50 Years of Television in Australia Page 42
Early departure, but travelling in style
September: Travelling to war zones and dealing with despots is never easy. But even experienced journalist Richard Carleton gets himself on the wrong side of people with guns. Indonesia deported Carleton and his three-man crew from East Timor after it claimed they were creating a dangerous disturbance by confronting the pro-Indonesian militia as the local people voted on the future sovereignty of the territory.
Carleton denied his actions put anyone in danger, but an Australian Government delegation disagreed. Chief among them was Labor foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton, whose car was attacked shortly after Carleton’s run-in with the militia. Most disturbingly, Carleton was forced to leave Indonesia without the Esky he carries on assignment. As Lindsay Murdoch reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, the fate of the ‘quince paste, fish roe, smoked salmon and oysters, asparagus spears … and a case of top Australian wines’ remains unknown.
Something about Pauline
February: After being humiliated at the 1998 federal election, Pauline Hanson began 1999 as a broken figure – until the ABC’s documentary program Australian Story gave her a chance to speak. As producer Wendy Page told The Age: ‘At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it … but then people were saying to me … “You’re just giving her a free run”. I thought, how dare anybody say that we shouldn’t do Pauline Hanson; she has as much right to tell her story as anyone else.’
Page’s attitude neatly illustrates how Australian Story has forged its place on Australian TV. Its egalitarian nature mirrors that of the community whose stories it tells. The way those stories are told, free of narration, is one of its greatest strengths.
‘The audience seems to really love that because they are very cynical, sceptical and uncomfortable with a lot of journalistic practice,’ executive producer Deborah Fleming said. ‘You don’t get a lot of opinionated commentary, you get something which feels a bit closer to one-on-one communication.’
Ten gets Good News
January: In a deal believed to be worth $6 million, Network Ten has lured Good News Week across from the ABC. It’s a loss for the ABC: Good News Week was one of its most popular national shows. But according to host Paul McDermott, there’s no room for sentimentality in the move.
‘I think it’s probably time,’ he told the Herald-Sun. ‘The ABC should be a place for putting up new ideas and getting creative things happening. As we have somewhere to go it leaves an avenue for other performers and writers to get shows up.’
While the ABC has accepted the move, it remains sceptical. ‘It will be interesting to watch how the program works in a commercial environment,’ ABC General Manager Ron Saunders said.
ON DEBUT
> Dogs Head Bay – comedy written by David Williamson, produced by Hal McElroy, and starring Gary Sweet
> Huey’s Cooking Adventures – Iain Hewitson, seen on Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise, gets his own cooking show
> All Star Squares – yep, this game show back again
> The Wine Lover’s Guide to Australia – a journey into the local wine industry
> The Crash Zone – 26-part kids show, a Disney and Australian Children’s Television foundation co-production
> The Adventures of Sam – children’s animated series
> Hot Property – property show with Michael Caton, star of The Castle (below)
> Super Debate Series – comedy debates
> Thunderstone – children’s drama series
> A Gondola on the Murray – cooking show with award-winning chef Stefano de Pieri
> The Arts Show – a look at the contemporary arts scene with Andrea Stretton
> High Flyers – children’s drama series
> Pig’s Breakfast – children’s comedy series
> Message Stick – indigenous affairs program
> Backberner – satirical news program with Peter Berner
> Global Village – Silvio Rivier debuts a low-budget travel show on SBS
> Hi-5 – energetic show for preschoolers
> 2 Shot – ABC interview series with prominent personalities
Million-dollar battle for supremacy
April: They say there are no new formats in quiz and game shows. But it seems there are ways you can tinker with existing formats to make them irresistible to audiences.
Case in point. When Britain’s ITV network broadcast Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?, another quiz show, no one knew if it would succeed. When 18 million people tuned in, its producers realised they’d done something right.
