The Sun-Herald

Mission Impossible 4: in search of the lost hits

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For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
For background on popular culture, go to
The films Australia loved.
The TV shows Australia loved.
The music Australia loved.
The DVDs Australia loved.

by David Dale
The scientologists believe human beings are descended from a race of aliens called Thetans, who got stuck on this planet a couple of million years ago. The Thetan inside each of us controls our behaviour, making us, for example, spend money on any product connected with Tom Cruise.

That's the only explanation for Tom's pulling power with Australians. He breaks the heart of a national icon, and still we buy more than two million tickets to the movie War of the Worlds. And then an album called War of the Worlds pops into the music chart with accredited sales of 700,000 copies.

To be fair, we can't entirely blame Tom's ghost army for the album's success. It's not the film soundtrack. It's a musical version of the H. G. Wells novel, recorded in 1978 and narrated by a pickled Richard Burton, and most of its sales happened before we had even heard of the world's most devout scientologist.

The new film spurred interest in the re-issued album, and the few thousand recent sales pushed it over the line for its tenth platinum award (under the accreditation system of the Australian Record Industry Association, sales of 70,000 are called platinum). This happened again more recently when the Pink Floyd classic Dark Side of the Moon suddenly popped into the albums chart with an accreditation of 11 platinum. There's been a reissue, and the record company finally remembered to notify ARIA of all the previous sales since 1973.

This column thought it would be interesting to delve into ARIA's other accreditations and create an all-time best seller list for albums released in Australia. But as you can see (below), the result is ridiculous, because it contains nothing by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Billy Joel, The Doors, The Seekers, The Beach Boys, Midnight Oil and many others who must have sold more than ten platinum of at least one of their albums. The list is incomplete because ARIA has not received up to date accreditation details from the record companies.

ARIA's researchers did have rough sales figures which enabled them to suggest a few other albums that would have passed 700,000 by selling steadily over three decades. We tentatively made them numbers 16 to 20, though they may deserve higher positions.

It's frustrating to be without the full facts. We don't want to take away from Meatloaf's triumph, but any chart that suggests he is the best selling performer in the history of Australia just beggars belief. There must have been others who sold better than his 22 platinum.

Here's a plea to the record companies of this land: so that scholars can make a realistic chart, so that great artists can be given due respect, and so we can all know the true musical tastes of Australians, you must plunge into your sales reports of the past 50 years, dig out all the data and send the totals to ARIA. Otherwise we'll be forced to set Tom Cruise and his Thetans onto you.

In the meantime, if any reader has information that may help to create a more accurate list of all-time best-sellers, tell The Tribal Mind via the comment space below

All time top selling albums?

1. Bat Out of Hell (Meatloaf) 22 platinum

2. Whispering Jack (John Farnham) 17p

3. Come On Over (Shania Twain) 15p

4. Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette) 14p

5. Innocent Eyes (Delta Goodrem) 14p

6. Greatest Hits Collection (Queen) 13p

7. Thriller (Michael Jackson) 12p

8. Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) 12p

9. Savage Garden (Savage Garden) 12p

10. Falling Into You (Celine Dion) 12p

11. Abba Gold (Abba) 11p

12 Immaculate Collection (Madonna) 11p

13. Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd) 11p

14. Recurring Dream (Crowded House) 10p

15. War of the Worlds (Jeff Wayne) 10p

16. Hot August Night (Neil Diamond) ?

17. Grease (soundtrack) ?

18. Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits) ?

19. Saturday Night Fever (Bee Gees) ?

20. Astral Weeks (Van Morrison) ?

(Source: ARIA accreditations and estimates)

[To see ARIA's latest charts, click here. David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:18 PM
• Comments (8)

The tackiest of 2005

by David Dale.
What was television's most dubious achievement of the year -- the clumsiest attempt to manipulate our emotions and play on our prejudices, the laziest use of formula over imagination, the biggest insult to the viewers' intelligence, the clearest demonstration that TV bosses don't know what Australians want? There are plenty of candidates, and we know you can think of more examples than these:

* Channel Seven kills Let Loose Live after two embarrassing episodes -- but not before the reputations of several once-admired comedians have been shredded.

* Channel Nine kills Our Place after four episodes -- finally closing the coffin on the lifestyle/renovation fad that dominated the early noughties.

* Ten is ordered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority to tighten its editing after Big Brother Uncut shows Michael exposing his penis while massaging Gianna.

* Seven runs promos for a Today Tonight report on how "the children of immigrants" are taking the jobs that should go to the children of real Australians.

* Ten kills Aussie Queer Eye after six episodes -- finally closing the coffin on the makeover trend. Nine's cosmetic surgery show, Body Work with Megan Gale, fares only slightly better.

* Nine leaves Joey on air for eight painful episodes, but cuts off its most imaginative sitcom, Malcolm in the Middle, halfway through its run.

