The underrated pleasure of staying on one TV channel all night
I don't know why I've held on to this memory, but when I was about five I was having a low-level bad day – it seemed to involve some angst about a grazed knee – and I was consoling myself with thoughts of watching Doctor Who as soon as I got home.
This wasn't some cool, modern Doctor. These were repeats on the ABC of Tom Baker in a chunky knitted scarf. I didn't have the foggiest idea what was going on in most of the plot lines, but I probably would have accepted anything in that after-school timeslot with equanimity.
Now, of course, there would be any one of a hundred televisual choices at my fingertips, but I don't know that I would be happier for it.
A lot of high-quality television is being made right now, and I've watched a lot of it with gusto. Ted Lasso was tender and joyful. The Last of Us, Succession and Fake were spectacular in very different ways. But having too much choice can be paralysing. There's even a name for it: the paradox of choice.
It is possible to scroll for hours on a streaming service without feeling any great conviction about one's eventual choice, precisely because there is always something else one might have chosen. It is low-stakes decision-making, but it can still be exhausting.
That's where a free-to-air multichannel steps up. It is the balm on my grazed knee.
On a recent weeknight, Nine Go! – one of the network's digital channels – offered a tasty smorgasbord of the same TV treats I watched in my childhood, topped off with a nighttime showing of The Matrix. Heaven.
Many of these shows (including those in earlier timeslots, such as Bewitched and The Addams Family) were decades old when I first saw them and looked positively ancient to me at the time. Now they are supremely comforting by virtue of their association with my junior years.
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The Advertiser
29 minutes ago
- The Advertiser
Yes, audiences have changed. But this is destroying a core tenet of news
This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy. We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us. We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy. Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering? Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed? How much have we really changed? I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry. This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years. Sure. Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased. She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things. So is it about the money? Probably. I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle. We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone. Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée. Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative." Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans. As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much. Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives. Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely. They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early. Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation. Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that? I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires. A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about. "He's building a war chest for TV," says one source. The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest. The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism. Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs. The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM. These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way. Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins. This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle. Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions. READ MORE: Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now. Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology. She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him. Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster. At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward." So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies. No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking. This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy. We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us. We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy. Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering? Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed? How much have we really changed? I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry. This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years. Sure. Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased. She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things. So is it about the money? Probably. I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle. We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone. Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée. Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative." Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans. As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much. Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives. Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely. They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early. Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation. Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that? I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires. A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about. "He's building a war chest for TV," says one source. The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest. The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism. Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs. The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM. These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way. Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins. This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle. Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions. READ MORE: Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now. Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology. She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him. Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster. At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward." So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies. No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking. This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy. We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us. We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy. Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering? Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed? How much have we really changed? I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry. This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years. Sure. Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased. She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things. So is it about the money? Probably. I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle. We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone. Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée. Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative." Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans. As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much. Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives. Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely. They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early. Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation. Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that? I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires. A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about. "He's building a war chest for TV," says one source. The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest. The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism. Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs. The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM. These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way. Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins. This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle. Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions. READ MORE: Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now. Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology. She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him. Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster. At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward." So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies. No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking. This is all our fault. We stopped watching Q+A. We stopped watching The Project. We've stopped appointment television unless it's the footy. We've changed. As a result, broadcasters, in an attempt to keep audiences, change what they're offering us. We know The Project lost its way, but believe me, when it started out, it felt young and fresh, brimming with energy. Did we start to disengage after it lost Charlie Pickering? Did we lose our sense of humour? Or did they lose their understanding of what we needed to know and how much that's changed? How much have we really changed? I'm not the right person to answer this because I listen, read and watch news all day, every day. But I've got some insights into what's going on at the ABC this week and it makes me want to cry. This week, the ABC announced it would end its panel show Q+A after 18 years. Sure. Despite the fact that ratings for the program, now hosted by Patricia Karvelas, had increased. She and her team, including the remarkable executive producer Eliza Harvey, kept trying different things. So is it about the money? Probably. I think about 10 people will lose their jobs from that program alone, including some who are on the ABC's notorious casual contracts cycle. We don't need to keep the same thing forever, but it's weird that both its panel shows have now gone. Let us hope and pray we don't get served up even more Hard Quiz or the bizarrely unentertaining House of Games, which now leads us into the news. I can't think of a less suitable entrée. Marks continues in his email: "Upcoming initiatives in news include investing in producing additional high-impact premium news documentary programs and embedding Your Say as a permanent initiative." Much as I love Your Say, I'm not sure it's all that. You answer various online questions and then somehow that's turned into filler, not attached to real humans. As you know, no need to be honest with a form - and it kind of plays with us, to be more conservative, to be more progressive, to see where it lands. Is it fun? Sure. Is it truly meaningful? Doubt that so much. Feels like phony participation. Falls far short. I remember my various editors over various decades telling me that the best way of representing what real people felt was to include real people, real names, real lives. Anyhow, I've asked various staff members at the ABC if they can decode Marks's email to all staff. Most have backed away politely. They say they don't really have a clue what most of it means. What they do know is that 40 staff will be made redundant, and 10 short-term contracts will be terminated early. Weirdly, in the more detailed change proposal, the ABC is backing away from digital and dumping innovation. Do we know any other 21st century organisation doing that? I'm shocked Marks thinks he can embed innovation in every unit. Real inventive thinking takes time, space and quiet. It is the exact opposite of what daily media production requires. A couple of insiders have said to me that these changes show a desire by Marks to strut his stuff. What he's doing, they say, is clawing resources (money, people) into television, something he actually knows about. "He's building a war chest for TV," says one source. The internal email says: "The objective is to enhance our TV slate in volume and ambition, increase our capacity to commission more high-value journalism, enable more original podcasting and put targeted resources into our metropolitan audio teams." Yeah, translated, TV war chest. The ABC already does brilliant, high-value journalism. Back the people you already employ. Fund more episodes of Four Corners. Give more staff to news, especially radio news and current affairs. The audience cannot possibly tolerate the barely changed iterations of news stories on AM, The World Today and PM. These are three flagships (and I listen as if news was my religion) and they should be treated that way. Now, going back to Marks's email to staff. See how TV comes first in that list. He's also decided to rename the ABC's Content division as ABC Screen, which will be led by Jennifer Collins. This might be the one bit of good news in the entire shemozzle. Here's an array of adjectives used by ABC employees to describe Collins: respected, no bullshit, pragmatic. And, doesn't interfere in tiny decisions. READ MORE: Apparently, she was overlooked when they appointed Chris Oliver-Taylor (he's the one who carried the can on the Antoinette Lattouf fiasco, but there were others, there were others). Bet ABC management very sorry about that now. Collins has had a long career at the ABC and a short career in commercial screen (as we seem to be calling television now) and has a double degree in television and psychology. She'll need that, not just in thinking about how audiences work, but in thinking about how her boss works. So many people have described Hugh Marks to me as a micromanager who needs more trust in the people who work for him. Speaking of micromanagers. In April, the then-newish host of the ABC's Media Watch, Linton Besser and his team, exposed Kim Williams as an apparently activist chair with no business running the most important media institution in the country. Micromanaging madly. And badly. Trying to leverage his status to influence who appeared on the national broadcaster. At the time, Marks said: "I am vigilant to ensure the proper delineation of responsibility between the board and management, and will act appropriately to ensure the best interests of the ABC, its people and audiences as we move forward." So far, no evidence we are moving forward. Just more bad news. More redundancies. No evidence that any of the most senior folks at the ABC or Ten have any idea what we, the listeners and watchers, really want. Maybe we don't know either. There's only so many episodes of Shrinking.
