FTA-TV Why is Australian TV so bad?

[PP34]

I don't think I've ever been addicted to an Australian TV show.

If it wasn't for the football, cricket and soccer on SBS, I could easily go without a TV.

Every show that is popular in this country is either cringe worthy, catered towards women or just stands out because of the low quality of our TV shows. Sometimes it's all three.

Take now for instance. Every night at around 7pm, I'll sit down and watch TV with my folks while eating dinner. Every night it's the same old rubbish, The Block for a few months then MKR and now The Voice. Then you've got rubbish like Offspring and House Husbands that is considered "drama" and "quality" TV.

Are many Australians just too silly and don't realise that there's a whole different world of TV out there, waiting for them? Maybe if they realised and started to take their business to Foxtel for US and UK cable shows or just online via illegal and legal methods, we'd end up with some actual quality TV.

Many Australians in their 40s-60s and those who aren't tech savvy seem to accept the way things are advertised, given to us etc in this country and I think it's the reason why we're stuck with a nightly lineup of The Block, The Voice, The Biggest Loser, re-runs of Two and a Half Men and so on.

 

[Bluelegs]

Money.

 

[flight23]

haven't watched basically any Australian television in a long long time

watched Howzat and enjoyed it, but even that felt like it had been 9'd up with the music video stuff

i've got sooo many friends who DL Breaking bad, game of thrones, homeland and all the other big ones, but also watch those FTA shows, think it has to do with being able to talk about it with people at work and stuff

 

[PP34]

haven't watched basically any Australian television in a long long time

watched Howzat and enjoyed it, but even that felt like it had been 9'd up with the music video stuff

i've got sooo many friends who DL Breaking bad, game of thrones, homeland and all the other big ones, but also watch those FTA shows, think it has to do with being able to talk about it with people at work and stuff

It's shit because my mates either don't watch TV or only watch FTA garbage.

I couldn't really care about the state of Aussie TV as US Cable shows are great, but it would be nice to switch on the TV for once and watch a show that isn't geared towards idiots or women who love crappy shows like Offspring.

 

[flight23]

i hear ya

my antenna for FTA was disconnected for a month and i didn't even realise, my housemate came back from overseas, went to watch something and lost it when he realised how long i hadn't watched FTA ANYTHING!!!! for

ive got a hard drive full of all the shows and slowly but surely more and more mates are coming to me to get entire quality shows

i do freak out when i see my FB page after a big episode of masterchef or the voice and some of the convos people i would assume hate that shit are having

 

[JuddsABlue]

I think the fact that Underbelly was so succesful is a sign of how desperate Australians are for some dirty TV

It just seems like everyone is so scared of smut. Cant swear, cant have a gun, cant do a drug, cant J walk basically. Every show is either a reality show or a story based around some type of moral code where the good/honest guy always wins. The dirtiest Australian TV gets is whether a room mate is torn between confessing that his friend is cheating on his partner.

We also do lack sex appeal, it sounds stupid, but sex does sell and there arent that many great looking actresses running around Melbourne shooting crime dramas

In the end though I guess it does come down to money. More money means better writers and better actors to deliver the script. Bigger budgets mean better sets etc etc.
Personally I'd just love for someone to come out and make a show a little left field.

 

[Black Flag]

what's new? i can't remember a time when tv wasn't shit.

 

[Vader]

Mostly it boils down to money. Shows like Game of Thrones and CSI cost millions of dollars to make.. per episode. They cost more per episode than the Australian networks can afford to spend on a whole series. The difference shows up in the production values. It's all to do with economies of scale - the US has around 300M potential viewers, with strong potential for worldwide sales as well, while Australia has a population of just 23M, with very few of our shows being purchased for viewing overseas.

It wasn't that long ago that the main cast of Friends were getting $1M each per episode. I suspect that the makers of "Packed to the Rafters" would be horrified if an entire episode blew out to cost $1M.

Reality TV shows are the bane of our existence because they are cheap to make. The "contestants" aren't actors and aren't subject to the award wages that Actors normally receive. Sure, the winner gets a heap of money, but the rest of the contestants get very little. These shows are cheap to produce - and by and large they're absolute rubbish. That's why I don't watch any of the glorified Z-grade talentless contests, whether it's singing, dancing, renovating, cooking or losing weight. They're all rubbish and you couldn't pay me to watch any of them.

 

[djrossie16]

I was thinking the same thing the other day when I was watching the Irish crime show Love/Hate which is really good. The Aussie dramas and shows are generally really bad. Every now and then you get something okay like Last Man Standing or something funny like that probably will only last a season or two due to ratings though. Tangle on foxtel is a quality show.

Judging by the amount of replies in the My Kitchen Rules thread people watch crap. Just keep going overseas for quality is my advice.

 

[psychobrown]

Yeah, probably also to do with the tax offset/cultural representation thing. We don't produce as many sitcoms or shows like yesteryear since they are too generalized for the Aussie bigwigs and the producers won't be able to pocket enough money from the tax breaks. Even though I wasn't a real fan of it, Kath & Kim was the last show that was the best of both worlds and was largely successful. Until they change their funding model, we will be subject to the same crap until youtube takes over.