* Ten fails to cancel The X Factor, thus turning viewers off talent quests and shooting itself in the foot with Australian Idol.

* Seven's new drama, Headland , proves to be Home and Away stretched to an hour, and loses a third of its audience between the first and second episode. The ritual use of cleavages and sixpacks fails to hold the target under-40 audience.

* Nine, caught unprepared by the success of The Supernanny , casts around for a replacement when the season ends, finds Nanny 911 , and has to cancel it after four disastrous episodes.

* Fast Eddie McGuire manages to make two questions last an hour on the second-last episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire .

* Darryl Somers manages to stretch Dancing With The Stars to two hours by promoting a CD of vocal performances that would not have got him an audition on The X Factor.

Below, we'd like to hear your nominations for the best of the worsts of the year.

But first, just to prove this column is not a nattering nabob of negativity, concerned only with failures and fiascos, here's where the networks triumphed:

Most watched Australian shows of 2005
1. Da Kath and Kim Code (ABC) 2.09 million
2. Dancing With The Stars (7) 1.9m
3. Border Security (7) 1.8m
4. Nine news Sunday (9) 1.7m
5. 20 to 1 (9) 1.6m
6. 60 Minutes (9) 1.6m
7. True Stories (7) 1.6m
8. RPA (9) 1.6m
9. Little Oberon (9) 1.5m
10. Medical Emergency (7) 1.5m
11. Celebrity Circus (9) 1.5m
12. Backyard Blitz (9) 1.5m
13. Big Brother Evictions (10) 1.4m
14. Celebrity Overhaul (9) 1.4m
15. Today Tonight (7) 1.4m
16. Mary Bryant (10) 1.4m
17. Australian Idol Sundays (10) 1.4m
18. Seven news weekdays (7) 1.4m
19. Seven News Sunday (7) 1.4m
20. Home and Away (7) 1.3m
21. McLeod's Daughters (9) 1.3m
22. Nine news weekdays (9) 1.3m
23. Friday night football (9) 1.3m
24. Beyond Tomorrow (7) 1.3m
25. Skating on Thin Ice (9) 1.3m
Source: OZTAM

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:40 PM
• Comments (261)

Let's index our national progress

by David Dale.
Life in Australia: you've got to admit it's getting better, getting better all the time. Or is it? Last week the Bureau of Statistics held a seminar on social trends, and handed out a pamphlet called Measures of Australia's Progress 2005. It shows we're richer, healthier and better-educated than we were 10 years ago, but we're poisoning our air, salting our soil and endangering our animals.

The bureau's Director of Social Analysis, Joanne Hillerman, suggested it might be interesting if somebody combined all the measures into a single index that would tell Australians each year if their society is advancing or retreating. That's an inspiring idea, and if anybody can do it, it's this column's readers. What follows is a rough draft of a National Index of Progress (NIP), awaiting your improvements.

First check out this table:

Where Australia is improving
Life expectancy
Education
Employment
Income
Bushland left uncleared

Where Australia is deteriorating
Crime
Biodiversity
Salinity of soil
Water use
Air quality

Not yet measured
Democracy
Social cohesion
Fairness

We decided to give each social shift measured by the ABS a score between minus ten and plus ten. Over the past decade, for example, the life expectancy for boys has risen by 3 years (to 78) and for girls by two years (to 83). We reckon this lift in health standards is worth plus 6.

At the same time, the bureau says "the prevalence rates for victims of personal crimes (such as assault and robbery) between 1998 and 2002 showed an increase from 4.8% to 5.3%". That's bad, but not disastrous, so we'll give it a minus 3.

Next we learn that "the proportion of 25-64 year olds with a vocational or higher education qualification increased from 44% in 1994 to 58% in 2004". Lets give that +4. And +6 for the news that Australia's unemployment rate decreased from 9.5% in 1994 to 5.5% in 2004.

We should be even more generous with the next measure: Between the 90s and the noughties, the "real net disposable income per capita grew by an average annual rate of 3.1% a year" and "the real income of low income Australians increased by 12%." That improvement is worth +7.

The total so far is 20. Looking good. But now we come to The Environment, where, from 1994 to 2004, "the number of terrestrial bird and mammal species assessed as extinct, endangered or vulnerable rose from 120 to 167, an increase of 39 %". That gets a score of -7. Lose another 3 because 46,500 sq kms of agricultural land "were assessed as having a high salinity hazard" and lose another 5 because "Australia's total net greenhouse emissions in 2002 were... 8.8% higher than in 1992".

But then again, Australia has finally recognised that land-clearing "destroys plants and local ecosystems and removes the food and habitat on which other native species rely, as well as diminishes the cultural, aesthetic and recreational aspects of native bushland". The ABS says the amount of land cleared in 2001 was 40 % less than in 1991. That's +2 for a step in the right direction, cancelled out by -2 for what the ABS calls "a decline in the quality of some of Australia's waterways".

