Broadcast Wars

Screen media journalist for The Australian, Michael Bodey, asserts, quite rightly, that there was no golden age of Australian television. There was, however, a time when watching television was the predominant family leisure activity.

In the digital age, television has had to compete with cinema multiplexes, the roaring DVD trade, and, of course, the most significant threat to television habits: the internet, which not only provides healthy competition for television viewing, but also a means of conveying information about popular culture more rapidly than ever before.

Television networks are forced, more than ever, to pre-empt trends in television broadcasting; and rise to the challenge of bringing TV series to the small screen before viewers lose patience and turn their attention to the internet to sate their serial fix.

For years in Australia, the Nine Network held fast to the lion’s share of audience shares, but gradually, things changed, as did audience tastes, though this book doesn’t address the ‘chicken and egg’ theory about which drives which.

The dawn of the new millennium brought with it foreboding tales of digital catastrophe that never eventuated, and a new form of television that has dominated and proliferated ever since: reality TV.

Of course, ‘fly-on-the-wall’ TV series were not new – who could forget Sylvania Waters – but in 2000 US television executives devised a game show with a difference: one in which the contestants were immersed in a strange land with limited supplies, and forced to cooperate, while still competing against each other to win the series.

Survivor has been going for a decade; its success spawned a plethora of reality TV series. The format is such a familiar feature of popular culture, there have even been reality TV parodies (such as the hilarious Joe Schmo in 2003).

It’s ironic that the Nine Network brought Survivor to Australian television audiences. Since that time, its ratings dominance has waned.

For a time, the Ten Network, with its conspicuous pursuit of a youth audience, posed a challenge. But it was the Seven Network that emerged as the greatest threat.

In Broadcast Wars, Bodey, in a straightforward and eminently readable fashion, and peppered with behind-the-scenes tales of some of Australia’s most significant recent television series, such as Big Brother, Dancing With The Stars, and Packed To The Rafters, provides an account of how Australian television networks have vied for audiences.

He’s not afraid to get personal either, with disarming stories about entities such as Kerry Packer, Naomi Robson and Eddie McGuire.

Reverence is cast aside in favour of a refreshingly entertaining and downright jaw-dropping candor. It’s safe to say that one needs a strong constitution to work on either side of the television camera.

In essence, Broadcast Wars is a frank exposé of the big business and personalities behind the small screen. Anyone who’s watched TV in Australia over the past decade or so will find it consuming reading.

Listen to Michael Bodey discussing his book with ABC Queensland here

Rating: Four stars

Broadcast Wars
By Michael Bodey
Published by Hachette Australia
(ISBN: 978-7336-2776-7 / also available as eBook)
Paperback, 352 pages RRP $35