50 Years of Television in Australia

by Nick Place

  As each contestant falls foul of the audience, he’s pushed into the huge pool that’s a centrepiece of the show. At show’s end, the winning contestant is surrounding by ten swooning models dressed in red, all keen (apparently) to test the hardness of his pecs.

  Still, the Australian version of Man O Man will be less crude than the German version, and ‘much less debauched’ than the Spanish version, according to producers. Channel Seven hopes the show will claw back some of the territory held by Hey Hey, It’s Saturday.

  ON DEBUT

  > Ocean Girl – children’s series about a young girl from a distant aquatic world

  > Frontline – a satirical look behind the scenes of a show current affairs

  > Jimeoin – comedy show

  > Banjo Paterson’s The Man from Snowy River – set 25 years after the poem’s events

  > Just Kidding – pranks on unsuspecting members of the public

  > The Feds – big-budget telemovies about the Australian Federal Police

  > Heartland – drama mini-series starring Cate Blanchett and Ernie Dingo

  > Love Rules – infotainment show on relationships

  > The Times – late-night current affairs

  > Denton – late-night talk show hosted by Andrew Denton

  > A*Mazing – school kids compete in a high-tech game show

  > Total Recall – game show for kids

  > Alan Jones Live – talkback TV featuring Sydney radio’s Alan Jones > Mulray – Sydney radio jock Doug Mulray lands with a TV talk show

  > The Battlers – mini-series about an itinerant worker during the Depression

  > Three Men and a Baby Grand – comedy looking behind the scenes at TV variety

  > Living in the 90s – reality TV show about Australian social issues

  > Over the Hill – follows the struggles of a couple who buy a country pub

  > Bob Morrison Show – the adventures of Bob (below), an escaped canine

  > The Small Business Show – infotainment program targeting small business operators

  > Janus – Phoenix follow-up series

  > Level 23 – teen infotainment program

  > Cody – crime drama detailing the cases of unorthodox cop Cody

  > Ballzup – ABC attempt to capture the sports show market with an off-beat look at the week’s football

  No network heartbreak here

  May: Channel Ten’s new high school drama has done the unimaginable: presented real life situations in an honest and gritty way, won critical applause and – will wonders never cease – pulled in viewers by the school-bus load.

  Inspired by the success – and steaminess – of last year’s hit movie The Heartbreak Kid, Heartbreak High is the story of a bunch of kids from migrant, working-class families in the classrooms and schoolyards of Hartley High.

  Barely six months before Heartbreak High appeared on screens, TV legend Bruce Gyngell slammed Australian television’s Anglo-centric casting. ‘According to one British commentator, our soaps might as well have been cast by Hitler,’ Elizabeth Lopez wrote in the Green Guide. But critics have praised Heartbreak High for its courage in tackling the issues of growing up ethnic in Australia.

  With Alex Dimitriades in the lead role, this series has been given the unenviable task of screening before Beverly Hills 90210, whose creator claimed it was about the universal experience of high school.

  ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong,’ says Dimitriades: ‘Different country, different culture, different program.’ As Garrie Hutchison wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald’s View magazine: ‘Multi-racial, multicultural, and for a TV show, non-stereotypical. Heartbreak High is Footscray 3011 to Beverly Hills 90210.’

  Or as Lopez wrote: ‘If 90210, with its storylines about getting into the right ivy league college, looks like a parent and teachers’ newsletter with pictures, Heartbreak High is a suspension notice set to film.’

  The punt has paid off, with viewers not at all rattled by the culture clash and Channel 10 inviting the students and teachers of Hartley High back for more gritty action in season two.

  A Budding star indeed

  One of the most loved and respected figures in Australian film and television, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell was honoured at the Logies this year by being inducted to the Hall of Fame. He’s been around since TV’s earliest days and has had roles in shows including All the Rivers Run, The Sullivans, Certain Women and, of course, Homicide.