The bureau admits it is having trouble measuring "social cohesion" (how much Australians support each other), so we can't say for sure if the growth in lone person households and single parent households means a rise in loneliness and alienation. Similarly, the ABS says "a healthy democracy needs citizens who take part in shaping the common agenda of a society", but has no simple way to measure political participation. It also offers no information on the extent to which all citizens get a fair go. So until the ABS works out a measurement scale, we can't give scores for fairness, cohesion and democracy. We end up with a National Index of Progress for 2005 of +5.

But have we correctly weighted the various factors? For example, is employment more important than animal life? And what other changes should the ABS be measuring, just as it celebrates its 100th cirthday? Lets hear your suggestions (below). Once we perfect this way of testing Australia, we can check each year if the NIPs are getting bigger, and judge our leaders accordingly.

For info about how the ABS measures social progress, click here. David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:38 AM
• Comments (60)

The core values of average Australians

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare
For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
For background on popular culture, go to
The films Australia loved.
The TV shows Australia loved.
The music Australia loved.
The DVDs Australia loved.

by David Dale.
What do Australians believe in? This question was tackled last month by the Prime Minister, who has shown in the past a spooky skill at picking our prejudices and playing upon them.

But his seven point summary of our values (below) was still only guesswork. The Centre for Social Research at the Australian National University has been more scientific. It asked 4,270 adults to answer a mail questionnaire on what they believe, and released the results in a book called Australian Social Attitudes - The First Report, edited by Shaun Wilson (UNSW Press).

Always eager to seek simple solutions to complex arguments, The Tribal Mind has extracted the essence from the book's 281 pages and boiled it down to 14 statements. Apparently these are the things that more than two thirds of us believe:

1. "A father should be as heavily involved in the care of his children as the mother": 90 per cent agree

2. "The gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes is too large": 84 per cent agree.

3. "A woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion": 83 per cent agree.

4. "Generally speaking, Australia is a better country than most other countries": 82 per cent.

5. "Media ownership is too concentrated among a few rich families": 81 per cent.

6. "When big businesses break the law, they often go unpunished": 81 per cent.

7. "Large international companies are doing more and more damage to local businesses in Australia": 75 per cent.

8. "Immigrants make Australia open to new ideas and cultures": 74 per cent.

9. "People who receive welfare benefits should be under more obligation to find work": 73 per cent.

10. "Television violence is a cause of social violence": 71 per cent.

11. "The media should have less power": 70 per cent.

12. "Immigrants are generally good for Australia's economy: 69 per cent".

13. "Cutting welfare benefits would damage too many people's lives": 66 per cent.

14. "Australia should limit the import of foreign products to protect its national economy": 65 per cent.

Those propositions seem to place the majority of Australians to the left of the prime minister. The seven "core beliefs of average Australians" he outlined during the launch of a new magazine called The Conservative were:
1. We live in a very successful nation.
2. We do not have much to be ashamed of.
3. Australia is well regarded around the world.
4. Individuals should be given a fair go if down on their luck, but should not expect continued community support.
5. Institutions like the family are central but people with alternative views should not be persecuted.
6. People should be tolerant of diversity but also believe in unity when facing a common threat
7. Society should be classless, with worth determined by character and hard work, not religion, race or social background.

This column asked readers to see if they could do better than Mr Howard in summing up the core values of Australians in seven sentences. Some of the responses appear below

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:09 AM
• Comments (7)

How Australia watched

by David Dale.
The official TV ratings year ended at midnight on Saturday November 26, and Australia's networks have released their spins on what the audience totals meant. (To read the list of most watched shows, click here.)

Nine boasts of being number one, but doesn't mention that it got the lowest share of viewing in its history. Ten rejoices in being top with viewers 16-39, and skips the detail that its audience was down 8 per cent.

Seven can claim an audience boost of ten per cent, but is unlikely to remind us that it was doing better through most of the 90s. Pay TV celebrates soaring numbers, but doesn't mention that its top shows, unless they are rugby league, attract less than 80,000 viewers.

And the ABC tries to prove its indifference to ratings by showing its best asset outside the ratings period (the Kath and Kim movie, which pulled 2.09 million on Sunday November 27). Here's what The Tribal Mind made of Australia's most popular form of entertainment in 2005:

It was supposed to be the year of the recycled celebrity, as the formerly famous danced, spelt, skated, lost weight, walked tightropes and tried to revive collapsed careers. But it turned into the year of the medical melodrama and the year of the Aussie sidekick, sometimes both at once.

And, of course, it was also the year when Channel Seven on the way up almost passed Channel Nine on the way down. Nine is still the one, but it attracted the lowest audience share in its history.

