August 30, 2007

New AFL show has fresh perspective

Ignored by footy panels shows, indigenous footballers have created their own. By Michael Winkler.

THURSDAY night? Check.
Ex-footballers in suits? Check.
The Footy Show? Not this time.

There is a new AFL program on the block. The Marngrook Footy Show started last month on Channel 31 in Melbourne and across Australia via National Indigenous Television (NITV). Anchored by Grant Hansen, it is based on a radio program of the same name, which has been running for more than a decade on 3KND and through the National Indigenous Radio Service network.

Gilbert McAdam, Derek Kickett, Ronnie Burns and Alan Thorpe provide the panel's football experience. Between them they played 437 games of senior football across eight AFL clubs. McAdam hails from Central Australia, Kickett from Western Australia, Burns from the Tiwi Islands, while Thorpe's roots are in Gippsland, thus providing links to a huge slice of indigenous Australia.

"All of us on this show love footy," Hansen says. "We eat, sleep and breathe football. We have all been friends for a long time and that helps because we know where each other is coming from.

"Being blackfellas together helps, too. Blackfellas view the game differently to whitefellas. It is our perception of the way the game is played. We seem to read the play in a different way. There is a brotherhood element to our program. We're about promoting the game and the Aboriginal players, but the warmth is genuine, not put on. I get frustrated at the lack of indigenous people in the football media."

Co-host McAdam reads out team selections, highlighting the indigenous players and balancing the football patter with subtle humour. He recently bumped into former Melbourne star Garry Lyon, who said he had watched a bit of The Marngrook Footy Show before going on air in Channel Nine's The Footy Show. McAdam told him the Marn-grook team would be doing its best to knock the Channel Nine ratings winner off its pedestal.

The show also features 19-year-old Leila Gurruwiwi, who reads the football news and presents two packaged interview segments. Originally from the Top End, she is as passionate about football as her male colleagues.

"All my family are still on Elcho Island," Gurruwiwi says. "They see me on the television and feel proud of me. Apparently, there are 40 or 50 of them up there crowding into one room watching one screen. My mum rings me every Friday and talks about different parts of the show, so I'll know she's been watching.

"I think having women on the show adds a feminine touch. Women do watch football and follow AFL teams and seeing us might make women feel more comfortable."

Indigenous footballers make up about 10 per cent of all players on AFL lists, an all-time high. This group is, in turn, well represented on any highlights reel, with players like Leon Davis, "Buddy" Franklin and the Burgoyne brothers routinely performing spectacular feats. But as the Marngrook team points out, this prominence has not translated into media work.

"We hope this will be a good launching pad for indigenous players to get into the mainstream media, and the same for the ladies," Burns says.

"How many Aboriginal players do you see on regular footy shows? None is the answer."

Thorpe, a founding member of the radio team, says: "This is the first indigenous footy show ever, and we are very proud of that. We have a high level of respect for each other, but also for our audience."

Adds Kickett: "I started playing footy when I was six and stopped last year (aged 44), so it is a way to still be part of something I love and something that's part of our culture. I think this show has been a long time coming."

Producer Peter Johnson describes it as "positive, in-the-moment stuff.

"So much of what we see on television about indigenous Australia focuses on the past, what happened back then and how bad it was, or on the future - what should we do about it? This is about what is happening now, and it is all good news.

"We get historical footage from AFL Films, plus we can use current highlights from Channel Seven, Channel Ten and Foxtel. This is real generosity on their part, given the cost of broadcast rights."

He lauds the AFL for supporting the program. NITV started broadcasting in July. Its aim is to grow into Australia's third national broadcaster. NITV currently beams out on the Optus Aurora satellite and via Imparja Television's second channel, but from October it will be available via Foxtel and Austar.

Marngrook was an Aboriginal game played in Western Victoria before and after European settlement that some believe helped inspire Tom Wills when he and others formulated the laws of Australian rules. It featured high-flying attempts to mark a ball made from possum skins.

NITV's slogan is "From Dreamtime to prime time". The same might be said for Marngrook.

The Marngrook Footy Show screens Thursday at 8.30pm on Channel 31.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

July 24, 2007

TV dreams for a good sport

Bayside Leader, Jonathan Andrews

Kat O'Shea.

BRIGHTON'S Kat O'Shea is improvising her way to a career in TV.

And the combination of her confidence, charisma and coolness may eventually make her famous.

But the 23-year-old says she doesn't mind if she doesn't hit television stardom any time soon because her training in theatre will always be a good back up.
Anyway, a full-time teaching job takes up plenty of O'Shea's time and she says she is ``enjoying life just as it is''. Now starring as a presenter on Channel 31's TheatreGames Live, she says the university-produced program is a good grounding.

