The Sun-Herald

The Tribal Mind: We've found the hero we need

To learn how Big Brother made Australia smarter, got to Who We Are

by David Dale
The revelation that The Dark Knight sold $2.3 million worth of tickets on its first day in Australian cinemas (more than most movies sell in a week) reminds me of this column's promise to do a reality check on a foolish prediction made here last month. When Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earned $12.3 million in its first week, I said it would end up selling far fewer tickets than its predecessor, Raiders of the Lost Ark, despite the conventional wisdom that blockbusters always total about three times their first week's takings.

My reasoning: IJ4 does not satisfy the requirements of the archetypal Hero's Journey (explained here); has a dud McGuffin (the alien football is no match for the Ark of the Covenant or The Holy Grail -- explained here); has a cliche climax (UFOs again!); and fails to give its villain a satisfying sendoff (Our Cate's demise is a pale imitation of the Nazi head melt in IJ1, despite leaps in special effects since 1981).

To be as successful as the original, IJ4 needed to earn $33 million. In fact, it will leave Australian cinemas with $29.5 million. That suggests that it did not generate enthusiastic word-of-mouth. If it had the emotional resonance of IJ1 and IJ3, it would have picked up repeat business during the school holidays, but its core audience (teenage boys of all ages) were easily distracted by such other heroes as John Hancock, Maxwell Smart, Prince Caspian, Zohan Dvir, Po Panda and, most recently, Bruce Wayne.

Here's the box office chart for the year up to last Thursday: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $29m; Sex and The City $26m; I Am Legend $23m; Kung Fu Panda $23m (in three weeks); Iron Man $20m; Alvin and the Chipmunks $18m; 27 Dresses $16m; Hancock $16m (in two weeks); Narnia: Prince Caspian $14m; Get Smart $14m (in three weeks); Dr Suess Horton Hears a Who $12m; American Gangster $12m; Juno $12m; You Don't Mess With The Zohan $11m; Mamma Mia $8m (in one week).

The Dark Knight has all the qualities IJ4 lacked: depth, complexity, imagination, characterisation, and a literate script. The special effects will draw the teens, and grownups will be curious about Heath Ledger's performance and intrigued by the examination of moral responsibility in civilised societies.

TDK will certainly gross more than the $16 million made by its predecessor, Batman Begins, in 2005. But will it sell more tickets than Batman, the 1989 movie in which Michael Keaton was the dark knight and Jack Nicholson was The Joker? That made $13.8m, which would be $23m at today's ticket prices.

Having had a rare success with the prediction about IJ4, this column should quit while its ahead, but I'm going to go again: TDK won't be the biggest moneymaker of this year (that will be Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) or even the second biggest (IJ4) or the third biggest (Sex and the city or Kung Fu Panda).

It deserves to beat those blockbusters, but it won't, because it's too thoughtful. I'd like to be proved wrong, because that will mean moviegoers prefer a movie that respects their intelligence. Lets revisit this topic in eight weeks, and meantime, you can offer your predictions by going to Comments

Footnote, 6pm Monday July 21: In its first weekend, The Dark Knight made $11.8 million, bringing its five day total to $14m. That gives it every chance of topping $25 million, if not necessarily the $29.5m of IJ4.

• by David Dale at 05:39 AM
• Comments (5)

The Tribal Mind: Evolving discs

To discuss what the world would be like without Australia, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
Australians are changing the way they enjoy their DVDs. As we approach the tenth anniversary of the arrival in this country of the first flick on disc (Evita), there's much to learn from comparing what we bought in the past ten years with what we bought in the past six months.

You'll get an inkling of the transformation from the tops of the charts kindly supplied by the research organisation GfK Australia ...
The best selling DVDs of all time: 1. Finding Nemo; 2. Shrek 2; 3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; 4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; 5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (complete list here).
The best selling DVDs this year: 1. Underbelly; 2. Ratatouille; 3. Hairspray; 4. Family Guy: Blue Harvest; 5. The Bourne Ultimatum; 6. 27 Dresses; 7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; 8. Transformers; 9. Bee Movie; 10. Shrek The Third.

This year's top 50 includes eight TV shows, such as The Sopranos, Summer Heights High, Gilmore Girls and Stargate. The all-time top 50 includes no TV shows. This year's Top 50 includes two music discs (by the violinist Andre Rieu). The all-time top 50 contains no music (although if we were examining the top 100, we'd find The Eagles: Hell Freezes Over at 72, with sales of 300,000).

In the 2008 chart, one movie appears in three packages - The Bourne Ultimatum single disc, The Bourne Ultimatum two disc set (packed with bonus features), and as part of a triple pack with The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy (which also appears as a single disc at No 50). This makes Matt Damon The Biggest Star of 2008, followed by Katherine Heigl (in 27 Dresses and Knocked Up), Leonardo DiCaprio (in Blood Diamond and The Departed), and the cast of High School Musical (in the movie and its sequel).

The Biggest Stars of all time would be Daniel Radcliffe (five Harry Potter flicks), Orlando Bloom (three Lord of the Rings and three Pirates of the Caribbean), Hugo Weaving (three Rings and three Matrices), Mike Myers (three Shreks), and Johnny Depp (three Pirates).

But here's the biggest difference: the vast majority of the all-time top 50 is kidstuff, with animation the most represented category (the likes of Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, Madagascar, Ice Age, Cars, The Lion King and Happy Feet). Only nine of the 50 seem to have been designed for people over 18: Dirty Dancing, Gladiator, The Notebook, Troy, Dances With Wolves, Casino Royale, Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and The Devil Wears Prada.

The situation is reversed in this year's top 50, where 26 films or TV series are adult or almost-adult fare (the likes of Underbelly, 27 Dresses, Death At A Funeral, I Am Legend, Die Hard 4, The Departed, The Sopranos and the four Bournes). Are we growing up? Or has this just been a dud year for kiddy flicks?

To discuss these questions, go to Comments, and to read the full charts, go to The DVDs Australia loved

• by David Dale at 08:49 AM
• Comments (17)

The tribal mind: The mystery of the media

To learn what the world would be like if there were no Australia, go to Who We Are.

by David Dale
This column always wants to know about records being broken, so we leapt to attention last week when we received a press release headed "Australia's Next Top Model most-watched program ever on subscription TV".
The release went on to announce that the two hour finale of a show in which a girl accused of bullying was rewarded by her accusers, a host vanished due to stage fright, and fill-in host Charlotte Dawson showed she was Pay TV's answer to Sonia Kruger (ie. sexy, smart and funny) had averaged 309,000 viewers across the country.

That figure didn't look like much to get excited about, given all the publicity Top Model had attracted, but the Pay TV people live in a world of their own. Apparently, when a prime time show attracts 309,000 viewers, the Pay programmers open champagne. If it happened on free to air TV, the programmers would open a vein.

The smallness of the audience kept nagging at me. The record breakers on FTA television have included the 2004 final of Australian Idol, which drew 3.3 million in the mainland capitals, the 2003 final of The Block, with 3.1 million, and the 2004 final of Big Brother, with 2.9 million. If 27 per cent of Australian homes subscribe to Foxtel or Austar, you'd expect Pay's top shows to attract 27 per cent of the audience of FTA's top shows.

As it turned out, the headline was wrong. When I searched through the chaos that is my filing system. I found that last year, a soccer match between Japan and Australia drew 419,000 viewers to Fox Sports 2. So the headline on the press release must have meant Top Model was the most watched program that was not a sporting event. No, that can't be right either. Last year an episode of Parkinson in which he interviewed Shane Warne drew 415,000 to UKTV and a showing of the movie High School Musical 2 drew 314,000 to the Disney channel.

What the headline should have said was that this year's season of Top Model was the most watched series ever shown on Fox 8, which is the most popular Pay station. An over-enthusiastic publicist has done the Pay industry a disservice by drawing attention to the fundamental mystery of Australian media: if 2.2 million households, containing more than 6 million people, are paying at least $60 a month to receive at least 60 extra channels by cable or satellite, why do Pay's regular shows attract such tiny audiences?

Pay has, after all, been the only true success story in television this decade. Between the first half of 2003 and the first half of 2008, the total prime time audience of Nine, Seven and Ten has dropped from 3.35 million to 3.08 million (down 7 per cent), while the pay audience has risen from 514,000 to 772,000 (up 50 per cent).