Despite dire predictions, TV became more popular than ever this year - the average audience in the mainland capitals between 6pm and midnight rose by 1.4 per cent, or 62,000 people. On a typical night in 2005, 5,077,393 Australians in the mainland capitals were watching TV: 24.7 per cent of them were with NIne; 23.6 per cent were with Seven; 18.7 per cent were with Ten; 14.3 per cent were with the ABC; 11.0 per cent were with pay TV's 70 stations; and 4.9 per cent were with SBS.

The other seven million people in the mainland capitals had Something Else To Do.

The most successful new series were Desperate Housewives and Lost, but as a general trend, the programmers went to hospital. At the height of the medical madness, we could watch Grey's Anatomy on Monday, All Saints and Medical Emergency on Tuesday, House on Wednesday, and MDA, RPA, Amazing Medical Stories and The Surgeon on Thursday. The casualty in this overkill was The Surgeon on Ten, an attempt to revive the half-hour format, which ended in the graveyard of Australian drama.

That's not to say we disliked our own actors. We just preferred them surrounded by Americans - as with Jesse Spencer in House as sidekick to the chief doctor, Poppy Montgomery in Without A Trace as the sidekick to the chief detective (also an Aussie), Emilie de Ravin in Lost as the pregnant girl, and Portia de Rossi in Arrested Development as the selfish sister.

The most successful Australian dramas were a telemovie, Little Oberon, on Nine, and a miniseries, Mary Bryant, on Ten. The ABC didn't even try with local drama, and ironically, its director of television, Sandra Levy, ended the year running drama at Nine, which had failed with The Alice (though not as badly as Seven failed with Last Man Standing). We preferred Australiana in factual form, celebrating our customs officers in Seven's Border Security, our scientists in Seven's Beyond Tomorrow and, of course, our doctors in Nine's RPA and Seven's Medical Emergency.

Although Nine ended the year as the top station, Seven had the best audience boost - up 111,000 viewers, on average, between 6pm and midnight, while Nine lost 52,000. More than half of Seven's new friends were aged over 55 - not hugely attractive to advertisers - and the audience share is not yet back at the level Seven enjoyed through the 1990s.

The other winners this year were SBS (up 55,000, mainly because of cricket, soccer and Mythbusters) and pay TV (up 88,000 across 70 stations, mainly because of rugby league matches and The Simpsons). The losers were the ABC (down 51,000) and Ten (down 89,000), but Ten remained the number one station with its target 16 to 39 audience. The ABC's most watched show was Andrew Denton's interview with Princess Mary and that Danish bloke, while Ten's strongest were House and Big Brother (which failed to compensate for the decline of Australian Idol).

Seven beat Nine for the first time in weekday news, and Today Tonight beat A Current Affair.

Nine managed a minor recovery in the second half by exploiting nostalgia. As TV entered its 50th year, Nine got 1.7 million viewers for 50 Years, 50 Shows and 1.6 million for 20 to 1. You can expect much more of that in 2006.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 07:31 PM
• Comments (27)

The Tribal Mind: Why the viewers hate Channel Nine

by David Dale.
Channel Nine is still Australia's most watched network, but its audience is down four per cent on 2004, and its reputation is shot to hell. If Nine has any balls, this is what it will do before the end of the year:

Try to recover a little credibility by ...
1) living up to the promises in its promos;
2) showing only new episodes of its cop shows; and
3) bringing back the series it cut off in their prime, such as Malcolm in the Middle, Smallville, Judging Amy, The West Wing, Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

We said the ABC's audience share had dropped 10 per cent since 2004. A more realistic way to consider the change in its public appeal is to use the average number of viewers over all programs, which is down 6 per cent on 2004. We also said that Seven should show the first episodes of the second seasons of Lost and Desperate Housewives this year, instead of waiting till February.

Seven's director of corporate affairs, Simon Francis, responded:
"We're pleased that there is an undeniable demand to see our new programmes and the first episodes of the breakout hits for 2005 - Desperate Housewives and Lost. We have brought forward episodes of Grey's Anatomy from the next season. The Australian television season has been defined by all networks and major advertisers as February-November. It's a structure similar to that undertaken in the US.
"We use summer to introduce some new programmes and trial others - as we did with The Amazing Race last year and My Wife and Kids the year before. Sports coverage and Christmas play havoc with regular programme scheduling. We understand the demand for new episodes for the big programmes. We have a competitive and complete primetime at the moment but we'd look forward to Nine and Ten bringing forward episodes of their new series as they seek to defend their diminishing audiences.
"We take it as significant that millions of Australians can't wait for new episodes of Lost and Desperate Housewives and that no one's losing any sleep over the fact that there are no new season episodes of CSI or Law and Order on Nine and Ten. Seven is looking forward to the new seasons for Lost and Desperate Housewives and the new series: Commander In Chief, Criminal Minds, Bones and My Name Is Earl in 2006."