Unlike other quiz shows, you didn’t need a vast general knowledge to be in with a chance. The new format meant you could guess your way to the major prize, the journey to the big bucks was quick and the big bucks were very, very big indeed: a million pounds.
Recently, channels Nine and Seven brought their own million-dollar quiz shows to Australian audiences in a head-to-head fight to the death – Nine’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? up against Seven’s $Million Chance of a Lifetime. Both were trumpeted fiercely by their respective networks, but when it came to an outcome there was no need to phone a friend: within just a few weeks $Million Chance of a Lifetime was more or less floating belly-up in the pool of failed quiz shows. Since then, Millionaire host Eddie McGuire, and his knack for wringing every last skerrick of tension from the simple act of asking someone a question, has kept viewers coming back.
Millionaire has even achieved the feat of being the most-watched program on Melbourne TV for each of the six nights it went to air in one week. So does that mean it will be back for a second series? Yep, you can lock that one in, thanks, Eddie.
Channel 7 has launched an ambitious new satirical-comedy double, with spoof news show The Big News, starring Marg Downey and Michael Veitch, being followed by The Late Report, a comic look at current affairs featuring talent such as Richard Stubbs, John Safran, Tony Wilson and Matt Tilley.
Bye Bye to Hey Hey
November: After 28 years, one of Australia’s favourite variety shows is no more. Hey Hey, It’s Saturday will pass into TV history after making household names of host Daryl Somers, Ossie Ostrich, the ditzy but self-aware Jackie McDonald, a head on a stick called Dickie Knee and the many characters of John Blackman.
Originally a kids cartoon show, Hey Hey gradually attracted an adult audience before being moved to an evening slot better suited to the adult tone of the humour.
Fans will recall with fondness segments like Red Faces, Media Watch Press (a pre-cursor to Rove’s What The?), and What Cheeses Me Off, all of which were launching pads for Hey Hey’s trademark spontaneity.
Pay TV paying off
August: Four and a half years after it arrived, it seems pay TV is starting to make inroads. The first ACNielsen pay TV ratings figures were released this month and they make interesting reading.
Australians are taking up pay TV as rapidly as anywhere else in the world. More than one million local households – around 16 per cent – have pay TV.
As Debi Enker wrote in The Age, those figures are significant. ‘The survey revealed that the pay operators are attracting a 7.3 per cent audience share, well above SBS at 2.8 per cent and about half that of the ABC.
‘Last year, pay TV attracted $10 million of the $2.5 billion advertising pot; this year, the figure jumped to around $30 million.’ Which explains those strange choking noises you heard from TV execs at the free-to-air networks when the figures were released.
A Frontline moment
August: After 43 days alone and lost in the Great Sandy Desert, Alaskan fireman Robert Bogucki would have been ecstatic – if he had the energy – when the Channel Nine chopper touched down. The TV crew inside it were too, but not for humanitarian reasons.
In a tape leaked to the ABC’s Media Watch, the TV crew were shown giving Bogucki muddy water and asking him to walk around for more than 17 minutes, all in the name of getting the story. Bogucki replied: ‘I’ve had enough of this walking arou
nd. Why don’t you let me recuperate? I’ll have a better story for you if you give me a day or two to eat something.’
On the defensive, ACA’s Executive Producer David Hurley denied claims his crew had withheld water from the thirsty Alaskan. They had given him water as soon as the chopper touched down, but, in a shock revelation, Hurley claimed Bogucki had refused it. What’s a few more minutes, anyway?
MEMORIES
> Jana Wendt becomes the host of SBS’ Dateline, after the controversial sacking of host Helen Vastikopolous.
> Young ’uns get their own all-singing, all-dancing variety troupe when Hi-5 debuts on Nine (below).
> Gritty ABC drama Wildside is tossed onto the ‘used’ pile.
> SeaChange hauls in the audiences, achieving the highest-ever ratings for the ABC.
> After 24 years, Channel 7’s midmorning show 11 AM is axed.