So why has no Pay series ever been able to attract more than 309,000 viewers, a figure that wouldn't even satisfy SBS? Why, when Pay offers such a dazzling diversity of content, do most subscribers use it most of the time for rugby league, soccer, and The Simpsons? Are Pay viewers the most boring people on the continent?

If you can answer these questions, go to Comments.

• by David Dale at 02:56 PM
• Comments (35)

The films Australia loved

List of the 125 highest-grossing movies of all time, and list of the 65 movies seen by the greatest number of Australians, prepared by David Dale from data provided by the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia. Last updated July 22, 2008.

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare

Top flicks so far in 2008: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull $29.2m; Sex and The City $26.3m; I Am Legend $23m; Kung Fu Panda $24.5m; Iron Man $20m; The Dark Knight $18.2m; Hancock $18.3m; Alvin and the Chipmunks $17.5m; Death At A Funeral $16m; 27 Dresses $15.5m; Bee Movie $15m; The Golden Compass $14.7m; Narnia: Prince Caspian $13.7m; Get Smart $15.5m; National Treasure Book of Secrets $13m; Enchanted $12.5m; Dr Suess Horton Hears a Who $12m; American Gangster $11.5m; Juno $11.5m; You Don't Mess With The Zohan $11.1; Atonement $10.5m; Mamma Mia $14m.

Chart 1: The Australian box office
1. Titanic (1997) $58 million
2. Shrek 2 (2004) $50m
3. The Return of the King (2003) $49m
4. Crocodile Dundee (1986) $48m
5. Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $47m
6. The Two Towers (2002) $46m
7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) $42m
8. Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (1999) $39m
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) $38 m
10. Babe (1995) $37m
11. Finding Nemo (2003) $37m
To read and discuss the complete charts, go to The culture

• by David Dale at 10:00 PM
• Comments (16)

The music Australia loved

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare/.

Lists of top selling albums and most successful performers, prepared by David Dale and last updated June 29, 2008.

The top selling albums of the past 20 years
1. Whispering Jack (John Farnham)
2. Come On Over (Shania Twain)
3. Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette)
4. Innocent Eyes (Delta Goodrem)
5. Music Box (Mariah Carey)
6. Savage Garden (Savage Garden)
7. Falling Into You (Celine Dion)
8. Recurring Dream (Crowded House)
9. Abba Gold (Abba)
10. Immaculate Collection (Madonna)
11. Age of Reason (John Farnham)
12. The Very Best of (The Eagles)
13. Don't Ask (Tina Arena)
14. Remasters (Led Zeppelin)
15. 1 (The Beatles) 2000
16. The Sound of White (Missy Higgins)
17. Soul Deep (Jimmy Barnes)
18. Forgiven Not Forgotten (The Corrs)
19. Come Away With Me (Norah Jones)
20. Back to Bedlam (James Blunt)
21 I'm Not Dead (Pink)
22 Yourself or Someone Like You (Matchbox 20)
23 Forrest Gump (Soundtrack)
To read and discuss the complete charts, go to The culture

• by David Dale at 09:10 PM
• Comments (34)

The TV shows Australia loved

This contains charts of the most watched programs of the 20th and 21st centuries, prepared by David Dale and based on data from OzTAM and ACNielsen. Last updated June 29, 2008. For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare

Top programs so far in 2008: Aus Open Men's Final (7) 2.35m; Rugby league State of Origin Match 3 (9) 2.14m; State of Origin Match 2 2.10m; Stage of Origin 1 (9) 2.09m; Finale of The Biggest Loser (10) 1.89m; launch of So You Think You Can Dance Australia (10) 1.85m; Winner Announced SYTCDA (10) 1.87m; finale of Underbelly (9) 1.43m and premiere of Underbelly 1.33m (both would have got 2m but were not shown in Melbourne for legal reasons).

Chart 1. The top shows since 2001
Based on OzTAM's audience estimates for the mainland capitals. Series figures are for the most watched episode of the year.
1 Tennis: Aus Open final - Hewitt v Safin 2005 (7) 4.04 million
2 Rugby World Cup final 2003 (7) 4.01 million
3 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony 2006 (9) 3.56m
4 AFL Grand Final 2005 (10) 3.39m
5 Australian Idol Final Verdict 2004 (10) 3.35m
6 Australian Idol final 2003 (10) 3.30 m
7 AFL Grand Final 2006 (10) 3.15m
8 The Block auction 2003 (9) 3.11 m
9 September 11 reportage, September 12, 2001 (9, 7, ABC) 3.10 m
10 Tennis: Wimbledon day 14 2001 (9) 3.04 m
11 AFL grand final 2003 (10) 2.96 m
12 Big Brother winner announced 2004 (10) 2.86m
13 Australian Idol Live from Opera House 2004 (10) 2.86 m
To read and discuss the complete charts, go to The culture

• by David Dale at 09:00 PM
• Comments (18)

The DVDs Australia loved

For the latest media trends, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
List of most most purchased DVDs since 1998, prepared by David Dale, using data from GFK Australia. Last updated July 14, 2008.

Top selling DVDs of all time
1. Finding Nemo (2004)
2 Shrek 2 (2004)
3 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
4 The Two Towers (2003)
5 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2006)
6 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2003)
7 Return of the King (2004)
8 Fellowship of the Ring (2002)
9 Monsters Inc
10 Pirates of the Caribbean (2004)
To read and discuss the complete charts, go to The culture

• by David Dale at 12:10 PM
• Comments (6)

The Tribal Mind: When this lady met this fellow

by David Dale
If men and women could only unite, Australia might get some stimulating television in the second half of this year. But they can't, so we're stuck with the programming preferred by viewers aged over 55 -- the time of life when, apparently, the sexes are most similar.

Last week this column pointed out that the seniors are the biggest consumers of TV, while the groovers watch the least (37 per cent of prime time viewing is by people over 55, up from 32 per cent in 2003; 28 per cent is by people 16-39, down from 30 per cent in 2003).

So the network that wins the year will be the one with the geriatric appeal. Off the back of a truck has fallen some fascinating research about the age of viewers for each station's most popular shows this year. The median age of Australians is 37, which is to say that half the population is older than 37 and half is younger. But the median age of viewers for most top programs is well above the national figure. Half the people who regularly watch Today Tonight, for example, are over 54. What you're about to read suggests that TV is, to put it politely, a mature medium.

The hits of 2008 - How old are the viewers
Inspector Rex (SBS) has a median viewing age of 65
Doc Martin (ABC) 64
Midsomer Murders (ABC) 63
ABC news (ABC) 61
Wild China (ABC) 61
Who Do You Think You Are? (SBS) 58
Seven News (7) 55
Today Tonight (7) 54
Enough Rope with Andrew Denton (ABC) 52
Border Security (7) 51
60 Minutes (9) 51
RSPCA Animal Rescue (7) 50
Australia's Got Talent (7) 50
Tennis: Australian Open Men's Final (7) 50
Better Homes and Gardens (7) 49
One Day Cricket (9) 47
Domestic Blitz (9) 48
David Attenborough - Tiger, Spy in the Jungle (9) 47
Spicks and Specks (ABC) 45
The Gruen Transfer (ABC) 43
NCIS (10) 43
State of Origin Rugby League (9) 43
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (9) 40
Top Gear (SBS) 39
Mythbusters (SBS) 37
House (10) 37
Gladiators (7) 34
The Biggest Loser (10) 35
My Name is Earl (7) 34
So You Think You Can Dance Australia (10) 34
Australia's Next Top Model (Fox8) 34.

So there's not much point in the programmers trying to appeal to the half of Australia that is under 37. They rarely watch the box.

Lets look at the other great niche that has traditionally excited the networks - viewers aged 25-54. Could a smart programmer gain by focusing on their sophisticated tastes? Only if men and women were prepared to sit in front of the same set. Here's how the sexes consumed TV over the past month:

Top shows with women aged 25-54: Grey's Anatomy; Desperate Housewives; Brothers and Sisters; Schapelle Corby (episode one); Better Homes and Gardens; 60 Minutes; State of Origin rugby league; Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares; Australia's Got Talent; All Saints; NCIS; Domestic Blitz.