David Dale responds: Whether its audience decline is 10 per cent or 6 per cent, the ABC has not addressed the central question of why its only efforts in drama this year have been MDA and Hell Has Harbour Views, both of which drew minimal audiences. As for Seven, holding onto all its good stuff until February just perpetuates the general dullness of television and risks driving viewers to seek their entertainments elsewhere -- DVDs, games, iPods, conversation. This will hasten the doom of broadcast TV.

Channel Ten has taken issue with this column's theory that Idol won't be back next year. Ten says: "Idol is still delivering results the other networks would kill for. In a nutshell:
*Australian Idol - both Sunday and Monday nights - continues to overwhelmingly win its timeslot with under-40s, with shares well in excess of 40%
*While we're not about total people, the TP 000s for Sunday nights have continued to build, now at 1.5m
*Monday nights have been building too; the very slight dip this week is most likely due to the Millionaire million going off
*Monday's Live Verdict is still winning its slot in 25-54 as well as 16-39
*Every Live Performance show has been the night's #1 show in 16-39, with the exception of 21 August and NRL Grand Final night (when Idol was still the #1 show that night in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.)
*Idol is still solidly in the top ten shows for the week (all major demos).
*In 16-39, Idol is consistently outrating Dancing with the Stars by up to 40%
We may be off the extraordinary numbers we did last year, but Idol is still achieving huge demo wins that other networks would love. The bottom line: there is no other format anywhere in the world at present that continues to deliver the audience profile that Idol does."

Added on October 31: Channel Nine announced today that its Director of Drama, Posie Graeme-Evans, has resigned "to spend more time with her family". The press release says the former boss of ABC television, Sandra Levy, will assume responsibility for Nine's drama output. Levy's legacy in drama for the ABC was discussed in llast week's column, but at Nine she may well have a bigger budget to work with.

What do you think? And how do you rate the performance of the channels?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 12:11 AM
• Comments (172)

Sam Chisholm responds: What, me worry?

OK, you whingers, get this straight: Channel Nine is not contemptuous of its viewers and there is no evidence that anybody is irritated by its programming policies. That comes from the chief executive of Channel Nine, Sam Chisholm.

At a seminar on the future of TV on Wednesday afternoon, Chisholm was asked if he was concerned about viewers being alienated by the erratic scheduling of shows (click here for detail), and whether the networks treat their viewers with contempt. The Tribal Mind recorded his reply. This is a complete transcript:

"We don't treat the viewers with contempt, in fact the opposite. I agree that people do, you know, this is because we have a measurement system, stations do try and gain the system. You've got a high rating program, you find it runs over, so the stations will try and do that. But that's all part of the game. But there's no evidence that it irritates viewers, because they watch the entire program. The more they can get the better. There are benchmarks when you do take the station to time which is where you start the news but during the course of the evening there may be variation. We advertise those.

"It's had no appreciable effect. Certainly to the contrary. We work very hard, as I say, to work out just exactly what our constituency wants, and far from treating them with contempt our job is to work out how to get hold of them and do that. And maybe you do shift programs but there's no point in trying to ram down viewers throats programming that they arguably don't want to see. So we put them on with the best will in the world but if they don't work then we've got to move them to provide the best programming that they do want. And I think that's a very good sign.

"If we did treat them with contempt we'd say well there it is, that's your lot, as they say in the garden program that's your blooming lot, get on with it, but we don't do that, that's why we're moving and shifting things and changing them. And we're not the only guys doing it, everybody's in fighting to get your attention."

So that's Nine's reaction to complaints about its scheduling behaviour. The boss of Channel Ten, Grant Blackley, added his view:

"First and foremost, no we don't hold in contempt our viewers, quite the contrary. We're tactical in our moves, no question, we now advertise more often with regards to schedule changes and you'll often see broadcasters come out at say 8.40 or 8.50 instead of the half block hour. Arguably we may be treating them with contempt but we continually turn around and say you'd better be with us at these particular times.

"High rating events, quite often, you'll find are also live. We apologise if a high rating event, a sporting code, Rove, Big Brother, Australian Idol, if that holds the viewers' attention the last thing you want to do is fundamentally cut at the most critical moment whatever that might be. And we are producing more and more live content year on year because we're aiming to challenge ourselves to get more viewers. Lets look at it a different way in respect of what they are doing for the viewers and I think we're trying to excite them, get them there in greater numbers, be live more often and fundamentally grow our business and we don't apologise for that."

The boss of channel Seven, David Leckie, was asked if he was worried about people downloading programs from the internet because they can't get what they want from mainstream TV. He said this: "OK, the world's gonna fragment, we know that, but have you seen how hard it is right now to download anything? In five, ten, 15 years nobody knows, but it's not affecting our audience, I can guarantee that. And the two or three people, I'm sure they've downloaded and I'm sure they're having fantastic fun talking about Desperate Housewives going to air real time right now in the United States but you know what? It's not really affecting our audiences. We've got to get real on this: free tv is the big deal and you guys in newspapers have got far more challenges than we do."

