From Clint Eastwood to Bert Newton – here’s what Melbourne could watch on that new technology, the television set, to see in the new decade.
The ‘natural sounds’ of native animals like this koala had been heard on ABC Radio, but bringing them to TV audiences in the 1960s presented new and exciting challenges.
abcarchives/flickr
When the ABC began screening local wildlife television, it helped create a new environmental nationalism, implicating audiences in the survival of Australian animals.
A best boy does more than heavy lifting.
www.shutterstock.com
Zombie TV shows are reboots with the same casts and locations. Seachange is the zombie virus’s latest victim but the zeitgeist has moved on and the show’s comic tone grates.
Susie Porter as Marie and Kate Jenkinson as Allie in Wentworth. The show’s drama revolves around a women’s prison.
Fremantle Media Australia/Xinger Xanger Photograph
In the popular Australian TV series Wentworth, the setting of a women’s prison is a pressure-cooker for drama. The setting also allows for greater representation of diverse female characters.
Charlotte Best in the Australian Netflix original drama Tidelands (2018). Research last year found that only around 1% of the Netflix Australia catalogue was Australian content.
Hoodlum Entertainment
Netflix may be inching closer to becoming a “local” media company, with an increased presence in our small but profitable national market. Will this lead to more locally-made content?
SBS is continuing to tap into the slow TV trend, with its suite of ‘Slow Summer’ programming, including one exploring the Kimberley.
SBS
Slow TV is perfect viewing for our binge-watching, multi-tasking population.
Ebonnie Masini and Rian McLean in Round the Twist (1989), one of Australia’s most fondly remembered children’s TV dramas.
Australian Children's Television Foundation
TV networks must produce new local children’s TV drama each year - but they are increasingly making animation, with little sense of place. We need shows that will reflect kids’ lives back to them.
Aaron Pedersen as Cam Delray in Jack Irish. In 1999, Pederson was one of two Indigenous actors on Australian TV.
Supplied.
Australian television turns 60 this year, so we’re celebrating classic TV tunes of the fifties and sixties – those theme songs and jingles you can’t get out of your head.