> Channel 7 introduces its watermark to the corner of TV screens, dutifully keeping us aware of which channel we are on.
> The C classification celebrates its 20th anniversary.
> Mick Molloy Show debuts to disastrous reviews and even worse ratings, and is axed after just eight weeks.
> Capitalising on the strength of Good News Week, Ten devise GNW Nite Lite which changes its focus from news to movies, music and pop culture.
> With Channel 9’s The Footy Show rating its boots off, Seven’s attempt at a ‘football variety show’, Live and Kicking, hosted by Jason Dunstall, gives up the fight after just two years.
> HG Nelson hosts a series of uproarious debates on issues like ‘the Aussie bloke is a hopeless joke’ and ‘middle age is sexy’.
> Young comedian Rove McManus, fresh from community television, debuts as host of his own talk show on Nine, called Rove, but the show is dumped after its initial 10-week run.
> Gold Logie: Lisa McCune
> Hall of Fame: Mike Walsh
RATINGS
‘TV ratings’ has become a household term in Australia. TV networks swear by them, swear at them and interpret them with creative flair. But do we really know what they mean? With networks chasing revenue and advertisers chasing an audience, it seems ratings can mean an awful lot to an awful few.
It’s all about eyeballs
It was in the 1930s when an American bloke named Archibald Crossley started randomly dialling numbers out of the phone book and probing unassuming punters on their radio listening habits. This non-profit system of audience measurement, known as the Crossleys, lasted for about 15 years, but ended in 1946 as several for-profit companies began offering improved services.
TV ratings represent a numeric estimate of a television viewing audience. The figures can be seen as currency for the television and advertising industry to buy and sell television airtime, and to plan and schedule programs. Without a ratings system no network or TV program could claim the lofty status of being number one in a particular timeslot or period. It has been known for networks to send branded news vehicles to cruise a suburb rumoured to have several ratings boxes. Attracting that local interest could be worth a ratings point, which equals dollars.
For example, in Australia for a TV show to receive one ratings point, it is imagined that 1 in 100 Australians are watching that particular show. Strong performers such as Desperate Housewives constantly rate in the 20s and even 30s, suggesting 30 people out of every 100 (in the capital cities) – or roughly three million viewers Australia-wide – regularly tune in to catch the latest scandal on Wisteria Lane.
The figures are taken from a sample core of about 3000 households in the five major cities and 1950 in five major regional markets. The results are then extrapolated or averaged to attain a national figure. The selection of the panel aims to be a demographic cross-section of the larger community. Australia employs the largest percentile sample group out of all the Western countries, garnering us the least erroneous result.
From 1957 to 1991, Australian television ratings were collated by McNair Anderson (later AGB McNair), using a simple system that required the selected household groups to complete a written ‘diary’ explaining their viewing habits of the previous week.
ACNielsen took over in 1991 with the patented ‘People Meter’ system. The company selected a sample populace and fitted an electronic counter in the selected viewers’ TV sets. The data was collected via a telephone or modem each night and translated into readable statistics the following day. The people meter system was viewed by many in the industry as superior, because viewers did not have to remember to fill out a diary – their viewing was automatically recorded. It revealed a significant increase in reported viewing for daytime and late-night TV. The new way confirmed that Australians had tended to under-report how much time they spent watching American soap operas before the era of people meters.
For a short time, the ABC employed not just quantitative but qualitative measures, using Newspoll to conduct audience surveys to gauge not only how many people were watching, but also how much they enjoyed what they were watching. The Audience Appreciation Index was the short-lived result.
The three major commercial networks, continued to squabble about who was in fact number one and who could therefore attract the most lucrative advertisers. In a much-publicised takeover in 2001, the ACNielsen method was dumped to give rise to the new OzTAM (Australian Television Audience Monitor) ratings system, commissioned by the networks themselves, which feels a lot like politicians being in charge of popularity polls.