In the past this column has used the word "arrogant" to describe the attitude of the networks. In the light of the 320 complaints about scheduling registered by readers of this column this week (click here to read them), perhaps we might now have to use the word "self-deluding" about the network bosses. Any other adjectives you can think of?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 06:34 AM
• Comments (88)

Nine's latest embarrassment

Just when you thought Channel Nine might be trying to regain a little credibility with viewers, and just when this column was wondering if the terms "arrogant" and "contemptuous" were a bit harsh in describing Nine's approach to scheduling (click here for background), we receive this alarming letter from TV scholar Aaron Ryan about some of Australia's most popular shows:

"This is probably the most significant television programming schedule movement I have seen in a decade. Networks play dirty tricks with shows but this decision takes the cake by far. Channel 9 will 'trick' viewers when they dub CSI, Cold Case and Without a Trace as the season finales.

The 'season finale' of Cold Case is scheduled for Monday November 14 at 9:35pm.
The 'season finale' for CSI is scheduled for Sunday November 20 at 8:30pm.
The 'season finale' of Without a Trace is scheduled for Wednesday November 23 at 9:30pm.

What is the problem?

ALL of these advertised episodes are in fact the SECOND last episodes. Channel 9 will NOT air the proper season finales of any of these programs in 2005. They are obviously holding onto these programs to air as the 'first' episodes in 2006. Imagine if Seven did this with Lost or Desperate Housewives!

Here is the breakdown of episodes. Please note that the dates below are when the episodes aired in America.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Season 5, ep 24 19 May 05 Grave Danger Part 1 (This is the Quentin Tarantino episode that Nine will call the season final)
Season 5 ep 25 19 May 05 Grave Danger Part 2 (This is the true season final)

Cold Case

Season 2 ep 22 8 May 05 Best Friends (This is the episode that Nine will call the season final)
Season 2 ep 23 22 May 05 The Woods (This is the true season final)

Without a Trace

Season 3 ep 22 12 May 05 John Michaels (This is the episode that Nine will call the season final)
Season 3 ep 23 19 May 05 Endgame (This is the true season final)

I have monitored programs for a number of years and I have never seen this. I have never seen a major network air every episode of an entire series EXCEPT the season finale for a whole group of programs.

You could take this one step further. The Closer will finish its season with four episodes unaired.

Season 1 ep 9 8 Aug 05 Good Housekeeping (This is the episode that Nine will call the season final)
Season 1 ep 10 15 Aug 05 The Butler Did It
Season 1 ep 11 22 Aug 05 L.A. Woman
Season 1 ep 12 29 Aug 05 Fatal Retraction
Season 1 ep 13 5 Sep 05 Standards and Practices (This is the true season final)."

We put Aaron Ryan's allegations to Channel Nine, asking why they would disappoint the many fans of these shows. So far we have no answer. If you feel like registering your views with Nine's complaints department, we'd love to hear of any response or explanation you receive.

[Nine is not the only offender in this sort of scheduling mischief. Aaron Ryan points out that Channel Ten failed to show the final four episodes of the latest series of The Shield, thus disrupting a story arc involving Glenn Close's character. But Ten got away with it because The Shield is a low-rated program.]

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 09:53 AM
• Comments (332)

How to bridge the generation gap

by David Dale.
Test your cultural literacy on these phrases: "cracking cheese", "Michael's penis", "jumping the shark" and "Barnaby and Troy".

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people's television tastes change as they grow older. The effect of this is a communication chasm between Australians of different generations. Today this column will attempt to bridge the gulf by revealing how each generation of Australians uses the box, thus offering a common language among parents, kids, DINKs, groovers and grandparents.

In the current communication crisis, cracking cheese amuses children but means nothing to Generation Xers, whose familiarity with Michael's penis stumps baby boomers, who can, in turn, grasp the concept of jumping the shark more readily than oldies, who prefer to debate whether Barnaby and Troy make a better team than Barnaby and Scott.

Of course, you immediately knew that "cracking cheese" is said by Wallace to Gromit, whose adventures Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers were among the most watched shows among viewers under 16 this year. You also knew that penises were a recurring theme in Big Brother Uncut, a top show with viewers 16 to 39 (who heard speculation on the size of Greg's and saw Michael's exposed while he was massaging Gianna).

The shark was jumped on waterskis by Fonzie, and became a metaphor for desperately seeking ratings, in Happy Days Anniversary Reunion, one of the most watched shows this year with people aged 40 to 54. DCI Tom Barnaby has been partnered with both Sgt Gavin Troy and Sgt Dan Scott in Midsomer Murders, a hit with viewers over 55.