  Technology to the rescue

  June: Thanks to US President George Bush Snr, we may never have trouble programming our VCRs again. In a jovial moment, Bush pointed out that we can put people on the moon but we can’t build a VCR that’s easy to program. That comment led inventors to the creation of G-Code, a system that tells your VCR when to switch on, which channel to record, how long to record for and when to switch off.

  If reporter Rebecca Le Tourneau had her way, we’d have more gadgets like G-Code. Speaking on the ABC’s tech show, Hot Chips, Le Tourneau said gadgets were changing the way we live. The most far-fetched? A computer-based system of ‘communication links that holds the promise of delivering any movie, TV show, music recording or news service, as well as communicating with anyone or any business, via your home computer’. Heady stuff.

  More laughs from the ladies

  October: The girls are at it again. Magda Szubanski, Gina Riley and Jane Turner return to our screens after their successful run on Fast Forward with Big Girl’s Blouse, a wicked poke at all things Australian. With a one-hour season opener and eight half-hour episodes to follow, the series is set to introduce some memorable characters, some of them men.

  As Jim Schembri reported in the Green Guide: ‘Gina plays a mechanic explaining the philosophical need for pin-ups in the garage; Jane and Gina do a sketch playing drag queens – in effect women playing men impersonating women; and Magda plays a softly spoken sleazy man so well the character could be mistaken for an archetypal gruff lesbian.’

  But one of the most memorable sketches of Big Girl’s Blouse is sure to be characters Kath and Kim (played by Turner and Riley respectively) with Szubanski playing Sharon. We may never see a better, or more biting, satire of suburban Australia in all its glory.

  Footy Show proves the naysayers wrong

  September: They said it was a recipe for disaster. How could an hour-long show on the week’s footy teams survive without footage? Denied access to the highlights by Channel 7, The Footy Show went to air nonetheless and quickly found favour with footy fans – and even with many non-footy fans.

  Just seven weeks into the season, the Green Guide proclaimed The Footy Show the success story of the year. Eddie McGuire holds the show together, controversial ex-player Sam Newman is – well – controversial, while comedian Trevor Marmalade keeps things light, and mostly funny.

  With the AFL version already commissioned for another season, the question on everybody’s lips is, how long before we see an NRL version?

  MEMORIES

  > Ray Martin leaves Midday after nine years to join A Current Affair, saying ‘there will be changes … Current affairs (shows) have become sleazy, there’s too much foot in the door’. Derryn Hinch assumes the Midday chair.

  > Rachel Blakely quits Neighbours.

  > The cameras stop rolling after eight years on Australia’s longest-running sitcom, Hey Dad!

  > Pay TV becomes available in Australia.

  > SBS telecasts the soccer World Cup from Chicago, USA.

  > After 13 years, A Country Practice switches from Network Seven to Ten.

  > Neighbours screens its first lesbian kiss, involving Bridget Neval, 19, and Stephanie McIntosh, 18. The Age wrote that it ‘represents a high-water mark in the depiction of gay culture on family-oriented television’.

  > Natalie Imbruglia wins a role on The Bob Morrison show; the same year it debuts, the show’s producers pull the pin, saying its premise is exhausted.

  > SBS wins its first Logie nomination – for Most Outstanding Achievement in Publ
ic Affairs – but loses out to Channel Nine’s Sunday.

  > Nicky Buckley comes off the Sale of the Century modelling bench to become its new hostess.

  > Elle McFeast films men standing in cool water from the waist down as part of her one-hour ABC documentary Male Sexuality.

  > Woman pays $1500 to have lunch with Police Rescue star Gary Sweet.

  > Gold Logie: Ray Martin

  > Hall of Fame: Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell

  > Most Outstanding Achievement in Drama Production: Phoenix II

  LIFESTYLE SHOWS

  From tips on sewing to backyard makeovers, Australian TV has always had plenty of lifestyle advice to offer its viewers. But it was the arrival of Don Burke in the 1980s that made lifestyle into one of TV’s most popular genres.

  Do try this at home

  Ever since Australians first turned on the telly, we’ve been taking hints on how to improve our lives, our gardens, our cross stitch, even our choice of pavers in the backyard.

