Australia

Australian TV emerged with the 1956 Olympics (held in Melbourne). Public broadcasting was from ABC in Melbourne and Sydney, with private competition from HSV7 and GTV9 in the former and TCN9 and ATN7 in the latter. In 1959 Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth set up their own channels, but it was not for another 30 years that certain parts of the outback were to receive TV, via the AUSSAT satellite.

Although Australia is most famed for its soaps and serials, we should not ignore its valuable contribution to the world film industry's archives, and from the mid-'70s, music programmes have also been at the fore of Australian entertainment programming genres.

The SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) was inaugurated in 1980, with a remit to cater for 4-out-of-10 Australians with ethnic origins outside of the homeland. Linguistic diversity in Australia is not, however, reflected to any degree because of the plethora of migrant cultures and languages involved.

Prime-time programming on SBS is invariably in English, although subtitled material is broadcast outside of these hours. This is the channel for SCTV, covering niche areas such as European cinema, avant garde shorts etc. Since 1991 SBS has carried advertising, and since the mid-90s has proven itself to be strong in off-the-wall and documentary programming.

From the early 90s, Australian commercial TV has been culturally speaking, shambolic due partially to an ownership crisis, and partially to the lack of investment in new programmes by dominant channels.

In 2000, 1.2 million households (out of 6 million) were subscribers to Pay-TV, five years after its inception. Pay-TV channels are provided by Foxtel (Murdoch, Kerry Packer's PBL, Telstra), Optus Vision and Austar. Outside of sports coverage, the bulk of sports programming is imported. ABC, meanwhile, has sunk to unfathomable depths, and is seen by some as a repository for stuffy BBC rejects, although ABC Online is one of the country's favourite web sites.