Why is free-to-air television getting so bad in Australia?
I don’t think it’s just me, but over the last five years or so it seems that there has been a steady decline in quality.
It’s a decline on two fronts; the programming, and the commercials. For starters it seems that new programs don’t get enough time to build an audience before their schedule is changed, in fact it’s not unusual to see a program dropped entirely after just three episodes. Obviously this is due to a concern with low audiences and the resulting sales implications, but this is where it gets Catch-22 as the frequent schedule changes and eventual cancellations fly in the face of any kind of audience growth.
Then there’s the commercials. Why are there so many ads that are characterised by frantic voice-overs, loud graphics jumping off the screen, font-soup and clip-art imagery? It could be that the broadcasters are offering “free TVC with your schedule” – in which case it’s proof that you get what you pay for…
Meantime, free-to-air viewing figures are in slow but steady decline. The rot has set in, but until the owners face up to these challenges I guess we’ll be hammered with more bad commercials and less investment in programming.