  Although the word ‘lifestyle’ didn’t become common parlance until the early 1990s, ‘home help’ quickly found a place on television and came in the form of charming programs such as Seven’s Your Home, a live-to-air women’s infotainment program, and Women’s World, which covered all things topical to the modern Australian woman, including cooking, sewing and flower arranging. This was not to be confused, of course, with the ABC’s Woman’s World, which featured demonstrations on how to incorporate feathers in a lady’s hairstyle and, for a touch of culture, an interview with a recently returned traveller from India. Later there was the inspirationally titled Hemline on the ABC, which targeted the fashion enthusiast in a daytime magazine format.

  Programs that focused outside the home have also been a regular feature since TV’s earliest days. Handyman, for example, started life on the ABC in 1958 and reappeared in different guises into the 1970s, providing useful tips for all those ‘men’s jobs’ around the house. Green thumbs, meanwhile, were kept mesmerised by programs such as In Your Garden, Sow What (1967–88) hosted by the legendary Kevin Heinz – famous for his signature sign-off of ‘Cheerio’ and the long-running Gardening Australia (1989–).

  But if there is a year zero in Australian lifestyle TV, it is 1987. That’s when Don Burke took the lifestyle concept to a new level with Burke’s Backyard. All of a sudden, lifestyle TV and infotainment programs seemed to become interesting to all Australians, not just those looking for some pruning tips.

  Burke’s Backyard started life as another gardening show, but soon became understood as a ‘life’ show. In fact, by covering gardening, food, pets and travel, as well as offering a weekly peek at celebrity living, Burke’s Backyard is credited with inspiring the term ‘lifestyle’ throughout the world.

  This groundbreaking initiative of celebrating ‘ordinary’ Australians in their own backyard soon spawned a new television genre. Some were even born from Burke’s Backyard segments such as Talk to the Animals (1993–96), in which Dr Harry Cooper would put Australia’s pets back on the road to health. The concept was renamed Harry’s Practice in 1997 and ran until 2004.

  Throughout the 1990s, the market became saturated with lifestyle programs which spanned all facets of life. Sex (1992–93), hosted by Sophie Lee, was a contentious release on Nine, while All in a Day’s Work (1992–94) on the ABC, which was co-produced with the Department of Education, Employment and Training, offered hints to the unemployed in their quest for work.

  Nine launched the popular Getaway in the early 1990s, starting with destinations around Australia before spreading its wings to offshore locations. Seven followed quickly with The Great Outdoors (1993–), fronted by Ernie Dingo. Ten’s Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise (1992–99) was a kind of hybrid show covering travel, cooking, cars, do-it-yourself and money matters, while Nine’s Money (1993–2001) focused on – you guessed it – money.

  On the home front, Our House (1993–2001) dedicated itself to home improvement and do-it-yourselfers, in much the same way as Better Homes and Gardens (1995–), a successful TV off-shoot of the popular magazine. Seven’s Ground Force and Nine’s Backyard Blitz (1999–) each offered loads of garden make-over tips from a happy, helpful team of handsome/hot-looking experts. Later, Hot Auctions (2000–05) and Location, Location (2001–04) offered useful real estate advice to those buying, selling or renting, and hitched a ride to ratings success on the back of the booming Australian property market.

  And what would lifestyle TV be without a foray into reality television? Programs such as The Block, hosted by Backyard Blitz presenter Jamie Durie, featured four couples each charged with the task of renovating a flat in an apartment block under the constant surveillance of Channel 9’s cameras for 13 weeks.

  In Australian TV’s 50th year, lifestyle programs are still going strong. For as long as we have backyards, bank accounts, and want to go on holidays, one suspects there will be TV execs bundling up lifestyle advice and delivering it via our televisions.

  As per majority?

  While the lifestyle concept has been a winner on Australian television, there have been many dud attempts at cashing in on it. Here are some of the more whacky and tacky:

  > Our Place – After the decision to axe Burke’s Backyard while it was still luring over one million viewers an episode, the canny folk at Channel Nine decided to replace it with a sassier model. They wheeled in straight-talking Scott Cam of Backyard Blitz fame to front the gig, but it failed to win viewers and only lasted a few episodes.