Top shows with men aged 25-54: State of Origin rugby league; My Name Is Earl; The Gruen Transfer; 60 Minutes; Schappelle Corby (episode one); Spicks and Specks; CSI; Top Gear; NCIS; How I Met Your Mother; Hell's Kitchen; Gladiators.

So the principal passions shared by middle-aged men and middle-aged women are Schappelle Corby, Gordon Ramsay and football. Expect to see a lot more of them in the coming weeks.

Should the networks stick with the predictable, or should they try to entice viewers back with adventurous programming? Tell us at Comments

• by David Dale at 06:26 AM
• Comments (7)

The Tribal Mind: Television becomes an antiques roadshow

by David Dale
What a sweet revenge for the over 55s. Once spurned and ignored by the commercial stations -- "Let them watch the ABC," was the attitude -- they have now become the powerbrokers. Their tastes will determine which network wins this year and gets the most advertising in 2009.

Not long ago Channel Ten used to put out press releases boasting how certain programs were "shedding" older viewers, while Nine and Seven proudly declared their target audience to be viewers aged 25-54. There's none of that talk now.

The oldies are golden, and not just because there are more of them. It's also because they're the first ones back into their cocoons as uncertainty grows about the economy (see last week's column). And once they've pulled up the drawbridge, the over-55s are more likely to watch the box than the under 40s, who have other distractions.

For a vision of the future of Australian television, look at the favourite shows of each age group last week. In particular, compare the audience totals across the mainland capitals ...

Shows most watched by viewers over 55: Seven news 849,000 viewers in this age group; ABC news 804,000; Wild China (ABC) 727, 000; Today Tonight (7) 701,000; Sea Patrol (7) 699,000; Silent Witness (ABC) 697,000; Australia's Got Talent (7) 692,000; Border Security repeat (7) 652,000; The Einstein Factor (ABC) 649,000; Nine news 642,000; CSI (9) 633,000; Australian Story (ABC) 633,000; Better Homes and Gardens (7) 629,000; Domestic Blitz (9) 617,000.

Shows most watched by viewers aged 16-39: The Simpsons (10) 562,000 viewers in this age group; Grey's Anatomy (7) 555,000; NCIS (10) 548,000; Desperate Housewives (7) 533,000; 60 Minutes (9) 487,000; My Name is Earl (7) 486,000; The New Futurama (10) 483,000; How I Met Your Mother (7) 479,000; Rove (10) 465,000; Good News Week (10) 457,000; Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (9) 455,000; The Gruen Transfer (ABC) 455,000; Brothers and Sisters (7) 450,000.

You can see why the oldies are so much more attractive to the networks as a target audience than the groovers. Between 6pm and 10.30pm each night, an average of 1.821 million viewers over 55 watch television (up 3.5 per cent on last year), compared with an average of 1.397 million viewers aged 16 to 39 (down 1 per cent on last year).

Clearly there's not much common ground between the age groups. Best to target the niche with the numbers, so Nine and Seven will need to "skew older" if they are to win the year. Expect comfy crime shows set in English villages; quirky quiz shows hosted by former ABC personalities; deserving documentaries about Asian animals and adventurous Australians; and gardening guides filmed in the beautiful backyards of Lisa McCune and Dannii Minogue, who are the current queens of the senior screen (one remembered from Blue Heelers, the other from Young Talent Time).

The only hope for diversity lies with the niche we haven't dissected yet -- viewers aged 25-54. They'll be next Monday's topic.

Go to Comments to tell us what you think of the geriatrics' dominance of the box.

• by David Dale at 04:41 PM
• Comments (11)

The Tribal Mind: Let us comfort you

To discuss Australia's top takeaways, go to Chiko and the gang

by David Dale
Australians are crawling back into their cocoons. The age of adventure is over. You can tell from the way they're watching TV. Don't try to show them anything edgy, surprising or demanding. They want slow, reassuring, and predictable.

The programs that symbolise the national mindset right now are Domestic Blitz and Better Homes and Gardens. We demonstrated enough bravery by watching The Chaser boys and electing Kevin Rudd. Now we're pulling up the drawbridge.

This behaviour pattern seems to go in three year cycles. From 2002 to 2004, as we retreated from September 11 and the Bali bombings, the top shows reassured us that every problem had a solution. Messy garden? A team of fairies will fly in for a weekend and redecorate it. Messy crime? A team of scientists will shine a blue light on it and find the culprit within an hour. Our favourite sitcoms came with cues to tell us when to laugh.

In 2005, we started to take a few risks, tolerating and then embracing shows that kept us in suspense from week to week.

Who will survive the island? What secret will be revealed about which desperate housewife? Who will be voted off the dance floor? By 2007, our favourite comedy was about a hyperactive boy with reading difficulties and a drama teacher exploiting a student dead from a drug overdose. And we needed no laugh track to give us emotional prompts.

Now George Bush has ruined the world's economy and the Arabs keep putting up the price of petrol. Once again we want television to tell us that everything will be alright. In Domestic Blitz, a team of experts fly in and take 48 hours to renovate the home of a needy family. Better Homes and Gardens shows us how to survive rising prices, feed the family and paint the shed. Safe sitcoms are back, with How I Met Your Mother and Two and A Half Men apparently sharing the same canned laughter track.

Nostalgia is what it used to be, with 20 to 1 drawing 300,000 more viewers than it could manage last year (when we preferred to look forward). And football, the ultimate in escapism from the chaos of reality, is getting record audiences.

Even the edgiest new hits are predicated on reassurance. Your restaurant is failing? Gordon Ramsay can fix it with a kick up the arse. Worried that commercials are conning you? The Gruen gang will explain how to spot the mind tricks.

The only difference between 2008 and 2002 is that there is no longer such a thing as the mass market. The buzzword this year is fragmentation, which means the programmers have to work harder to offer equal doses of comfort to every demographic niche. How they are doing that will be the subject of the next Tribal Mind column, which will also include any theories on social change that you'd care to raise by going to Comments

• by David Dale at 04:16 PM
• Comments (12)

The Tribal Mind: Devices and Desires

To discuss whether Australians are too dumb to function in modern life, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
HERE'S another reason why Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull won't sell as many tickets as Raiders of the Lost Ark, and doesn't deserve to: its MacGuffin is rubbish.

Two weeks ago this column predicted that IJ4's box office would fall short of the $34 million necessary to match the performance of IJ1, because it fails to meet the requirements of the archetypal hero's journey (click here to read that column).

Some readers have kindly pointed out that my prediction is looking pretty shaky, because in its first three weeks, IJ4 has made $24.4m (while Iron Man, a much better blockbuster, took six weeks to reach $19.3m). But I stand by my prediction (in fact I think Sex and The City may end up beating IJ4, after making $11.3m in its first week), because I have identified another fatal flaw: the central plot-moving device produces an ending which looks derivative of Lara Croft (1 and 2), National Treasure (1 and 2), and 100 other pseudo-mystical potboilers. In other words, the MacGuffin is a cliche.

The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, created the term for an item that makes people run around. The MacGuffin can be anything the characters want, seek, steal, hide, suddenly remember, mysteriously commune with and are willing to sell their souls for. Hitchcock said examples of such motivators would be jewels, test tubes, machines, maps, formulas ... "the device, the gimmick if you will, or the papers the spies are after ... The only thing that really matters is that in the picture, the plans, documents or secrets must seem to be of vital importance to the characters.''

The mightiest MacGuffins of movie history:
The one ring in Lord of the Rings
The letters of transit in Casablanca
The statue in The Maltese Falcon
Rosebud in Citizen Kane
The colt from Old Regret in The Man From Snowy River
The Heart of the Ocean in Titanic
The gem in Romancing The Stone
The cryptex in The Da Vinci Code
The philosopher's stone in the first Harry Potter
The list in Mission: Impossible
The golden glow in Pulp Fiction
The tiny galaxy in Men in Black
The key, the compass and the heart in Pirates of the Caribbean
The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq
The monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey
The Fedex package in Cast Away
The Allspark in Transformers
The alethiometer in The Golden Compass.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, George Lucas said Indiana Jones movies need a strong MacGuffin: "The Ark of the Covenant was perfect. The Shankara Stones were way too esoteric. The Holy Grail was sort of feeble but, at the same time, we put the father in there to cover for it. I mean, the whole reason it became a dad movie was because I was scared to hell that there wasn't enough power behind the Holy Grail to carry a movie.''

