I am so tired of watching Aussie TV channels. No quality material and full of shitty content. For even news- 9news, 7news, ABC all kept going on about Taylor swift all day. No quality news reporting at all. Thanks to YouTube , my go to channel for news now is DW and France 24. European channels are the best in my opinion.
Local channels are required to show 55 percent local content between 6am to midnight on their primary channel.
What’s the cheapest content you can make? Reality television. Great bang for buck there. Practically writes itself, and plenty of fools will go on it for free for the slim chance of a prize at the end. Just provide a few locations/sets, some alcohol to get the drama going, and Bob’s yer uncle.
Hence we have:
MAFS - seriously, how many times can you repeat an ‘experiment’ before you deem it a failure? Every season all I see is the miserable failure of alleged ‘experts’ in matching people.
SURVIVAHHH - JAW DROPPING CHALLENGES AWAIT OUR CONTESTANTS AND OMG BACKSTABBING, EVERY WEEK.
I’M A D-LIST CELEBRITY GET ME OUT OF HERE - As above. Less backstabbing though, that’s nice.
This is closely followed by game shows, so we also have:
DEAL-OR-NO-DEAL
TIPPPPING POIIIINT
THE CHASAAH
Finally, news and “current affairs” can then be used to plug the gap.
So we now we can run:
- 6-9am with a couple of hosts doing some morning television waffling on about nothing in particular.
- have a repeat of last night’s “prime time” shows from 10-12.
- squeeze in some overseas content like Days Of Our Lives in the afternoon.
- have a bit of gap-filler at NEWS, FIRST AT 5, WAIT 4.
- and then we can show the “real” news at 6. 30.
- Add in THAH PROJECT, or A CURRENT AFFAIYAAH, where we can talk for eight minutes , cut to two minutes of ads, cut back to the desk for another “coming up next” and then cut back to another two minutes of ads before we have to worry about actual content.
- Finally we can show our prime-time content (MAFS et al), which we’ve teased all day with ads sprinkled between everything else.
- After that, who cares? We’ve reached our local quota. Stick a movie or two on until midnight.
I used to think that ABC/SBS were a little dull. But now I’m glad of them.
"I’M A D-LIST CELEBRITY GET ME OUT OF HERE "
That’s a thing in Australian TV? I knew that it was filmed in Aus but I always thought it was exclusively made for Germany…
Edit: Nevermind, it seems like there are a dozen different versions of this crap internationally
The UK version is also in Aus. Makes sense as it’s aired in the UK winter so summer time in Australia. They sleep outside.
Reading up online it was originally a UK show but now also done in United States, Germany, France, Hungary, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Romania, Russia, Australia and India.
Good summary.
Its the people that work at these channels and production co’s that baffle me. Their work lives must be so vapid.
I can’t imagine what they must think to themselves when they’ve reached another end of their work day. They must derive a satisfaction from it that i can’t envision.
Please explain for those who are not up with the show acronyms, what the fuck is MAFS ?!?
Yeah I’d give FTA another decade, 2 max. Now I think about it this is kinda worrying tho, at least on FTA everyone sees the same broadcast. If everyone’s streaming and each user’s stream could be individually selected or even tampered with [deepfakes?] the problems we have at the moment with people living in different ‘realities’ could get a lot worse. I’m not saying that’s gonna happen, but interesting things happen when powerful entities have access to technology like that.
More realities is better. Or ideally we would do away with the concept of reality altogether and just have unreal worlds.
If you’re uncomfortable with people being in different realities you just have to practice planeswalking more. It’s not hard. Diversity is good actually. Letting Capital have absolute control over the means of reality is bad.
Diversity is good individually, helps us form balanced opinions. But having radically polarised individuals, with diverse and different views is bad for social harmony.
It’s naive to think the model will die. In fact it’s merely getting new operators and beneficiaries in the form of Google, Disney, Warner, etc.
The state and commerce will always vie and co-operate for control of the public’s media access and consumption patterns, with an eye to market captivity.
In older generations, the shitty programming appeals to gullibility and a fucked up sense of voyeurism. My 70+ mother thinks ACA is still the bastion of good current affairs reporting, and that MAFS is great prime time entertainment.
There’s only a few things I’ll watch on ABC, but the rest is on my Plex server.
I gave up watching Australian FTA in the late 90’s or early 2000’s. Their treatment of the end-user and the abuser abusee relationship there just wasn’t worth it. So many good shows I just stopped watching because I was sick of their crap and streaming / torrents weren’t a thing yet.
And before anyone goes “you’re not the customer you’re the product” yada yada, I very specifically said “end-user” earlier, not customer. I know. You’re not telling me anything I haven’t already acknowledged.
The only thing I’ve watched on FTA since is live sport when there’s no other options, or things via the catch-up apps (mostly ABC & SBS’s).
@bastardsheep @yoz The whole saga around Fran Kelly’s chat show in 2022 kinda sums up the issue: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/tv-and-radio/fran-kelly-is-fine-and-familiar-but-she-s-not-the-future-of-the-abc-20220812-p5b9c9.html
Since the early 2000s, the Australian free-to-air networks have churned out an endless stream of low-budget reality shows.
There’s been nothing really worth watching for the past 20 years on FTA, and better shows online. So everyone under around 40 tuned out long ago.
So the FTA networks have responded by pandering to the tastes and views of older viewers.
That’s not just on social or political issues. That’s in terms of the shows themselves, and the talent who host and appear on them.
And so any younger viewers that tune in end up tuning out. That leads to lower ratings, and fewer and dollars, which leads to more shows pandering to older viewers.
And so what you end up with is this self-perpetuating death spiral.
The very very few things I care to watch any more (and those almost entirely SBS and ABC) I can watch online. The other channels put together would be lucky to show anything I care about a few times a year. If they won’t stream it online I just don’t bother. If they won’t put on any stuff I care to watch, that’s their problem. My TV isn’t even plugged into an aerial any more, it’s only there to maybe use with the old games machines or maybe watch an old DVD