  > Your Life on the Lawn – Hoping to target hoarders, this snazzy program took a team into people’s homes on a mission to rid them of all their junk by chucking it all on the lawn. Can you hear that? It’s a gong.

  > Whose House is it Anyway? – For the trickster in all of us, three celebrities took host Graeme Bond on a tour of the same house, each claiming to be the true occupant, then viewers were supposed to try and guess who really lived there. You don’t need three guesses to work out what happened to the show.

  > Level 23 – Trying to engage the youth market in the lifestyle concept, Channel 10 launched this hip and happening show about fashion and other rad stuff, led by a team of cool dudes including Nathan Harvey and Nick Testoni. It quickly went out of fashion and soon found itself off air.

  > Personal Best – Channel 10 thought they’d cash in on the success of their recently launched Big Brother in this lifestyle challenge series. BB winner Ben Williams headed up a team of sports stars including Brett and Shane Lee, Liz Ellis and Dale Lewis who took ordinary Aussies and helped them achieve their goals. Viewers thought this was for losers.

  1995

  What a funny old place television is. This year, Frontline becomes renowned not only for being a great satire but also for shining a light into the tawdry tactics of commercial current affairs, while the pay TV revolution fizzles into a world-class non-event. Wheel of Fortune’s Adriana Xenides writes herself into the history books, and the evergreen Ray Martin is still our favourite TV personality.

  Frontline asks for less respect

  October: The makers of the satirical current affairs program, Frontline, have asked the Australian media to stop according them such respect, reminding everybody that it is nothing more than a comedy.

  The team from Working Dog felt moved to state their case after several strange developments, such as when a working committee for the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance drafting new ethical guidelines for journalists used the show as a point of reference. ABC stablemate Lateline also asked a representative of the show to appear on a program about journalistic ethics.

  Frontline, a fly-on-the-wall look behind the scenes of a nightly commercial network current affairs program, complete with an inflated host, Mike Moore, has been a winner for the ABC since its debut last year, rating in the high teens and forcing commercial stations to load up the big rating guns in a bid to counter it.

  The show has been so accurate with its storylines and portrayals of current affairs crews and metho
ds that there are persistent theories that senior TV journalists must be Deep Throats, leaking the truth. Last year, Frontline’s ruthless parodying was widely regarded as being a motivating force in Seven’s decision to dump Real Life’s guitar-strumming host Stan Grant.

  But Jane Kennedy, who plays super-bitch reporter Brooke Vandenberg, told The Age that the parallels were only because the Frontline team had learnt to think like the beasts they hunt. ‘Once we clicked into the way they think, it was natural but coincidental that we would tackle similar stories and issues.’

  As the team decides whether to take the show into a third series, Kennedy was careful to point out that the whole thing should be seen for what it is – a comedy. ‘It’s important that we avoid being seen as a media watchdog. We are producing entertainment. We are not there to occupy the moral high ground, nor are we about reforming society,’ she says.

  Phew, the team behind Are You Being Served? never seemed to have these kind of issues.

  Content, Schmontent. Everybody loves Ray

  March: Short-listed as Australian of the Year earlier this year, Ray Martin is a TV phenomenon. Forget his detractors who call him Mr Bland, Martin’s ratings and three Gold Logies (and counting?) tell their own story.

  The man who first signed Martin for 60 Minutes, Gerald Stone, told The Age: ‘Ray Martin is at the top of his career, a one-man industry.’ That industry now covers A Current Affair, Good Blokes and Superstars, hosting Carols by Candlelight, and occasional specials. Yet Nine viewers can’t get enough.

  The Age reports that women wrote to Channel 9 when Ray left Midday, promising that they would watch A Current Affair just to retain their little Ray of sunshine. And they have been true to their word, with ratings in Sydney for young women up 37 per cent and for older women, 18 per cent.