Lucas said it took him another 15 years to think of a MacGuffin for IJ4, and initially Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg rejected it. "I said, Well, look, I can't think of another MacGuffin. This works. I won't do it unless we can have that MacGuffin. Without the MacGuffin, I will not go near this thing.''

Many of the two million Australians who have now paid to see Lucas's fourth MacGuffin will be wishing Ford and Spielberg had stuck to their guns.

To suggest other great McGuffins, go to Comments

• by David Dale at 06:23 PM
• Comments (8)

The Tribal Mind: The end of the CD era

To discuss whether "Australian culture" is an oxymoron, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
Of course, it was Agnetha's ass. That's the last piece of the jigsaw that explains Australia's obsession with Abba. The puzzle presented itself as I was researching a column about the CD age, designed to mark the tipping point (later this year) when Australians will obtain most of their music via digital downloads instead of silver discs. Sales estimates from the Australian Record Industry Association suggests a farewell chart ...

Australia's top selling CDs, 1985-2008
1. Whispering Jack (John Farnham) 1986
2. Come On Over (Shania Twain) 1998
3. Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morissette) 1996
4. Innocent Eyes (Delta Goodrem) 2003
5. Music Box (Mariah Carey) 1994
6. Savage Garden (Savage Garden) 1997
7. Falling Into You (Celine Dion) 1996
8. Recurring Dream (Crowded House) 1996
9. Abba Gold (Abba) 1992
10. Immaculate Collection (Madonna) 1990
11. Age of Reason (John Farnham) 1988
12. The Very Best of (The Eagles) 1994
13. Don't Ask (Tina Arena) 1995
14. Remasters (Led Zeppelin) 1993
15. 1 (The Beatles) 2000
16. The Sound of White (Missy Higgins) 2004
17. Soul Deep (Jimmy Barnes) 1992
18. Forgiven Not Forgotten (The Corrs) 1996
19. Come Away With Me (Norah Jones) 2003
20 Back to Bedlam (James Blunt) 2005

It turns out that the first Australian-made CD is also our top selling CD of all time, which stirs a patriot's heart. Whispering Jack has sold 1.7 million copies, so one in five Australian households have John Farnham on their CD shelf.

The Swedes come in at number 9 -- an extraordinary achievement for a group who peaked during a decade when music was delivered on black vinyl. Having shifted millions of albums in The Decade That Style Forgot, and having broken up in the 80s, they could still sell nearly a million copies of a compilation CD called Abba Gold in the 1990s.

Their appeal had eluded me in the 70s, when I was preoccupied with high voltage rock and roll. I found them pleasant but bland, and then kitschy when revived via Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Mama Mia The Musical. But the other night SBS showed Abba The Movie and I solved the mystery.

The film mixes lame comedy about a desperate disc jockey with footage of Abba's performances during their 1977 Australian tour. On the morning after their first concert, they are reading a Sydney newspaper with the headline "AGNETHA'S BOTTOM TOPS DULL SHOW".

Watching their performances after this scene, you discover that Agnetha (the blonde one) spends much of every concert with her back to the audience, wearing ski pants with no visible panty line, swaying and gliding across the stage. And it's true -- her bottom is superb. Not big, not small, simply a perfectly rounded phenomenon of nature. I could understand why so many 20-something males who should have been listening to Led Zeppelin were among the elderly ladies and pubescent squealers at the concerts and in the autograph queues. And why the happy memories would have propelled those men to keep buying souvenirs of the experience two decades later.

The next mystery from the farewell-to-CDs chart will be much harder to solve -- what on earth did we see in Celine Dion?

For more detail on the top selling albums of all time, go to The music Australia loved. To discuss Australia's Abba obsession, go to Comments

• by David Dale at 05:17 PM
• Comments (22)

The Tribal Mind: We need another hero

To learn how a typical Australian family behaves, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
How deeply embedded in the Australian psyche is Indiana Jones? More than Jason Bourne but less that Maria von Trapp, would we say? About equal with Han Solo, but less than Crocodile Dundee and more than Shrek?

We can give scientific answers to these questions by analysing how many Australians have actually seen those characters, and from there we can predict whether Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (henceforth known as IJ4) will be the biggest moneymaker of the decade.

Lets start with Indy's track record so far. Raiders of the Lost Ark (IJ1) sold $13.9 worth of tickets when it was released in 1981, a year when the average ticket price was $4.50. So it was seen by about 3 million Australians at the cinema. IJ2 made $12.3m in 1984, when tickets cost $5.40, so 2.3 million saw it, and IJ3 made $15.8m in 1989 (at $6.60), and thus was seen by 2.4 million. If we apply the same measure to the most successful movies involving other familiar characters, we derive this chart.

Australia's favourite film heroes:
1 Maria von Trapp
2 Crocodile Dundee
3 Luke Skywalker
4 E. T.
5 Shrek
6 Frodo Baggins
7 Harry Potter
8 Vivienne Ward
9 Jack Sparrow
10 Indiana Jones
11 Neo (Thomas Anderson)
12 Maximus Decimus Meridius
13 James Bond
14 Superman
15 Jason Bourne
16 Woody
17 Spider-Man
18 Batman
19 Mad Max
20 Wolverine.

To push Indy higher up that chart, IJ4 will need to make more than $34 million at the Australian box office over the next few weeks. I'm confident in predicting that it isn't going to do that, even at today's inflated ticket prices. Why? Because it does not meet the requirements of the hero's journey. It has an interesting villain and some exciting chases, but the narrative does not resonate with the archetypal tale that is genetically programmed into all of us.

The notion of The Hero's Journey as the basis of all successful epics (whether in book, poem, film or miniseries) was first raised by a Hollywood screenwriter named Christopher Vogler, who drew on the theories of the mythologist Joseph Campbell and the psychoanalyst Carl Jung.

Vogler said an epic adventure must follow these steps: the hero is summoned on a quest, which he or she initially refuses; gets help from a mentor; sets off on a journey, meeting funny friends and enemies and going through a series of tests; bypasses threshold guardians and enters the inmost cave to face the ultimate ordeal; goes through a form of death and resurrection; makes a return journey and brings home "the elixir" (which may be the solution to a mystery or a breakthrough in self-understanding).

George Lucas has admitted folloowing this formula closely in his initial Star Wars series. It works for Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter stories and The Sound of Music and can be applied even to comedies such as Pretty Woman and Four Weddings and A Funeral. It certainly works for IJ3 (where the elixir looked as if it was going to be the Holy Grail but turned out to be Indy's relationship with hs father).

IJ4 lacks this profundity. I can't outline its failures without giving away surprises, so I'll revisit this topic in ten weeks time, when we know how many Australians have seen it. In the meantime, go to Comments to discuss whether IJ4 will be able to push Australia's psychological buttons.

FOOTNOTE (Tuesday June 3): In its first week in Australian cinemas, IJ4 (on 535 screens) sold $12.3 million worth of tickets. Traditionally a big movie ends up totalling about three times its opening week, so conventional wisdom suggests the final result will be above the $34 million which this column thinks it won't make. In its second week, Indy dropped 40 per cent -- suggesting poor word of mouth -- but still made $7.4 million, bringing its total to $19.7m (while the vastly better Iron Man took five weeks to reach 18.3m). Gulping, I stand by my prediction and will provide regular updates on Indy's progress.
Go to The films Australia loved for more details.

• by David Dale at 11:49 AM
• Comments (20)

The Tribal Mind: Free spirits or mini-Yanks

To discuss the most significant moments in the history of Australian television, go to Who We Are.
by David Dale
This is scary. I was going to write a column about how Australians are becoming less like Americans -- how we seem finally to be asserting our cultural independence from the entertaining empire. That trend is obvious on television, where local drama, comedy, variety and reality pull much bigger crowds than the US product. It seemed to be happening also in cinemas, where Australians are responding to the latest blockbuster, Iron Man, with far less enthusiasm than our transpacific cousins.

Over recent decades movie distributors have relied on the formula that a big US movie will make in Australian dollars roughly one tenth of what it makes in US dollars. Our tastes have been that predictable. But in its first two weeks in Australian cinemas, Iron Man, with no serious competition, has made $12.4 million, while in its first two weeks in US cinemas, it made $195 million.