When we dissect this year's audience data from the ratings agency OZTAM, we do find some common ground between the generations. All age groups watched the AFL and NRL grand finals and the final of Everybody loves Raymond. Kids, Xers and boomers all watched Desperate Housewives and Lost, but the oldies didn't, favouring Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on Mondays and early to bed on Thursdays. After that, OZTam calculates that the viewing patterns broke up this way ...

Shows preferred this year by the under 16s: the original movie of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (9), The Simpsons (10), Mythbusters -- Jaws (7), Big Brother (10), Spy Kids 2 (7), Bring It On (9), Wallace and Gromit (ABC), Animal School (ABC), Fairly Odd Parents (ABC), Australian Idol (10), Neighbours (10), Bluewater High (ABC).

Shows preferred by 16 to 39s: Big Brother (10), Star Wars 2 (10), The Logies (9), House (10), The Simpsons (10), The Amazing Race (7), Live 8 concerts (9), Seriously 40 (10), Grey's Anatomy (7). And the ABC has finally impinged this year on the GenXers, who love Spicks and Specks and The Glass House.

Shows preferred by 40 to 55s: Dancing with the Stars (7), The Logies (9), 50 years 50 Shows (9), Little Oberon (9), Happy Days Reunion (9), Category 6: Day of Destruction (7), CSI (9), 20 to 1 (9), Border Security (7).

Shows preferred by the over 55s: Dancing with the Stars (7), Blue Murder (ABC), Midsomer Murders (ABC), The Queen's Castle (9), Andrew Denton and the Danish Royals (ABC), Taggart (ABC), Edinburgh Tattoo (7), Krakatoa (ABC), Border Security (7), Murder Investigation Team (ABC).

So there's your homework if you want to be an empathetic participant in your society: study those shows closely, then discuss them with your seniors and your juniors. Or we can suggest a shortcut: to understand Generation X, watch Channel Ten; to understand baby boomers, watch Nine and Seven, and to understand kids and oldies, keep watching the ABC.

Next week: bridging the gaps between women and men and city and country. The week after that: world peace.

[To find out how OZTAM measures audiences, click here. To visit The Tribal Mind archive, which includes Australia's most watched TV shows of all time, click here.]

Is there any point in trying to understand the tastes or share the assumptions of people older or younger than you?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 10:20 AM
• Comments (23)

Your viewing habits reveal your class

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare
For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
For background on popular culture, go to
The films Australia loved.
The TV shows Australia loved.
The music Australia loved.
The DVDs Australia loved.

by David Dale.
If Australians are to keep up with the way the advertising industry is manipulating them, they'll need to learn a new language -- from now on, the rich will be known as OG1s and the poor will be known as OG5s.

These labels replace earlier classifications such as "AB demographic" and "upper middle class". OG1s are people who work as managers, politicians, and professionals, and their favourite TV shows this year have included Desperate Housewives, an ABC documentary on The Da Vinci Code, the one-day cricket and Andrew Denton's interview with the Danish Royals.

Meanwhile, OG5s are people who work as factory hands, cleaners and labourers, and their television diet this year has included Big Brother, the State of Origin matches, motor racing, and Dancing With The Stars.

The labels OG 1 through to 5 have replaced the system in which people with the highest disposable income were labelled "the AB demographic" and lower earners were labelled C1, C2, D, and E. That, in turn, had replaced the original segmentation of society into Upper Class, Middle Class and Working Class (a classification expanded over the years by such labels as nouveau riche, Yuppies, squattocracy, bourgeois, DINKs, and trailer trash).

The old terminology gave a misleading impression of Australian society, which, as we all know, is classless, and where anybody who is prepared to work hard can rise to any heights. We have the prime minister's assurance on that. So from now on, we're all Oggies -- or possibly OGres. Those of us who aren't unemployed, anyway.

OG stands for "Occupational Group". The TV ratings agency OZTam, which sells audience data to advertisers who want help in targeting their messages, has told its clients that the changes are designed "to reflect consistency with other forms of socio-economic analysis".

"In consultation with the OzTAM Technical Advisory Committee, as part of a broader, ongoing Socio-Economic Project, the respondent Occupation category labels are now a more consistent and meaningful reflection of occupational group names," says OZTAM.

It defines OG1s, the category most attractive to advertisers, as "Legislators and Government Appointed Officials; General Managers; Specialist Managers; Farmers and Farm Managers; Managing Supervisors (Sales and Service and Other Business); Natural Scientists; Building Professionals and Engineers; Health Diagnosis and Treatment Practitioners; Tertiary Teachers; Social Professionals; Business Professionals; Artists and Related Professionals."

