AustLit

'Beginning in 1998, there has been an explosion in the flow of television programme formats worldwide witnessing to the advent of a global television system for programme production and distribution. In fact, this kind of programme adaptation and remaking had a long gestation that reaches back even before the beginnings of regular television broadcasting to the early 1940s. Media scholars were very slow over the subsequent half-century to register what was taking place, let alone inquire into its dynamics and critical significance. If programme remaking was noticed at all, it was understood in high culture terms as confirmation of crassness and materialism operating in commercial television. Critical research added a further charge of media imperialism to describe the supposed national and social outcomes of such a practice. However, since the 1990s, scholarly inquiry has affected a seachange in its engagement with the phenomenon of television programme remaking that was prompted not least by a realisation that its commercial and cultural operations and consequences are more interesting, intriguing, and multi-dimensional than was earlier thought. In this context, three programme format transfers that happened between the UK and Australia in the 1960s are examined. The three sets of programme transfer constitute a rich, engaging area of analysis for several reasons including the fact that they were ‘live’ programme formats whereas their exchange took place in a public service context, the latter being a sector that usually falls under the critical radar. Drawing connections of this kind across an imperial cultural space can make a significant contribution to transnational television history from a comparative Anglophone perspective.' (Publication abstract)

'Since the late 1990s, when broadcasters began adapting such television shows as Big Brother, Survivor, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? for markets around the world, the global television industry has been struggling to get to grips with the prevalence of programme franchising across international borders. In TV Format Mogul, Albert Moran traces the history of this phenomenon through the lens of Australian producer Reg Grundy’s transnational career. Beginning in the late 1950s, Grundy brought non-Australian shows to Australian audiences, becoming the first person to take local productions to an overseas market. By following Grundy’s career, Moran shows how adaptation and remaking became the billion-dollar business they are today.'

[Source: Amazon]

Published as part of Australian Screen, a series devoted to critical and historical studies in Australian film and television, Images and Industry explores the Australian television industry from its early days, and the struggle to constantly produce live shows, the battles over licences, the rise and sudden fall of production companies, and how the two most successful television companies - Crawfords and Gundys - managed to survive.

Some of the shows examined include: Kingswood County, Cop Shop, Prisoner, The Sullivans, Sons and Daughters, A Country Practice, Homicide, People in Conflict, Number 96, Bellbird, Skippy and Certain Women.