Iron Man is an unfortunate choice of movie on which to display our independence, since it offers a rare combination of wit, special effects and social conscience. And Gwyneth Paltrow. But at least we are no longer marching in lock step with Them Over There. Or so I thought.

To test the trend, I compared the US and local takings for the movies seen by more than a million Australians since May, 2007. Here's the list. Next to each movie, divide the first figure you see by ten and compare that with the second figure you see.

The highest grossing films of the past 12 months:
1 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix $US292m, $A35.5m
2 Shrek The Third $US320m, $A33.7m
3 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End $US309m, $A33.1m
4 The Simpsons Movie $US183m, $A31.4m
5 Transformers $US319m, $A27.9m
6 I Am Legend $US256m, $A23m
7 The Bourne Ultimatum $227m, $A21.9m
8 Alvin and the Chipmunks $US217m, $A17.5m
9 Hairspray $US119m, $US16.5m
10 Death At A Funeral $US9m; $A16 m
11 27 Dresses $US77m, $A15.5m
12 Bee Movie $US127m, $A15m
13 The Golden Compass $US70m, $A14.7m
14 Knocked Up $US148m, $A14.5m
15 Ratatouille $US206m $A14.4m
16 Iron Man $US195m $A12.4m (so far)
17 National Treasure: Book of Secrets $US219m $A13 m
18 Enchanted $US128m, $A12.5m
19 Ocean's 13 $US117m $A12.3m
20 Dr Suess Horton Hears a Who $US151m $A12m
21 American Gangster $US130m $A11.5m
22 Juno $US143m $A11.5m
23 Die Hard 4 $US134m, $A11.3m
24 Atonement $US51m $A10.5m
25 Rush Hour 3 $US140m $A10.4.

This is not exactly a landslide of support for my theory about the collapse of coca-colonisation. Half of Australia's favourites were American favourites to the power of ten (give or take $4 million).

We liked Harry Potter, Death at a Funeral, Atonement and The Golden Compass far more than they did (higher tolerance for British accents?). We liked The Simpsons, 27 Dresses and Hairspray more than they did (a quirkier sense of humour? Higher proportion of female cinema-goers?). They liked Alvin and the Chipmunks, Ratatouille, and Iron Man more than we did (more innocent and childlike in their thinking?) After that, we're pretty much twins. Might as well enjoy it.

To offer your explanation for the similarities and differences, go to Comments

• by David Dale at 10:06 AM
• Comments (6)

The Tribal Mind: Buy chocolate or rent vanilla?

To discuss Australia's greatest TV comedies of all time, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
Dunnobout you, but there are only two reasons why this column buys (as opposed to rents) DVDs:

1) To see a TV show that has been maltreated by the networks -- hence my recent purchase of 30 Rock season 1 (the cleverest sitcom since Arrested Development, shown erratically late at night by Channel Seven), Rome season 2 (from the murder of Caesar to the suicide of Mark Antony, never shown by Channel Nine), and Gilmore Girls season 7 (the saga's conclusion, shown erratically during daylight by Nine).

2) To get extra information about a movie I enjoyed at the cinema, via the director's and writer's commentaries, making-of documentaries, deleted scenes, alternative endings and other extras that appear on a second disc. Hence my quest last week in search of the two-disc edition of The Golden Compass.

It would seem that most buyers operate with the same motivations, judging by the top-sellers during April, as measured by market researchers GfK Australia. These are Australia's most purchased DVDs of the moment: 1. Bee Movie; 2 Stargate: The Ark Of Truth; 3 Dirty Dancing: 20th-anniversary edition; 4 Death At A Funeral; 5 Gilmore Girls: season seven.

But if extras are an incentive to buy a DVD, why do the distributors and the shopkeepers make it so difficult to find them? My interest in owning The Golden Compass began when I read this review by Ty Burr in America's Entertainment Weekly magazine: "Half the drama is in the EXTRAS, specifically reading between the lines of the two-disc set's commentary and 11 featurettes. In the former, writer-director Chris Weitz defends his adaptation of the first novel in Philip Pullman's fantasy trilogy. But in a making-of, Weitz looks like a man besieged by producers and his own insecurities. The film splits the difference: It's a visually awe-inspiring otherworld whose story is served up in awkward chunks. The kid (Dakota Blue Richards) is a find and Ian McKellen gives good bear, but this movie actually needed to be longer. B-.''

This led me to hope that screenwriter Weitz might address the controversy over whether the book is "anti-Catholic'' and whether he pandered to fundamentalists in removing Pullman's critique of religious dogma. My two local rental stores offered only the vanilla version (industry term for a DVD with no extras), as did the first two sales stores I approached, and I was beginning to think Australia had not received the full version when I finally discovered the two-disc set in J.B Hi-Fi, Pitt Street Mall.

In the extras, Weitz turns out to be terribly nice, revealing that Magda Szubanski (who appears for less than a minute) is an Australian actress from "a fantastic series called Kath and Kim'" and detailing how they did the fur on Nicole Kidman's monkey alter-ego.

He promises that "the last thing that I would ever want to do is a version that falsified the book", while admitting he held over the last three chapters to make a better beginning for the second film -- which is unlikely ever to be made, given the failure of TGC in America.

His only reference to the religious controversy is observing that The Magisterium (The Vatican) has "a patriarchal nature -- not to get too political''. He's missed the point. Getting political and backbiting and gossipy and vengeful is what we expect from directors when they make DVDs of their work. If Weitz wants to raise enough cash to make part two, he'd better issue a new three-disc set confessing what really went into (and out of) the movie. That would be a DVD worth buying.

What have been the best DVD extras you've experienced lately?

• by David Dale at 05:55 AM
• Comments (7)

WHO WE ARE: Standout comedy

To discuss which DVDs have the best extras, go to The Tribal Mind

A column about Australia by David Dale, published in The Sun-Herald, 11/5/2008
Whenever Australians are asked to describe the core characteristics of this nation, two phrases keep coming up: "laidback attitude" and "sense of humour", which together add up to an eagerness to laugh at ourselves. It's no surprise, then, that the most successful locally made programs in the history of television have been comedies.

In recent weeks this column has been trying to bring some order to the chaos that is Australia's taste in entertainment. I've chronicled our favourite movies, most successful actors and most watched TV shows, and sought your votes on whether the most popular were necessarily the most significant. After last week's column, which identified the top dramas of all time as Homicide, Blue Heelers, All Saints and Home and Away, many readers complained that I had left out, in order of importance, Wildside, The Sullivans, Phoenix, Flying Doctors, Bellbird, Matlock, MDA, Love My Way, Cop Shop, Stingers and Blue Murder.

No doubt there will be similar outcries about what's missing from the list below, which is an attempt to rank the comedies which had both high ratings and long life. Once again quantity is not necessarily the same as quality, but this is designed to get the conversation started ...

The most watched Australian comedies of all time:
1 Hey Dad (1984-94)
2 The Paul Hogan Show (1973-1982)
3 Kath and Kim (2002- )
4 The Comedy Company (1988-1991)
5 The Normal Gunston Show (1975-79)
6 The Mavis Bramston Show (1964-68)
7 Fast Forward/ Full Frontal (1989-1998)
8 Mother and Son (1984-1994)
9 Thank God You're Here (2006-)
10 The Chaser team under various titles (2002-)
11 All Aussie Adventures (2001-03)
12 Frontline (1994-97)
13 Summer Heights High (2007)
14 Kingswood Country (1979-1984)
15 The Naked Vicar Show (1977-78)
16 The D Generation (1986-89)
17 My Name's McGooley, What's Yours (1967-69)
18 Acropolis Now (1989-1992)
19 The Aunty Jack Show (1972-75)
20 The Games (1998-2000)

(I sneaked the last one in because I'm hoping John Clarke will do a version for this year, although the Olympics are probably too close now for it to be feasible.)

It's interesting to note from the chart that Australia's favourite form of TV comedy leans more towards sketches than to sitcoms (which we tend to leave to the experts - America). Even series that purport to be sitcoms were mostly born out of sketches and are structured as fast scenes rather than continuous narratives - Kingswood Country grew from The Naked Vicar Show, Kath and Kim from Fast Forward, My Name's McGooley from a Gordon Chater character in The Mavis Bramston Show, Acropolis Now from Wogs Out of Work on stage.

