americanisation of australian television

The Americanization of Australian Television is a sad and terrible thing. It is a process whereby ordinary Australians are bombarded every day with images of American lifestyle, so much that it merges almost unnoticed into their own lifestyle. It is a process whereby our home-grown entertainment industry is overwhelmed by the enormous powerhouse of the American economy, with drastic effects upon the modern Australian nation. Not only is Australian free to air TV being dominated by American produced shows, but a lot of the content on the Australian TV shows is sourced from America. American culture is part of Australian mass consumer culture, It dominates our television.

If we look at the early history of Australian television, virtually all program material until 1963 was of foreign origin, of which eighty three percent was American and the rest British (Cited in an article by Cunningham Stuart ,“History, Contexts, Politics, Policy”.) Philip Bell discusses in his article that even in the first two decades of television ‘American programs and formats dominated commercial channels’ ( Cited in an article by Bell Phillip, ‘Television’). So Americanization of Australian television is not just a recent development. This problem has been there right from the beginning with American shows like Leave it to Beaver and I love Lucy dominating the TV screens of Australian households.

Many are concerned with this issue, a good example is shown in an article written by David Dale, readers were asked if they were shocked by the revelation that all the most popular dramas and comedies on Australian television were made in America, and whether they thought TV stations should be forced to show more stories from other countries, including Australia. Carolina Peters talks about her concerns over this issue, she quotes, “I am not at all shocked that so much of the drivel on our TV screen comes from the US. I am, however, deeply concerned that so much of our programming is either direct from or heavily influenced by the US. The influence is clearly seen in the way kids today are affecting US accents and using US terms. I have heard many kids lately referring to their mothers as 'mom' instead of 'mum'.” ( Cited in the Sydney Morning Herald, David Dale).Whilst people like Terry North disagreed, Terry North talks about how the Australian networks should not be forced to show mo...

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...ence, and now talk and act like American teenagers. Australian television is threatened by the influx of American culture.

Phillip Bell talks about the rise of Australian ‘soaps’ in his article, for example Neighbours which began in 1985, he talks about how the show deals with ‘Australian’ issues. (Bell Phillip, ‘Television’), this isn’t necessarily true. In fact many of the storylines in Neighbours are taken from American soaps like Day of our lives or Bold And The Beautiful. Our screens are increasingly filled with disturbing storylines which continually push the boundaries of human depravity.

Australian commercial television has imported American formats (Bell Phillip, ‘Television’). Even the Australian Logies are becoming Americanised. At the 2005 Logie awards, there were at least two American celebrity guests, CSI Miami actress …… was given a lot of attention at the Logies, because of her famous American celebrity status. The Logie awards which were supposed to be awarded to shows that are produced in Australia, this year awarded a Logie to the OC for the best overseas program. The influence of the American culture on Australian television was clearly evident at the Logies.