OZTAM figures suggest there are about half a million of the top OGres regularly viewing TV in the mainland capitals. So far this year, their most watched shows have included the AFL and NRL grand finals, Desperate Housewives, Lost, the Andrew Denton Danish special, the Hugh Grant-Sandra Bullock movie Two Weeks Notice, The Real Da Vinci Code, two one day cricket matches, the Live 8 concerts and the final of Everybody Loves Raymond.

At the other end of the advertising desirability scale, the OG5s are defined as "Trade Assistants and Factory Hands; Agricultural Labourers and Related Workers; Cleaners; Construction and Mining Labourers". Their 20 most watched shows include 11 AFL or NRL matches, four permutations of Big Brother, two car racing events, the Logies arrivals, a one day cricket match and Dancing with the Stars.

The bottom OGres' tastes are shared by OG4s (road and rail transport drivers; plant operators; machine operators; police). OG3s ("tradespersons") also liked the Mythbusters special on Jaws, the Happy Days Reunion and the eco-thriller Category 6: Day of Destruction. The OG2s (technicians; nurses; stenographers; clerks; receptionists; school teachers; sales representatives; tellers and cashiers) had a particular fondness for Desperate Housewives, Lost, House, Grey's Anatomy, Little Oberon and the Logies.

Do your TV tastes match your OG? Does the new classification work, or should the marketers go back to calling us upper, middle and working class?

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 08:58 PM
• Comments (44)

Why the ABC is a national disgrace

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare
For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
For background on popular culture, go to
The films Australia loved.
The TV shows Australia loved.
The music Australia loved.
The DVDs Australia loved.

by David Dale.
If the ABC had any balls, this is what it would do before the end of the year: bust a gut to get one great Australian drama to air. Otherwise, it will finish 2005 in shame and disgrace.

The ABC's audience share for 2005 is down nearly 10 per cent on 2004. That wouldn't be such a worry if the national broadcaster was seen as doing its cultural duty. But it failed there too, wasting its budget on lame quiz shows and the "historical reality" series Outback House.

The only home-made "unreality" shows it could call remotely successful were the comedy series We Can Be Heroes (900,000 viewers in the mainland capitals) and the teen soap Bluewater High (half a million viewers on Wednesday afternoons). Otherwise the ABC has depended on British crime dramas such as Midsomer Murders, Wire in the Blood and New Tricks. That's a pathetic performance.

This column understands that a miniseries called Answered By Fire, about Australia's involvement in the liberation of East Timor, is currently in post-production, scheduled to be shown next year. The ABC should play it now, or be judged in breach of its charter.

If Channel Seven has any balls, this is what it will do before the end of November: screen the opening episodes of the second seasons of Lost and Desperate Housewives. They've already appeared in America, gaining astonishing audiences - Lost attracted 23 million and Housewives 28 million. But here, Seven intends to hold them 'til February.

By screening them now, Seven would get a huge ratings boost, remind viewers to come back after Christmas, and celebrate its status as the network that transformed television (even if that was as much by dumb luck as smart scheduling).

So far, Seven's audience is up 8 per cent on last year, on the strength of the two US hits plus Dancing With The Stars, Border Security, and a resurgent Home and Away. Like the other networks, it's now fading into the silly season twilight. It should end the year the way it started - with a bang.

Next week: What Nine, Ten and Pay TV would do if they had any balls.

The Tribal Mind column by David Dale appears every Monday in The Sydney Morning Herald, and you'll find all previous columns at http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

Most watched dramas of 2005
1. Desperate Housewives (7) 2.1m
2. Lost (7) 1.9m
3. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (9) 1.7m
4. House (10) 1.5m
5. CSI: Miami (9) 1.4m
6. McLeod's Daughters* (9) 1.4m
7. Frasier - Tuesday (9) 1.3m
8. CSI: NY (9) 1.3m
9. Home and Away* (7) 1.3m
10. Without A Trace (9) 1.3m
11. Grey's Anatomy (7) 1.3m
12. All Saints* (7) 1.3m
13. Blue Murder (ABC) 1.2m
14. Blue Heelers* (7) 1.2m
15. Medium (10) 1.2m
16. Wire In The Blood (ABC) 1.2m
17. Law and Order: SVU (10) 1.2m
18. Law and Order: Criminal Intent (10) 1.2m
19. Silent Witness (ABC) 1.2m
20. NCIS (10) 1.2m
*Australian-made
(OZTAM average audience in mainland capitals)

As you will have noticed, The Tribal Mind is now a blog - in fact it's part of a new Entertainment Blog that will feature daily entries from some of the Herald's best entertainment writers.

For Tribal Mind readers, that means you can finally add your comments to this column. Please note, in keeping with SMH Online policies, this is a "lightly moderated" blog. That simply means we screen out obscene comments. As a result, postings sometimes take a while to appear.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). His latest book is Soffritto -- A delicious Ligurian memoir. To join a daily discussion of Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.

• by David Dale in The Tribal Mind at 03:45 PM
• Comments (65)