``I like theatre, but enjoy TV more because it is something different every time,'' O'Shea said. ``It is always a different experience and a different atmosphere because we have to improvise everything. ``A TV studio has a much more diverse dynamic because you are performing to a camera, with the producer always wanting wacky reactions.''

The unscripted program has been going since December last year, screening on Fridays at 10pm. The second season began four weeks ago and will continue for two more months.

O'Shea is a drama and English teacher by day and a TV presenter at night, and has trodden the boards in several university plays and musicals.
``I don't get nervous I just enjoy spontaneity and improvising to have great fun,'' she said.
``Every show is different and I'm never sure what will happen.
``Our reactions are often ridiculous, too.''

The program is produced by arts and media students from Deakin University and RMIT. O'Shea shares the presenting with Robin Brown and the production is shot at Deakin's Burwood campus.

Parts of the show, which pits aspiring actors against each other in a series of witty and creative theatre games, are online at www.theatregameslive.com.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

June 26, 2007

One Night Stand Delivers

Port Phillip / Caulfield Leader, Words: Paul Riordan, Picture: Tony Gough

Glen Noble . . . scoring winners for community television.

FROM London to Melbourne, Glen Noble has influenced the drama we see on our televisions and the music we hear.
The St Kilda East resident has worked on Neighbours, ABC Kids drama series Eugene Sandler P.I. and as script editor on British soapie East Enders.
Now Noble's latest work, the Channel 31 drama One Night Stand, has seen him take out the TrueLocal Antenna award for Best Drama.
The annual awards recognise the standouts in community television around Australia. "I've been very encouraged. It gives me the inspiration to keep on working," Noble, 49, said.
The show was put together with the help of the City of Melbourne and the Australian writers' Guild.
Noble said he received 40 scripts from all over the country. Six were chosen to be developed into separate episodes of One Night Stand.
"Each writer was allowed four characters and four sets, but the subject matter was open." he said. "Each episode had its own self-contained story, which gave us more freedom of choice."
The Londoner moved to Australia in 1999. "When I came to Australia, I noticed the lack- of drama on Australian TV," Noble said.
The inspiration for One Night Stand came from a similar concept in London.
Comedian Lenny Henry created a show for the BBC titled Funky Black Shorts, which Noble also worked on, featuring scripts submitted by black writers.
But it isn't just television drama that Noble is focusing his talents on. He also organises the St Kilda Jazz Jam Festival, which showcases local jazz musicians and is held in mid-November.
Back in London, he was responsible for helping to organise the Portobello Art Festival.
To earn a crust, Noble spends his days working at Channel 31 selling advertising space.
"I can make my living and make my shows . . . it's a good balance," he said.
He said a new series of One Night Stand was being developed for airing in mid-2008.
Anyone wishing to submit a script should send it to 6A Westbury Grove, St Kilda East, 3183.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

July 10, 2007

Putting a flipside to Filipino face-up

Andrew Miller, The Waverley Leader

CLAYTON community television presenter Al Noveloso is on a mission to change how he believes many Australians think about Filipinos.

Al Noveloso, of Clayton, wants to raise the profile of the
Filipino community through the television show he hosts.
Picture: N02WG805

Noveloso hosts Pinoy TV, first broadcast on Channel 31 in Melbourne in 2002 and now screening in Sydney, Perth and Adelaide.

''We want to be seen as part of the Australian landscape,'' he said. ''We are not alien; we are part of the Australian community. I was originally on community radio and I felt there was a need for the Filipino community to be shown or promoted in a broader context.

''Sections of the community think that Filipinos are like Rose Porteous or Imelda Marcos and I wanted to change all that.''
Pinoy TV and its offshoot, Music Lounge, were finalists in this year's TrueLocal Antenna Awards.

Pinoy TV has a magazine format and features news from the Philippines, interviews with Melbourne identities and a panel, which answers viewers' queries. Music Lounge, for younger people, features Philippine-based bands and artists.

A public servant by profession, Noveloso is completing a masters degree in applied media and leans towards more television work.
Pinoy TV screens on Sundays at 6pm, and Music Lounge goes to air at 6.30pm on Sundays and Tuesdays.

CLICK HERE to view the C31 Melbourne Pinoy TV Page.
CLICK HERE to view the C31 Melbourne Pinoy Music Lounge Page.

CLICK HERE to view the Leader article.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

June 28, 2007

31 reasons for hope

Marieke Hardy, The Age Newspaper, Green Guide

TO THINK that last week I was somewhat boorishly bemoaning the lack of feisty smart-alec ladies on my televisual screens when all I had to do was allow my remote to lead me towards Channel 31 and I would be presented with the most richly comedic loud-mouthed redhead this side of Mick Hucknall. Not only that, but through her insouciant charms I was transported to another dimension; a dimension where amusing and warmly intelligent barnstormers presented keen-witted and engaging television shows and not one of them was Shaun Micallef .