 

[Marlowe]

All the talented people in our entertainment industry are in film, and they usually leave overseas first chance they get.

There's no point having a career in television here unless you're the host of a lame talk/reality show.

 

[Roobs321]

Has no one here seen Love My Way? That was one of the best TV dramas of the 2000s...anywhere.

But I generally agree. I havent sat down to watch a currently running episodic show each week since Life of Mars back in 07/08.

 

[FISTO]

Full Frontal was the best thing on television during the 90's. I'm afraid that was when Australian television was at it's peak.

 

[HugeJohnson]

Money, accent, talent, support, demand etc etc etc

 

[half_back_flank]

Every now and again a fantastic Australian series comes along.

At the moment it is Rake.

 

[raskolnikov]

Hit rock bottom and started digging with Celebrity Splash.

There have been some quality Australian shows. Prisoner, The Sullivans and Carson's Law were all very watchable.

I'm curious about this new show A Place to Call Home. It looks like it could be worth a go.

 

[Andre]

Mostly it boils down to money. Shows like Game of Thrones and CSI cost millions of dollars to make.. per episode. They cost more per episode than the Australian networks can afford to spend on a whole series. The difference shows up in the production values. It's all to do with economies of scale - the US has around 300M potential viewers, with strong potential for worldwide sales as well, while Australia has a population of just 23M, with very few of our shows being purchased for viewing overseas.

Whilst I partly agree on money and population versus the US, the last point could be considered a bit chicken and egg. Why would overseas viewers purchase rights to aussie shows when they are shoe string budget shit. Take GOT, as an ASoIaF fan this is my favourite show on TV at the moment, but if an Australian network had been willingly to stump up the cash (and GRRM agree of course!) to spend as much per episode it would have been snapped up by overseas networks and be just as popular.

Where I find myself disagreeing is not by looking to the US, but the UK. A population a little over twice ours with a ton of shows the last 40 years that are not massive budget yet shit all over pretty much anything Australian TV has produced. The BBC in particular puts out shows over and over that are quality enough to get networks worldwide purchasing, without playing with US type budgets. The past and ongoing worldwide success of UK TV is the one that Australia should be able to replicate - IF we actually had networks who could produce decent shows.

 

[Andre]

Hit rock bottom and started digging with Celebrity Splash.

There have been some quality Australian shows. Prisoner, The Sullivans and Carson's Law were all very watchable.

They were good. That's 30 odd years though since anything of that quality though.

 

[Gasometer]

Dumb audiences.

Lazy Channels.

The only shows I have watched with interest was Underbelly 1 and the Beaconsfield Tv movie.

Howzat was awful IMO.....waiting for the howls of protest...

 

[getthefooty]

Hit rock bottom and started digging with Celebrity Splash.

I thought I'd seen the worst of Australian TV until a promo of this came along. Surely they're just taking the piss?

 

[Jcpdragonx]

I think its pretty pathetic that we don't have a talk show host. Rove wasn't the best but at least he got A Listers down under. USA have so many talk show hosts, Colbert, Letterman, Ellen, etc. Even England have a fair few like Carr and Ross.

Australian TV has never interested me, I watched all the reality stuff as a kid (Idol S1-3, Biggest Loser (S1-4), Masterchef S1-2, BB) but shows like Neighbours, H&A, Underbelly, etc I couldn't bring myself to watch. Right now all I watch is sport, american sitcoms and maybe some random series.

 

[OrdinaryJoel]

Some of the channels do buy the American TV shows, but they show them at awkward times... Like Parks & Recreation being showed close to midnight? Dafuq?

 

[Vader]

Where I find myself disagreeing is not by looking to the US, but the UK. A population a little over twice ours with a ton of shows the last 40 years that are not massive budget yet shit all over pretty much anything Australian TV has produced. The BBC in particular puts out shows over and over that are quality enough to get networks worldwide purchasing, without playing with US type budgets. The past and ongoing worldwide success of UK TV is the one that Australia should be able to replicate - IF we actually had networks who could produce decent shows.

Where the ABC and the BBC differ is their funding model. The ABC is famous for being funded to the tune of 8c per day, per Australian. It's probably gone up a little bit since then, but anyway you care to look at it they're making the most out of very little.

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but in the UK people used to have to buy an annual license if they had a TV in their household. These license fees were then used to fund the BBC, which in turn was able to churn out much higher production value shows as a result. I'm fairly sure the BBC was (and still is) funded to more than 8c per day.

 

[Vader]

I think its pretty pathetic that we don't have a talk show host. Rove wasn't the best but at least he got A Listers down under. USA have so many talk show hosts, Colbert, Letterman, Ellen, etc. Even England have a fair few like Carr and Ross.

No.. he didn't. He gave them a forum to spruik their propaganda while they were down here, promoting their latest show/movie/etc, but none of them came down under specifically to speak to him.

 

[The Speaker]

I'm not sure if it's still the case, but in the UK people used to have to buy an annual license if they had a TV in their household. These license fees were then used to fund the BBC, which in turn was able to churn out much higher production value shows as a result. I'm fairly sure the BBC was (and still is) funded to more than 8c per day.

It's still the case today, and it's why the BBC regularly produces the best television in the UK, and is able to export so much of it.