ABC News
41 minutes ago
- ABC News
Creating a Tasmanian town for new Netflix drama The Survivors
The beachside atmospheric murder mystery The Survivors has hit the screens, showcasing iconic southern Tasmanian locations from sea cliffs to pubs, cafes and beaches. It's a huge month for the state's screen industry, with the finale of Alone Australia season 3 airing, the second season of Bay of Fires coming out on Sunday, and the six-part SBS drama series Moonbird dropping later in June. The Survivors location manager Kate Fox hopes the spectacular scenery on display will draw more screen production work to the state. "We have world-class crews. Now that over the past decade as the screen industry has evolved, [we] can offer pretty much world-class production," she told Helen Shield on ABC Radio Hobart. Ms Fox had been working in the industry in Sydney and returned home to Tasmania in 2014. She fell into specialised location work on supernatural thriller The Gloaming and ABC feel-good comedy Rosehaven. She then worked on black comedy Deadloch, which was filmed in Kingston and Cygnet, and The Tailings and Bay of Fires, which took her to Tasmania's west coast. But, The Survivors had been her career highlight, she said. The series is based on the Jane Harper novel by the same name, and takes place in the fictional town of Evelyn Bay. A tragedy 15 years ago still haunts the protagonist, Kieran, who was rescued from a sea cave during a storm that killed his brother, Finn, and friend Toby. During a trip to his home town, a young woman is found dead on the beach, while questions are raised about the disappearance of another girl years prior. "There was just such a huge creative element to it for the locations department," Ms Fox said. "You're crafting a complete township. "It's made up of streets, beaches, houses and businesses from Eaglehawk Neck, Geeveston, New Norfolk, Taroona, Kingston, Fern Tree, Blackmans Bay — you name it." Ms Fox said viewers could see a character leave the pub, which is in Fern Tree at the base of kunanyi/Mount Wellington, then drive along the coast, which is the Tasman Peninsula, and then end up in someone's driveway in the Hobart suburb of Taroona. There's also a snippet of coastline near Dunalley. It all comes together to create an imagined township. "That's just so fun to see that come together on screen and pretty seamless. I think we do that really well in Tassie because it is so diverse and it has everything, but you can be almost anywhere," Ms Fox said. The Survivors was filmed over three months in Tasmania in 2023. Some scenes were shot at Hinsby Beach, a popular Hobart swimming spot, during summer. The production involved about 80 people and a lot of equipment. "There were days when parking near that beach was quite problematic," Ms Fox said. "We had to try and squeeze ourselves in as well as making sure the locals had access to their beach and we didn't take it over." Ms Fox said before filming at a public location like Hinsby Beach, the crew had to put up lots of signs and letterbox drop residents to let them know what was happening. Some residents were paid if the crew needed to use driveways and lawns during filming. Sea caves and cliffs feature prominently in the plot of the show, and the iconic dolerite cliffs of the Tasman Peninsula, which can reach 300 metres in height, are on display. The crew initially planned to film the dramatic cave scenes on location, and Ms Fox said the Remarkable Caves at Port Arthur were "toyed with". "We went pretty hard in with Parks and Wildlife to see if it would be possible but, at the end of the day, safety is number one," she said. "We'd have a window of about 20 minutes before the tide changed to get the shot and get our gear in and out." She took producers down to the caves, and they all got drenched by the wash on the viewing platform, confirming that shooting on location would be too ambitious. "The caves we filmed in for the show were actually constructed in a set in Melbourne," she said. "The production designer and the key creatives in that department basically mapped out the tunnels and caves around the Remarkable Caves and reconstructed that to be as close as possible to the real thing. "The cave and the dangerous water around it are basically the main characters."
News.com.au
13 hours ago
- News.com.au
Jacob Greber to replace Laura Tingle as political editor on 7.30
ABC's flagship current affairs program 7.30 has announced the replacement for star political reporter Laura Tingle, who has become the national broadcaster's global affairs editor. Jacob Greber, who joined the ABC as chief digital poetical correspondent from The Australian Financial Review less than a year ago, will take on the high-profile role from July 7. The announcement was made by 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson, describing it as a 'very special moment'. 'With an almost 30-year career in journalism covering politics, economics and world affairs – all the things that we want – he's been a foreign correspondent as well, and got his start working as a copyboy in the Canberra Press Gallery,' she said. 'You can't beat that. Jacob, a very big, warm welcome aboard.' Tingle, who had been with 7.30 since February 2018, announced she would take up the role as global affairs editor last month. She is set to begin her role later this year, and will replace John Lyons, who was announced as the ABC Americas editor in February.