This may lead you to the view that Australians should add a third quality when they are attempting to describe the national character - along with our laid back attitude and our sense of humour, Australians have a terribly short attention span. Which is no bad thing, since it gives us an ability to multi-task and an enthusiasm for new ideas.

If you'd care to discuss that, or nominate other shows that deserve a place in the Australian TV comedy hall of fame, go to Comments

• by David Dale at 02:35 PM
• Comments (62)

The Tribal Mind: Time flies

To nominate the greatest Australian TV drama of all time, go to Who We Are.

by David Dale
Psychologists tell us that people are likely to develop mental health problems if they are exposed to contradictory messages throughout their childhood. When dad encourages certain behaviour while mum encourages the opposite, the kid grows up emotionally conflicted.

If this is true, Australians are heading for a national nervous breakdown, because for 50 years we've been been torn apart by these fundamental questions: How are we supposed to feel about Louie The Fly? Do they want us to love him or kill him? And if we do kill him, should we feel guilty? Or can we take comfort in the fact that he keeps being resurrected, which makes him a Christ-like figure? Unless it's a new Louie who reappears each time, which makes him more like Australia's favourite comicbook hero: The Phantom, Ghost who walks, insect who never dies.

Or if we prefer to seek a non-mystical explanation for Louie's durability, could it be that Mortein is not as effective as the advertising suggests? And if we suspect this, should we feel guilty for doubting an icon?

These disturbing echoes from my childhood came crashing back last week when I read the latest ACNielsen report on Australia's favourite brands. Every two years ACNielsen's boffins do a survey of the products most purchased in supermarkets, and this year they announced gleefully that Mortein had re-entered the top 100 chart (which was topped by the likes of Winfield cigarettes, Coca-Cola, Tip Top bread and Cadbury chocolates).

A report on the Nielsen website says Mortein "competes in a cluttered sector against heavyhitters Bagon and Raid. Setting Mortein aside from the competition is the much-loved Louie the Fly character ... Despite being in the market for over five decades, Louie looks better than ever, thanks to new animation technologies. A tactical campaign launched late last year asked consumers to help stop Louie the Fly from celebrating his 50th birthday."

So he's "much loved" and we're expected to kill him? The same moral ambiguity pervades the original jingle: "One spray and Louie The Fly, apple of his poor mother's eye, was Louie, poor dead Louie, a victim of Mortein". How is a kid supposed to react to that? The same way kids reacted to the slaughter of pigs in the movie Babe, one would imagine.

Supposedly the creator of LTF was Bryce Courtenay, who had recently escaped the apartheid regime in South Africa when he wrote the jingle for the Hansen Rubensohn advertising agency in 1957.

It's been argued that LTF fits into the same national mindset that enables us to perceive Ned Kelly as simultaneously a villain and a hero -- an affection for the non-conformist that goes back to convict days.

I can't help wondering if Courtenay, who went on to become the most successful author in Australia's history, had deeper symbolism in mind. Could it be that the way LTF is viewed in this country reflects the ambiguity in our relationship with the continent's original inabitants? Some of the white invaders regarded the Aboriginal people as pests, and set about trying to exterminate them, leaving a residue of guilt that has not been entirely expiated in 200 years.

Few TV commercials -- indeed, few TV programs -- offer so many layers of interpretation. LTF might just be Courtenay's most powerful work.

What do you make of Louie's image as a national icon?

• by David Dale at 10:41 AM
• Comments (5)

The Who We Are Update: Week 21

This week of David Dale's media blog is now history. For the latest discussion, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
To discuss the most significant moments in the history of Australian television, go to Who We Are
To discuss which DVDs have the best extras, go to The Tribal Mind

At this point in the ratings week, the prime time average audience shares stand at ABC 16.6% Seven 28.3% Nine 27.7% Ten 21.8% SBS 5.6%.

What Australia watched, Saturday
Description Total Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Seven 1,381,000 427,000 382,000 277,000 144,000 151,000
2 AUSTRALIA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEO SHOW Nine 1,263,000 374,000 385,000 229,000 154,000 121,000
3 NINE NEWS SATURDAY Nine 1,191,000 331,000 392,000 220,000 158,000 91,000
4 THE VICAR OF DIBLEY Seven 1,051,000 307,000 276,000 225,000 100,000 143,000
5 BED OF ROSES ABC 955,000 259,000 318,000 163,000 112,000 103,000
6 THE GREAT OUTDOORS Seven 924,000 282,000 246,000 202,000 105,000 89,000
7 ABC NEWS-SAT ABC 896,000 250,000 329,000 151,000 88,000 77,000
8 THE BILL ABC 814,000 236,000 269,000 114,000 82,000 113,000
10 M-AIR FORCE ONE Seven 808,000 224,000 216,000 167,000 84,000 117,000
12 SATURDAY NIGHT AFL Ten 721,000 Not shown 351,000 Not shown 90,000 108,000 172,000
13 SHREK -RPT Nine 688,000 287,000 267,000 135,000
14 GARDENING AUSTRALIA ABC 668,000 169,000 244,000 120,000 77,000 57,000
15 SATURDAY AFTERNOON AFL Ten 613,000 53,000 321,000 42,000 135,000 62,000
21 TOP GEAR RPT SBS 442,000 144,000 117,000 88,000 48,000 46,000
Continued here

• by David Dale at 03:28 PM
• Comments (72)

The Tribal Mind: The envelopes please

by David Dale
It's Logies week, when Australian television celebrates a year of excellence. It's also Bogies week, when Australian viewers vent their rage for decades of being taken for granted. This column asked for your nominations and then your verdict, and 132 readers responded. In a totally transparent process (which you can observe by going here) the voting went like this ...

Most annoying person. Mike Munro got 3 votes; Sonia Kruger 3; Bindi Irwin 6; Andrew O'Keefe 9; David Koch 20. And the winner, with 54 votes, is Kyle Sandilands.

Most offputting commercial. The Coco Pops ad in which two turds with French accents harass a housewife 7; "the one where the girl is accompanied by a beaver" 18; "the one where the tongue leaves the body in search of a drink" 29. And the winner, with 30 votes, is the series of Commonwealth Bank ads, particularly the Mad Max koala.

Most unnecessary program. 20 to 1 3; The Mint 5; Rules of Engagement 7; The Power of Ten 12; Animal Emergency 19. And the winner, with 29 votes, is Out of the Question.

Most unnecessary personality. Lara Bingle 3; Grant Denyer 5; Karl Stefanovic 7; Candice Falzon 10; Richard Reid (gossip reporter for Nine's Today) 10; The Sunrise "family" 22. And the winner, with 35 votes, is Jackie O.

Most unnecessary adaptation of an overseas show. Big Brother 3; 60 Minutes 4; The Chopping Block 4. And the winner, with 39 votes, before it has even started, is Top Gear Australia.

Most overhyped. Desperate Housewives 2; Border Security 2; Underbelly 2; The Moment of Truth 3; the Neighbours relaunch 3; Dirty Sexy Money 4; Australia's Next Top Model 7; Big Brother 8; Grey's Anatomy 16. And the winner, with 36 votes, is Cashmere Mafia.

Most Underrated. Nip/ Tuck 2; Robin Hood 2; Jekyll 2; Brothers and Sisters 2; Burn Notice 5; 30 Rock 6; Lost 7; East-West 101 9; Big Love 11; Boston Legal 18; Newstopia 19. And the winner, with 24 votes, is Life on Mars.

Most jerked around by the networks. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles 2; Torchwood 2; Family Guy 2; The Sopranos 2; Battlestar Galactica 3; Stargate 4; 30 Rock 5; ER 6; Veronica Mars 7; Weeds 9. And the winner, with 32 votes, is Scrubs.

Most missed. Doctor Who 2; The Sopranos 2; Buffy 2; Uninterrupted programs on SBS 4; The Glasshouse 4; The Games 5; The West Wing 6; Summer Heights High 6. And the winner, with 36 votes, is The Chaser's War on Everything.

Most repeated. Mean Girls 2; MASH 2; About a Boy 3; Border Security 3; anything with Gordon Ramsay 4; Friends 4; Bridget Jones 9; CSI 12; Love Actually 13. And the winner, with 29 votes, is The Simpsons.

Worst network. SBS 3; Seven 10; Ten 10. And the winner, with 59 votes, is Channel Nine.

