How Tv Changed Australia In The 1970's

In 1956 television was introduced in Australia. In just as little as 3 years it has skyrocketed and was already able to sustain itself. The introduction of television in Australia changed Australian’s in so many ways, one quite significant one being the way Australian’s chose to stay home over going out to the movies.

The introduction of tv in Australia made many australians a lot more aware of American culture and exposed them to it more than they had been ever before. There was no denying that the American culture wouldn't rub off on Australian’s. The introduction of tv sparked prompt social

changes in Australia. It became very easy for australians to identify and imitate the values, ideas and trends displayed through American television

programs. e.g I love Lucy.
The image above is a visual timeline of tv’s and how they have changed throughout the past decades. I chose this source because I felt this was the was the best way to visually represent the evolution of tv’s
Television had an extremely important role in the evolution of Australian’s national identity. It formed a platform where distinctive Australian stories could be showcased while also allowing Australian’s to share all of their unique cultural experiences.
https://youtu.be/xboU4Afar9s
The video above talks about the development of the television itself and how and why tv’s look the way they do today. It shows you different designs of the tv and how they had improved and are still continuing to improve.

The development of television
From the beginning of the 1970’s to now the use of television was mainly for its enjoyment & easy accessibility as well as it being quite cheap.

In 1975 the Australian broadcasting channels started broadcasting in colour. The introduction of colour refreshed and refocused peoples interest due tot he fact that some TV shows were just more suited to colour. e.g Music and sport programmes.

In the picture above it shows the oldest colour television in Britain. Colour was a massive milestone as it completely changed television.

The 1990’s was a time of many technological advancements two huge ones being Digital TV and Pay TV. Digital tv and pay tv allowed people to have a broader range of choices. Movies, Comedies, Music, News and Sports were all accessible 24 hours a day.

Pay tv in Australia didn’t gain as much popularity as other forms of entertainment did in the past. In 1996 approximately 5 percent of Australian households subscribed to pay tv. It increased to 11 percent in 1998 and 17 percent in 2000. Nowadays 2.5 percent of Australian’s are subscribed to pay tv. e.g Foxtel, Netflix etc.

The negative

impacts
Despite television being extremely popular it had its negative impacts.

Parents, Health experts and Psychologists all dreaded the potential effects that television could have. It was said that long hours watching tv would only have detrimental effects on the social and the emotional development of kids. Television also decreased the quality of family life as well as increasing the obesity rate quite rapidly.

Satellite Technology

In 1968 Australia’s whole telecommunications system had been connected to the international satellite system. Pretty much all of Australia’s capital cities were connected to satellite.

The use of satellite allowed television stations to transmit their programmes on a lot larger scale.

Before satellite had been brought in, broadcasting a television programme was a lot more challenging as a tape of the programme had to be delivered from one city to another and so forth. Satellite on the other hand allowed

programmes to be able to broadcast almost instantly to cities all over Australia and countries outside of

Australia.

News, Current affairs and Video Tapes
In the beginning of the 1960’s video tape instantly had an effect on television production video tape allowed for efficient recording, broadcasting, preservation and re-sale of television programmes.
When television was first brought in, pretty much all live broadcasting wasn't recorded and 99% of the time was lost.
Few news image were recored on film as it was a very slow process.
As the years went by & technology advanced some television broadcast were recorded on kinescopes. This still wasn't that great as recordings were blurry and of very low quality.
Video tape was even more cheaper and much more efficient in recording, editing & broadcasting news. Videotape had the upper hand as television stations could pre-record news clips as well as be able to broadcast them at a high quality.

Video Cassette recorders (VCR’S)

In the beginning of the 1960’s VCR’S were introduced and dramatically changed home entertainment. The advantage of VCR’s was that they freed viewers from boundaries of regular television schedules. People were able to record television programmes and watch them in their own time. The VCR skyrocketed in popularity. Unfortunately VCR’S had a detrimental affect on cinemas causing many to either close or dramatically reduce prices in order to attract back customers.

Radio and technology
Over the past decades and decades to come radio has definitely proved itself immensely and its ability to adapt to the worlds changing way of life.
Radio technology had a major role in the spreading american popular music in throughout Australia. Throughout the 1950’s Australian commercial radio continuously played music of many American rock ’n’ roll artists. The goal was to grab the intention of teenagers as they're the most easily influenced.
In the 1970’s fm radio was introduced instantly creating many more radio channels allowing others to broadcast their own radio programmes.

Cinemas and technology
After television had been introduced cinemas were forced to rapidly advance technology as the television industry was growing threat.
Cinemas eventually had better sound quality, wider screens and the drive-in cinema was introduced as a strategy to attract people back to cinemas.

In conclusion there were many factors that influenced the advances in the technology of televisions. Without any of the advances we wouldn't have the tv’s we have today and the world would probably be a very different place.