If you don't believe me, I'll direct you somewhat smartly (though with impeccable manners) to Thursday night's twentysomething, a DIY comedy series about two mates living together who occasionally dress up in rude costumes and titillate bored housewives with an erotic cleaning service, if ep one is anything to go by. The lady half of our pair is the utterly magnificent Jess Harris - a sharp-tongued leggy soubrette with a pleasing habit of making an idiot of herself and a devilish streak so brassy it has its own postcode. Harris epitomises everything commercial television is lacking - she's fresh, unafraid, whip-smart, dirty and entirely watchable. Find her at once.

Basking in the post-coital glow of a fairly sizeable belly laugh brought to me courtesy of a foxy fantapants in a ridiculous pair of high-cut bathers, I was completely unable to rouse myself to manhandle the remote and thusly bombarded with the next instalment of C31 funny from "the anti-David and Margaret" (their words) - The Bazura Project.

TBP is unashamedly a show for film dorks, by film dorks. It's well researched and it's clever and it's quite obviously produced by the sort of pale obsessives who will stab you in the throat with a compass if you dare suggest Citizen Kane dragged a little in the third act. Lacking the smooth parental tut-tut overtones of Stratton and Pomeranz, TBP dares to be something many review shows can't bring themselves to be - emphatically droll. Friends Shannon and Lee talk smack about themselves, each other, films, girls they dream of one day being able to touch in a sexy fashion, and pretty much anything that tickles their fancy.

Their cinematic zealotry leads nicely into 10pm's Planet Nerd, which opens with a mystifying in-joke no doubt understood only by men over 38 still living at home with their parents and wearing Chewbacca slippers, and gets magically dorkier from there. Mainly hosted by Paul Verhoeven ("the hot one", for any bookish girls out there keen on extending their pin-up repertoire) and Dan Walmsley, the half-hour take on all things poindexter takes us from Apple Mac conferences, to zombie movies, to an adorably earnest segment known with sombre fanboy devotion as "Whedon World". A joke about Tintin fair finishes me off, as anyone who respects the boy journalist and Captain Haddock is clearly a genius. When was the last time you heard a Tintin wisecrack on It Takes Two? Have any of those contestants even read a book?

Friday's Studio 4 is another gem, and fronted by similarly winsome brainiacs who, when not utilising their seemingly infinite collection of stock footage (a review of Clerks 2 consisting entirely of patients in 1950s' pyjamas vomiting lavishly into bedside buckets), are throwing in odd vignettes about the Hulk doing his tax and hitting each other on the head with rubber balls.

Last Friday's episode featured a particular piece about a regenerating computer which was so admirably bizarre it made me laugh 'til I dampened my gusset, which is surely the highest praise a television columnist can bestow upon a cavalier undergraduate sketch show tucked into the dark recesses of a community network.

I'm the first to admit that occasionally surreal and reckless bent comedy filmed on a camera phone in what appears to be somebody's garage isn't to everyone's liking. The jokes on these shows can be hit and miss, the hosts randomly too eager to please. But if you're like me and somewhat wary of the overly slick and mindless Smorgy's salad bar pulp that's being fed to us by network executives, then I suggest you let our young friends at C31 help you get your hands dirty.

At the very least you'll spend a pleasant half-hour remembering the quick-witted boy with a bowl cut who tried to chat you up at a party only to watch you grow increasingly intoxicated and moronically leave with someone who couldn't tell you a good knock-knock joke if it came to life and set his Tim Buckley records on fire.

More importantly, if you don't turn your attention to our perspiring cousins at C31 for at least five minutes in the next few months, they may be completely eaten up by digital media, meaning that stars in the making like Jess Harris and Paul Verhoeven will disappear from our screens forever. And if that happens I'm going to come looking for you and kill you while you sleep.

Backchat2007@gmail.com
LINK to Green Guide Article.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

June 19, 2007

Generation hilarious

twentysomething creators Josh Schmidt and Jess Harris. Photo: Eddie Jim.

Daniel Ziffer, The Age Newspaper, Green Guide

TWENTYSOMETHING friends Josh and Jess were rocking from delight to failure, from drudgery to party, trying desperately to find a direction in their lives. So they decided to script it instead.

Two years later, the result is a caustically funny situation-comedy series, twentysomething, now screening on Channel 31, which shows off their natural talent for amusing others.

"We're just trying to find out what we wanted to do with our lives," Jess Harris, 24, said. "We just used to laugh about all these situations we and our friends would get into, so we decided to do something with it."

The pair fitted shooting around their day jobs. Josh Schmidt, 26, creates "behind-the-scenes" footage for DVDs, including the new Kath & Kim series, while Harris even filmed some scenes during lulls in the bayside cafe where she waitresses.