Most surprisingly smooth skin. Juanita Phillips 4; Anne Sanders 5; Marcia Cross 5; Catriona Rowntree 5; Richard Reid 8; Sigrid Thornton 11; Sandra Sully 15. And the winner, with 16 votes, is Kerri-Anne Kennerly.

Most embarrassing program (the Naomi Robson Cup). The Sunrise special with Guy Sebastian 6; My Kid's A Star 7; The Mint 7; The Biggest Loser 8; The Wedge 8; Monster House 10; The Footy Show 18; And the joint winners, each with 22 votes, are Today Tonight and A Current Affair.

Furthest past use-by date (the Bert Newton Trophy). Catriona Rowntree 2; Barry Humphries (in any incarnation) 3; Ray Martin 6; Paul Vautin 8; Sam Newman 12; Kyle and Jackie O 14; Richard Wilkins 16. And the winner, with 21 votes, is Daryl Somers.

The Black Bogie (the Eddie McGuire Chalice). David Koch 25; Richard Wilkins 28. And the winner, with 39 votes, is Kyle Sandilands.

And a special award for the reader who made the greatest contribution is shared between Grant James, who suggested the idea of The Bogies, and Patricia, who wrote:

"How bitchy some people can be! How do they know about all these programs and presenters they dislike if they don't watch them? 'Unnecessary' programs and personalities can be controlled by the off switch - it's very simple! I haven't watched Animal Emergency but anything that increases compassion to the other inhabitants of our planet sounds like a good idea to me. I enjoyed The Chaser but it was due for a break as nothing is more tiring bordering on dangerous than tired satire. SBS is great, though you have to select programs. Leave beautiful clever Juanita alone. Most of all there are other things to do beside watching telly - find out about some of them!"

Let that be a lesson to you.

• by David Dale at 10:32 AM
• Comments (23)

The Who We Are update: Week 20

This week of the ratings blog is now history. For the latest discussion, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.
To discuss the psychological damage caused by Louie The Fly, go to The Tribal Mind.
To nominate the greatest Australian TV drama of all time, go to Who We Are.

What Australia watched, Saturday
Description Total Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Seven 1,320,000 352,000 404,000 253,000 159,000 150,000
2 HALL OF FAME TRIBUTE MATCH Ten 1,317,000 112,000 676,000 101,000 204,000 225,000
3 AUSTRALIA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEO SHOW Nine 1,160,000 368,000 353,000 203,000 117,000 119,000
4 NINE NEWS SATURDAY Nine 1,136,000 320,000 404,000 198,000 126,000 89,000
5 BED OF ROSES ABC 1,071,000 307,000 335,000 201,000 91,000 137,000
6 THE GREAT OUTDOORS Seven 951,000 277,000 283,000 209,000 91,000 91,000
7 ABC NEWS-SAT ABC 920,000 274,000 285,000 179,000 74,000 108,000
8 THE VICAR OF DIBLEY Seven 882,000 243,000 220,000 176,000 110,000 134,000
9 M-INDEPENDENCE DAY Seven 839,000 275,000 218,000 143,000 108,000 95,000
10 ABC NEWS UPDATE ABC 729,000 230,000 203,000 140,000 62,000 94,000
11 FAWLTY TOWERS Seven 727,000 209,000 204,000 161,000 77,000 77,000
12 GARDENING AUSTRALIA ABC 727,000 183,000 250,000 129,000 94,000 70,000
13 THE BILL ABC 707,000 215,000 194,000 142,000 54,000 103,000
Continued here

• by David Dale at 10:06 AM
• Comments (56)

The Tribal Mind: Vive les differences

To discuss the best Australian movie ever made, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
We know they say port when they mean suitcase and togs when they mean cossies, but otherwise, Brisbane people are just a sunnier version of Sydney people, aren't they? We know they have a frontier mentality and money coming out their ears, but are Perth people intrinsically different from Adelaide people? They watch a weird kind of football and have cafes we want to copy, but does anything else distinguish Melburnians from Sydneysiders? Answers: no, yes and yes -- you need only look at their tastes in television.

Our topic today is regional differences. Australia is not supposed to have any that matter. But when you compare the top rated programs in each capital, you find a wealth of opportunities for speculation.

Sydney people, for example, love to see Melbourne people getting shot. The number one show in this town every week is Underbelly (which Melbourne is not allowed to see). Melburnians, by contrast, love to see waiters being sworn at. Their top show is Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, about which Brisbane couldn't give a flying f--- and other capitals are lukewarm.

The southerners are also much keener than the rest of us on Jamie At Home, with the politer London chef Jamie Oliver. And possibly as a consequence, The Biggest Loser gets its best ratings in Melbourne.

Perth people clearly worry that the country is about to be invaded by drug dealers, exotic diseases and bacteria-laden foodstuffs -- their favourite of the week is a repeat of Border Security. Brisbane and Adelaide compensate for their distance from the political and business action by being better informed - their most watched show each week is Seven's Sunday news.

The differences go deeper than the top spot. Melbourne and Sydney love the black comedy of Desperate Housewives, while other capitals prefer the grim determination of Sea Patrol (which fits with their paranoid passion for Border Security).

Can we reach a conclusion about Sydney's shallowness from the fact that it is much less interested in Andrew Denton's interviews than Melbourne and Adelaide, but keener on Gladiators (while Melbourne prefers the subtlety of So You Think You Can Dance Australia)? And Sydney was where the disastrous My Kid's a Star did best. But for all its glitz, Sydney has a domestic side - Better Homes and Gardens does better here than in any other capital.

While Melbourne loves The Simpsons, aristocratic Adelaide is the heartland for My Name is Earl (wanting to see how the other half lives?) as well as Samantha Who? and Good News Week. Adelaide is also the town that supports SCU: Surious Cresh Unut - which may be because they understand the New Zealand eccent better (get a South Australian to say fish and chips).

The pressure of all that mineral money must be getting to Perth people. They like The Real Seachange more than all the other capitals - and they can afford to take one.

Click on Comments to give us your interpretation of the national taste deviations.

• by David Dale at 04:11 PM
• Comments (1)

The Who We Are Update: Week 19

This week of the blog is now history. For the latest discussion of media, go here.
For the results of The Bogie Awards 2008, go to The Tribal Mind.

So far this week, the average audience shares in prime time stand at: ABC 16.6% Seven 27.1% Nine 26.1% Ten 25.2% SBS 5.1%..

What Australia watched, Saturday
Description Total Sydney Melbourne Brisbane Adelaide Perth
1 DOC MARTIN ABC 1,507,000 448,000 409,000 328,000 155,000 168,000
2 SEVEN NEWS - SAT Seven 1,289,000 381,000 346,000 245,000 132,000 186,000
3 AUSTRALIA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEO SHOW Nine 1,094,000 274,000 326,000 230,000 126,000 139,000
4 NINE NEWS SATURDAY Nine 1,043,000 283,000 315,000 212,000 136,000 97,000
5 ABC NEWS-SAT ABC 1,001,000 294,000 288,000 204,000 112,000 103,000
6 THE VICAR OF DIBLEY Seven 947,000 282,000 223,000 213,000 83,000 146,000
7 THE GREAT OUTDOORS Seven 935,000 290,000 232,000 174,000 105,000 134,000
11 The BILL ABC 808,000 269,000 218,000 169,000 58,000 94,000
12 FAWLTY TOWERS Seven 775,000 238,000 185,000 160,000 54,000 137,000
13 RACING STRIPES -RPT Nine 758,000 209,000 219,000 149,000 71,000 110,000
14 M-PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL Seven 733,000 260,000 232,000 157,000 84,000
16 SATURDAY NIGHT AFL Ten 710,000 391,000 51,000 170,000 97,000
17 SATURDAY AFTERNOON AFL Ten 628,000 58,000 294,000 80,000 107,000 89,000
19 TOP GEAR RPT SBS 471,000 146,000 177,000 77,000 52,000 19,000
26 IPL TWENTY20 CRICKET - LIVE/DELAYED Ten 326,000 96,000 117,000 22,000 53,000 37,000
27 NINE'S SATURDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL Nine 324,000 130,000 14,000 169,000 6,000 5,000
87 MY KID'S A STAR Nine 79,000 24,000 34,000 13,000 8,000 Not shown in Perth

• by David Dale at 10:01 AM
• Comments (65)

The Tribal Mind: A multi-tasking nation of time bandits

To vote for the most annoying people and programs on TV, go to The Bogies.
To learn which city is better -- Melbourne or Sydney, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
THE TEAM of highly paid sociologists who provide the statistical and moral underpinnings for this column love to take a conventional wisdom and prove it wrong, thereby demonstrating the superiority of science over media punditry. They had broad smiles on their faces when The Tribal Mind picked up its latest data package on Friday.

