watches it. It's too international and, dare I say, intellectual for your average Australian couch potato, alas. SBS is also extremely vulnerable as 90 percent of their funding comes directly from the Federal Government. The best broadcaster in Australia is comprehensively marginalised and hence not typical for contemporary Australia - even though, of course, they should be.
So should be the ABC but almost the same thing applies. Hardly anyone watches the "Australian arm" of the BBC (in my house, "ABC" stands for "Another British Comedy"), and most people would agree with the statement that the ABC is too left-wing in its political stance. You have to live in Australia to understand how something as staid, white upper-middle-class, anglocentric and conservative as the ABC could possibly be seen as left-wing...
In general, Australian TV can be summed up thus:
"On the radio and in television, the ABC still continues to act as a branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and the programs of the commercial stations are almost pure Hollywood. The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is the only national medium that ventures beyond Britain and the United States, both in its news and public affairs services and in cultural programs. As a result, in an often asserted 'multicultural society', the communications media and public institutions remain almost entirely monolingual and monocultural." (Jamrozik pp. 144-145)
Channel 10's majority share holder is Canada's CanWest Global Communications Corp. Channel 9 is owned by a man called Kerry Packer - he's basically what would've happened to Rupert Murdoch had the latter not globalised his enterprise. Finally, Channel 7 is majority-owned by Australian businessman Kerry Stokes.
In short: if you want to know what Australia REALLY IS, as opposed to what it could be but has chosen not to be, just look at the commercial stations. I'll post updates each week about the 10 most watched TV shows in the previous week and let you count the number of American shows that make the Top Ten. They're lifted holus bolus from American networks (so are a lot of the "news" on the commercial channels) and Australians love it. Incidentally, I might do the same for films, as the situation concerning films is even more drastic. We'll see.
posted by edgarross at 9:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home