OzTAM collated information in much the same way and it was assumed networks would be much happier with the outcome. Not so. After seeing the less-favourable than expected results, Kerry Packer’s Channel Nine was furious.
Further scrutiny was applied to the OzTAM system when in April 2005 it was revealed that more than 638,000 Australians clung to a nail-biting blank screen. Channel Seven had a major power failure during an episode of Blue Heelers and for 45 minutes was airing … well, nothing. Ratings register that a TV is turned on and tuned to a channel and nothing else. Advertisers rightly began questioning the premium rates charged by commercial stations.
With everyone twisting the figures to suit sales pitches, promotional material and self-satisfaction, it seems every commercial broadcaster continues to emerge a winner. All of which raises the question as to whether we’re any better equipped these days than Archibald Crossley and his telephone.
The most-watched TV shows of the 20th century
In the top 20 shows of the 20th century, swimmers, footy players, princes and princesses feature heavily. The following list was compiled by David Dale for the Sydney Morning Herald using estimates from ACNeilsen. All the shows listed attracted more than half of all people watching TV at the time they were broadcast.
2000
Gold, gold, gold for Olympic TV! If you were armed with a hammer or a pop voice and aesthetic, you were also in for a big year. Smell something a bit ripe? Could be a cheesy comedy, or old Molly back to give it one more go. Farewell, Maggie.
Olympics glory not only for athletes
October: Channel 7’s coverage of the Sydney Olympic Games has exceeded all expectations in terms of ratings and, along with a couple of clever side shows, has been the gold medal winner in television this year.
The telecast of the opening ceremony was watched by a new Australian record TV audience of over 10 million nationally; the swimming notched up big figures during the first week, and across the country the Olympics coverage occupied the top 28 ratings spots, with SeaChange at number 29. By the time Cathy Freeman limbered up for the final of the 400 metres, Olympic excitement had reached fever pitch and almost nine million viewers nationwide cheered her home.
The other networks couldn’t wait for the closing ceremony to roll around but when it arrived, it, too, blew the lid off the ratings box. In Melbourne it even out-rated the opening spectacle.
But it wasn’t just the straight coverage of the events that grabbed gold for Seven – the late-night off-beat comedy offering
The Dream also had audiences in raptures. Presented by ‘Rampaging’ Roy Slaven (John Doyle) and HG Nelson (Greig Pickhaver), The Dream mocked, roused and poked fun at the Games. Athletes both local and from overseas clamoured to get onto the show and their esteemed mascot, Fatso the fat-arsed wombat, became a cult figure – even making the news when it was reported he was being banned from medal presentation ceremonies because he wasn’t a legal, sanctioned mascot.
It was the officials who inspired the other great comedy of the Olympics, The Games. The series was created and written by Ross Stevenson and John Clarke, who also appeared as the head of administration and logistics for the Sydney Olympics. After The Games first aired in 1998, the second series commenced in June and ran in the lead-up to the Olympics, parodying events almost as they occurred. One memorable highlight of the series was when John Howard (the actor) delivered an inspiring monologue on Aboriginal reconciliation. Had the Prime Minster sat up and taken notice, it could have been one of the greatest victories of the Games.
Where there’s a will, there’s a TV DIY way
December: There is no longer any excuse for having a shabby shed or lacklustre garden. With the current bombardment of renovation, DIY and home lifestyle shows on TV, a bevy of cheap and cheerful solutions is only a remote control click away.
Three feisty newcomers, Renovation Rescue, Ground Force and Backyard Blitz, have arrived on the TV scene, trowels in hands, to take their place alongside Hot Property, Our House and Better Homes and Gardens. Backyard Blitz, the garden makeover show which premiered in March, is a spin-off from a popular segment in the long-running Burke’s Backyard, and Ground Force is based on a similar concept.
The glut seems to have the audience to support it, with lifestyle shows making up four of the five highest rating programs of the year, excluding the phenomenally successful Olympics coverage.