We'd asked them to dissect this assumption: that Australians are losing interest in mainstream television because newer pleasures are filling their time. When you have to listen to your iPod, play video games, muck round on the internet, fiddle with your mobile phone, watch DVDs, instant-message on MSN, pirate next month's movies and flaunt yourself on myface, blogbook and spacetube, something's got to give, and that something is the box in the corner. Yes, you own a giant screen, but the last thing you'd use it for is watching TV.

That conventional wisdom seems to be supported by the ratings charts, where a "hit" these days is any show that can pull more than 1.4 million viewers in the mainland capitals, while five years ago the hit threshold was 1.8 million. Channel Seven may be up and Nine may be down, but traditional television is really just a race between dinosaurs to see who can become extinct first.

To test this, our boffins hacked into the OzTAm mainframe and found ...

Average audience watching TV in the mainland capitals between 6pm and 10.30pm in the first 14 weeks of the year
2003: Nine 1,224,000; Seven 1,063,000; Ten 915,000; ABC 693,000; SBS 212,000; All Pay stations: 520,000.
2008: Nine 1,033,000; Seven 1,093,000; Ten 835,000; ABC 673,000; SBS 234,000; All pay stations: 778,000.

So the conventional wisdom is wrong. While the free stations have lost 208,000 viewers in five years, 258,000 more city people are watching Pay TV (where the 50 most popular shows this year have included 20 rugby league matches, eight AFL matches, five cricket matches, four soccer matches, two movies, An Aussie Goes Bolly, and series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy and Border Security, which have already been repeated on free TV).

But how could we actually be watching more television, when we've embraced an avalanche of alternative ways to waste time? Answer: Australians, notorious as early adopters with short attention spans, have learned to multi-task. We aren't replacing old media with new media -- we're sticking with the old and adding on the new.

Picture a typical 19 year old at 8.45 on a Monday night. On her big screen TV she has just switched from So You Think You Can Dance Australia to Desperate Housewives. She's got her laptop and her mobile open and, while updating her MySpace page, she's texting her friends about what movie they'll see tomorrow night. When the Despos are over, she'll watch a DVD of Blood Diamond.

And, of course, she's got The Sydney Morning Herald next to her, so she can catch up with that morning's Tribal Mind column (to which she'll respond by going to Comments, below). That's what the boffins tell me, anyway.

• by David Dale at 05:18 AM
• Comments (11)

The Bogies: You be the judge and jury

Voting has now closed. For the results of The Bogie Awards 2008, go to The Tribal Mind.
To discuss the best Australian movie ever made, go to Who We Are

by David Dale
The nominations are in. Now all we need are the votes. Readers responded with malicious enthusiasm to this column's call for audience participation in The 2008 Bogie Awards for the most annoying, embarrassing, overhyped and underrated programs, personalities and ads on Australian television.

Now, in the spirit of Big Brother, Australian Idol, It Takes Two, Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance Australia, we want to give you the illusion that you can make a difference. Lets hear your judgements, below, on the content of this nation's favourite way of wasting time during the past 12 months ...

Most annoying person: Kyle Sandilands; David Koch; Sonia Kruger; Andrew O'Keefe; Bindi Irwin; Mike Munro.
Most offputting commercial: the Coco Pops ad in which two turds with French accents harass a housewife; "the one where the tongue leaves the body in search of a drink"; the Commonwealth Bank ads, particularly the Mad Max koala; the one where the girl is accompanied by a beaver..
Most unnecessary program: Out of the Question; Rules of Engagement; Animal Emergency; The Power of Ten; 20 To 1..
Most unnecessary personality: Candice Falzon; Lara Bingle; Peter Harvey; Jackie O; Karl Stefanovic; Natalie Barr; Danny Weidler; The Sunrise "family"; Grant Denyer; Richard Reid (gossip reporter for Nine's Today).
Most unnecessary adaptation of an overseas show: Big Brother; The Chopping Block; 60 Minutes; Deal or No Deal; Top Gear Australia .
Most overhyped: Grey's Anatomy; Cashmere Mafia; Australia's Next Top Model; Big Brother; The Moment of Truth; The Neighbours relaunch.
Most Underrated: Nip/ Tuck; Grand Designs; Lost; Newstopia; 30 Rock; East-West 101; Jekyll; Boston Legal; Big Love; Life on Mars; Robin Hood; Brothers and Sisters.
Most jerked around by the networks: Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles; Scrubs; 30 Rock; Weeds; Stargate; Burn Notice; Battlestar Galactica; Lost.
Most missed: The Chaser's War on Everything; The Glasshouse; The Games; Summer Heights High; uninterrupted programs on SBS.
Most repeated: Love Actually; CSI; The Simpsons; Mean Girls; Bridget Jones; About a Boy; Futurama; Border Security; Friends; anything with Gordon Ramsay.
Worst network: Nine; SBS; Seven; Ten.
Most surprisingly smooth skin: Anne Sanders; Sandra Sully; Kerri-Anne Kennerly; Marcia Cross; Catriona Rowntree; Juanita Phillips; Richard Reid; Sigrid Thornton.
Most embarrassing program (the Naomi Robson Cup): My Kid's A Star; The Mint; The Moment of Truth; The Footy Show; The Sunrise special with Guy Sebastian; The Biggest Loser; Monster House; The Wedge; Two and a Half Men; Today Tonight; A Current Affair.
Furthest past use-by date (the Bert Newton Trophy): Tony Jones; Sam Newman; Paul Vautin; Kyle and Jackie O; Ray Martin; Barry Humphries (in any incarnation); Richard Wilkins; Daryl Somers.
The Black Bogie (the Eddie McGuire Chalice): Kyle Sandilands; David Koch; Richard Wilkins.

You could add more nominations, or vote on the ones already revealed. Once we've received your online votes, our panel of incorruptible accountants will tally them and determine the winners.

We propose to announce the result of your deliberations at a coruscating ceremony in the same week as the Logies. Sadly, we're sure there will be considerable overlap.

• by David Dale at 08:08 AM
• Comments (134)

The Tribal Mind: How wide is your cultural literacy?

To vote for the most annoying people and programs on TV, go to The Bogies

by David Dale
Every quarter this column submits the natIonal GST accounts -- where GST stands for the groovy, successful and transient entertainments which have filled the leisure time of Australians in recent months. Lets begin with a quiz to test your cultural literacy. If you get more than five of these right, you can rejoice in being attuned to the latest tastes of your compatriots. If you get less than five right, you can rejoice in being distinct from the common herd.

You'll find clues in the charts below, which list pleasures consumed by more than a million of us between January 1 and March 31. But don't look down there yet. And definitely don't go to the answers yet.

1 Who kept saying "Come back, come back to me"? To whom? In what?
2 Give the last two names in this set: Amazon, Angel, Bionica, Destiny, Nitro ...
3 Who said: "God didn't do this, we did." In what?
4 Fill in the missing words: Novak -- defeated Jo-Wilfried -- in the final of -- -- --.
5. Who shot Alphonse Gangitano? And then who ordered a hit on the person who shot Alphonse Gangitano. In what?
6 "There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes." Who sang this, on what?
7 Give the last two names in this set: Graeme, Demi, Rhys, Rhiannon, Henry, Vanessa ...
8 "I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich." Who said this, in what?
9 Complete this chorus, and name the source: "I wanna take you away, lets escape into the music. DJ let it play, I just can't refuse it. Like the way you do this ... "
10 Give the last two names in this set: Peter, Chris, Lois, Meg ...

Now here are the clues ...

The movies we're seeing. At the cinema: I Am Legend ($23m worth of tickets sold); Alvin and the Chipmunks ($17.5m); 27 Dresses ($15.5m); The Golden Compass ($15m); Enchanted ($12.5m); American Gangster ($11.5m); Juno ($11.5