The simpleton life
July 10, 2004
In the quest for reality ratings, Australian television can never be too bland, writes David Dale.
Mediocrity wins. The blandest cream rises to the top. The ordinary shall inherit the earth. This is not another diatribe about Eddie McGuire, though we'll get to him in the end. It's the general problem of Australian-made television at the moment. And the commercial networks have only themselves to blame because they handed control of their program content to teenagers with unlimited credit on their mobiles.
The networks panicked about the apparent drift of young viewers towards competing entertainments such as DVDs, video games and the internet. They developed this theory: the fickle under-40s will come back to us if we give them a feeling of participation, by letting them vote on how the story should proceed. And we'll charge them to phone us.
The policy did bring back some youngsters and did make the networks some money. But long term, it put the rest of the viewers to sleep because the kind of people who have enough time, energy and parental indulgence to keep phoning shows such as Big Brother, My Restaurant Rules and Australian Idol tend to vote with their worst instincts - racism, envy, conservatism and fear, rejecting anyone who is unusual or challenging.
In My Restaurant Rules, the professional judges were least impressed with the work of the Perth couple. But the Perth sweeties won anyway, after voters rejected the Sydney couple for putting cooking ahead of grooming, the Brisbane couple for being eccentric and the Melbourne couple for being tall poppies.
On Big Brother, the voters, who are mostly insecure teenage girls, throw out the liveliest female contestants first because they find them threatening and then vote off male contestants who do not conform to their view of normality.
Eight weeks ago this column predicted that the winner of this year's Big Brother would be single mother-of-two Catherine. We're sad to see our prediction is coming true. By excelling at nothing, she reassures the phone voters that they, too, could find a place on Big Brother and be famous for 15 weeks.
The rise of the ordinary is also manifested in the afternoon game show Deal Or No Deal. Unlike previous quiz show formats, it requires no skill or knowledge or charm from its contestants. This show is credited with delivering a huge lead-in to
the 6pm news and putting Seven ahead of Nine for the first 90 minutes of prime time.
Of course, all blame lies with Eddie McGuire. In Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, he was the first to demonstrate that you can be the most tedious man on earth and still get ratings. It is ironic, then, that he failed to beat Deal Or No Deal when Nine briefly tried putting him on at 5.30pm. Australian television has reached such a state that not even Eddie McGuire is boring enough.
Films
Last weekend's box office
1 -* Spider-Man 2 $7.13 million (**$8.73 million)
2 1 Shrek 2 $5.30m ($34.58m)
3 2 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban $1.71m ($27m)
4 3 Mean Girls $1.27m ($4.22m)
5 - New York Minute $0.60m ($0.60m)
-MPDAA
Videos
Top-selling, week to June 27
1 Spider-Man
2 Return of the King
3 Finding Nemo
4 The Wiggles: Top of the Tots
5 Shrek 3D: The Story Continues
-GFK Marketing
* Last week's position
** Takings since release
CDs
Top-selling singles, to July 4
1 2* F. U. Right Back (Frankee)
2 1 Everytime (Britney Spears)
3 3 Burn (Usher)
4 4 I Don't Wanna Know (Mario Winans)
5 5 Trick Me (Kelis)
-ARIA
TV
Mainland capitals, week to July 3
1 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (9) 1.95 million
2 Nine Sunday news (9) 1.88m
3 Law & Order: Criminal Intent (10) 1.80m
4 Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (ABC) 1.72m
5 Who wants To Be A Millionaire (9) 1.62m
-OzTAM
www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/09/1089000347327.html?oneclick=true
