The Sun-Herald

The Tribal Mind: A vile victory

To discuss some of the strangest things written about Australia in 2009, go to Who We Are.

by David Dale
ANALYSING popular culture is often a blood sport, affording shallow observers such as this column the opportunity to heap insults upon poor celebrities who work their guts out to entertain the masses. As Frank Sinatra said of the Australian media during his 1974 tour: "They're called parasites, because they take and take and take and never give, absolutely never give. I say they're bums and they're always gonna be bums, every one of them."

Well, not this year. Instead of presenting our usual cruel and unnecessary list of the biggest losers, this column is going to be purely positive.

THE WINNERS OF 2009
Pay television Between 2001 and 2009 the population of Australia grew by 10 per cent. Between 2001 and 2009, the average number of people watching prime time TV on Channel Nine dropped 17 per cent, on Channel Seven dropped 10 per cent, on and on Channel Ten dropped 2 per cent. In the same period, Pay TV's audience rose 95 per cent. The free networks' addition this year of digital spinoffs specialising in flops and repeats has done nothing to slow the rise of Pay.

The ABC Between 2001 and 2009, its prime time TV audience has grown by 9 per cent, its metropolitan radio beats most of the commercial talk stations, and its website has expanded to offer serious competition to the newspaper chains.

Matthew Newton Last year he was known only for legal troubles with an ex-girlfriend. This year the nation loved him as a drug dealing murderer with a New Zealand accent. Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities made him the biggest TV star of the year, and gave him frequent opportunities to cuddle naked women.

Jelena Dokic Proving that Australians love tales of triumph over adversity, Dokic's comeback at the Australian Open pulled as many viewers as Underbelly, and she didn't even need to take her top off.

Shaun Micallef As the year began, his satire Newstopia was pulling less than 200,000 viewers to SBS, and his fans feared he would go down to history as a cult oddity. Then Ten's Talkin' 'Bout Your Generation became a hit, and he was the Jelena Dokic of comedy.

Kyle Sandilands Radio station 2DayFM briefly suspended him for arrogant insensitivity, Channel Ten sacked him from the judging panel of Australian Idol, and surveys showed he was the nation's least-liked celebrity. By year end, his radio ratings were up and Idol had lost half a million viewers. No doubt he'll star in Underbelly 4.

Poh Ling Yeow On MasterChef, she represented the qualities of the new Australia (i.e. interesting), and accepted the ABC's offer to present her own series.

Hamish Blake He said yes to every invitation, and his ubiquity let him bump Hugh Jackman from the top of the Q Scores survey as the most recognized and liked person in the land.

Baz Luhrmann The critics and the historians sneered, but his melodrama Australia became the second most successful local movie of all time at the cinema, and then the top selling DVD of the year (ahead of Twilight, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight, Mamma Mia! and the boxed set of Underbelly 2.)

Bruce Beresford He published a book called Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants To Do This, which showed how hard it is to get any movie made, then demonstrated, with Mao's Last Dancer, how easy it is to persuade Australians to see an Australian film - you just set it in another country, with stars who are either Chinese or American.

Go to Comments to add your own winners for the year

David Dale is the author of The Little Book of Australia -- A snapshot of who we are (Allen and Unwin). For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.