Got an email from a site visitor a few weeks back which alerted me to the fact that “it seems like every night there’s just cheesy American pap on all free to air channels”. Far out, I thought, could this be true! I reached for the remote - I was dumb-struck - yep, this person was right - absolutely nothing on but “cheesy American pap”, with the exception of New Zealand’s “Border Patrol” and “Motorway Patrol” - oh, and who could ignore such great Aussie classics like “Australian Idol” or “Dancing with the Stars”. I really can’t wait for the upcoming “Celebrity Dog School” - aka “Barking with the Stars”. “Pap” is not the word to describe Australian television accurately. No, far worse - it’s total crap.

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Postman (1985) argues that the very medium of television frustrates political debate. Newton (1999), on the other hand, argues “It is not the form but the content” which is at fault. Turner (2003, p. 146) argues that “those in government or other positions of power”, including television station management, may be the real cause for Postman’s perceived frustration. While Turner’s concern, in that instance, is with Australia’s government-funded ABC, commercial television suffers a similar managerial interest, though the considerations are not to payments from the coffers of government, but to the revenue to be earned from advertisers. Seymour-Ure (1994) argues that television has “effectively enveloped politics” and in doing so, has taken it away from politicians and the people and placed it under the management of “advertising and marketing specialists”. Craig (2004, p. 132) claims television has reduced voters to consumers and “political parties and candidates have been reduced to mere products”. While each argument may differ, and each may well be valid, there can be no denial from any quarter that the advent of television has changed politics and has, as Craig (2004, p. 93) contends, “profoundly influenced the content and structure of everyday and public life”.

One merely needs to look at what happened during the recent Queensland State elections to see how television can change politics in Australia, just as it has done since the early 1950s, in Great Britain and in the United States of America. While neither politics nor television may be restrained by the oceans of the world, television, by its very nature, is, as Rothwell (2000) believes, directed by its preference of “images to words, icons to understandings, action to contemplation…emotion to reason”. And it only took one innocent dweller of the sea to show just how closely tied politics and television have become, how words, understandings, contemplation and reason can all be overridden by emotion and the loss of one of television’s, and Australia’s, most iconic figures.

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“Join me tomorrow night, when we bring you that story which no parent can afford to miss”, invites Tracy Grimshaw, presenter for Channel 9’s A Current Affair. “Join me tomorrow night, when we bring you that story which no parent can afford to miss”, invites Naomi Robson, presenter for Channel 7’s Today Tonight. Confused? Imagine how Australian parents must feel. These two shows, each offering stories which no parent can afford to miss are on at the same time – television’s primetime – a time when many parents are more than likely preparing dinner. This taunt, this suggestion that if one misses that story about an unscrupulous landlord, a mobile phone scam, or a ‘dodgy’ used-car salesperson, one risks being the next victim is a tactic which perhaps, as Roberts (2004) claims, is employed to “create and nurture a culture of fear and paranoia”. But it is a tactic whose potency may well be diluted in a sea of tabloid terminology, such as, ‘eyewitness observer’, ‘self-confessed murderer’, ‘must see television’, ‘exclusive, never before seen footage’, ‘whatever you do don’t miss it’, and ‘the television event that made the whole world stop’.

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A few weeks ago, Channel 9 ran a show, Fifty Years: Fifty Shows. A couple of nights ago, it was Channel 7’s turn to bask in that warm inner glow that was yesteryear with Five Decades of Laughs and Legends. They went down into the basement and dug up what they considered to be memorable moments in broadcasting history - I got bored and changed the channel after about half an hour. But thinking about it, it wasn’t so much that what they had to show was boring - I’m just bored with the television stations trying to convince us that what they have to offer is so great. As a commenter on a previous post said:

What is worse? That one day in the future, “Big Brother” episodes, and similar TV shows, will be considered classics worthy of repeating on a similar show.

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TISM sang “40 years of living then death”; Channel 9 crows 50 years of great Aussie TV shows then death. I had the pleasure of watching this show on TV last night - Fifty years: Fifty shows - on Channel 9.

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