The recurring question of "what are you doing with yourself?" convinced the pair, from suburban Melbourne, to mine their excruciating life experiences, and those of friends, to create the six-part series.

Schmidt did, for example, buy 300 cheap headbands at Bangkok's Khao San Road, with the intention of flogging them at the Camberwell Market. The stall never eventuated, but the headbands get a mention on the show.

The series revolves around flatmates named Josh and Jess and features hilariously blunt depictions of what happens when partying, short attention spans and a need for cash collide.

Bored and broke, they engage in a multitude of get-rich-quick schemes: including titillating bored housewives with "erotic cleaning", starting a teenage driving school - which is used as a taxi service - and finding lost pets.

In real life, "I've dressed as a present outside the MCG", Harris says, laughing. "But the characters are not Josh and I . . . I'm not that much of a bitch!"

Harris' character is refreshingly aggressive and convincing, happy to make extra cash by dressing in a French maid's outfit while looking after Josh's uncle's cleaning business, and describing lost pets as a "gap in the market".

Jess pushes the conflict with the more cautious complexion of Josh. In a late episode, Josh consults a life coach - who advises him to get a new flatmate - while Jess can be seen through the window, falling out of her dressing gown and playing totem tennis while chugging a bottle of champagne. She later beds the coach to push him out of their lives. The series is not just funnier than most commercial sit-coms, it shows how making and distributing television has been democratised by the internet and the tumbling cost of technology.

The pair called in favours from their family and friends, including comedians Hamish Blake and Ed Kavalee, who got paid in bottles of wine. "Cleanskins," Harris noted, before thanking her mum for providing the catering. The series was shot on a camera borrowed from the Reach youth organisation

There was no crew, and the pair can be seen wearing clip mikes on their lapels, because they only had a boom operator for one day. Filming was done almost entirely by Jesse Martin. If his name sounds familiar, it's because in 1999 the then 18-year-old became the youngest person to sail around the globe alone. Schmidt accompanied him on a later, doomed, journey.

twentysomething was then edited on a dying Apple computer, presented to Channel 31, and hit the air.

The premiere screening at a Chapel Street nightclub drew more than 300 people, among them Chris Lilley (We Can Be Heroes) and Ryan Shelton (Real Stories).

"I think our friends just wondered what we'd been doing for two years," Harris said. Her school friend, Hamish Blake, co-host of Australia's most widely listened to radio show, Hamish and Andy, helped with some key scenes.

Get This! comedian and actor Ed Kavalee also makes an appearance as a Gretel Killeen-style host of a controversial reality-TV show.

Schmidt's former drama teacher, Paul Currie, who directed 2004's One Perfect Day, appears in an episode in which the pair decide on acting as a role to stardom and success, and also helped behind the scenes.

twentysomething airs Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 31.

LINK to Green Guide Article.
LINK to Twentysomething page

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

May 31, 2007

Only way is up, baby

Bridget McManus, The Age Newspaper, Green Guide

She's too "vulgar" for commercial television and "not ethnic enough" for SBS. She's been called fat and ugly by viewers, and told by a network executive to shut up and let her male offsider do the talking. People are always asking her why, after seven years hosting a tacky 1980s music show on public television, she won't move on.

But Josie Parrelli, the big-haired, lycra-loving, daggy-dancing star of one of Channel 31's longest-running programs, Chartbusting 80s, is doing what she loves.

And if she can ride the '80s revival wave long enough, she might just wash up on mainstream TV. Former station-mates Rove McManus, Hamish and Andy, and new SBS gardening guru Vasili Kanidiadis made the crossover, so why not a brash, Wham!-worshipping, hairdresser from Perth with southern Italian roots?

"I'm seeing how far the wings of the show can carry me," says a toned-down version of "Queen Josie", lounging at Loop bar in the city, where her fourth compilation DVD was launched. "A large production house associated with the ABC loved the concept, but when they gave me the contract they wanted 100 per cent ownership and 'Ms Perelli' - surname spelt wrong - could stay on in a consultancy role. They said, 'We can't understand why you're turning this down'."

Queen Josie may be a shambolic megalomaniac, who lambasts her cowering co-host Jeff Jenkins, lewdly introduces best-forgotten clips from the likes of the Chantoozies and Nick Kershaw, and flings herself at the audience during signature horror-karaoke segments, but her creator is no fool.

Recognising a niche market, Parrelli first approached Channel 31 in 2000 at the age of 22, with the idea of running a clip show. When spare air-time demanded a presenter, she rose to the occasion, adding Jenkins to the mix when he introduced her to her idol, Molly Meldrum, whose biography Jenkins is writing.

The odd couple - who Parrelli describes as "like George and Mildred" - and the show, have come a long way since the station's primitive early days of second-hand pneumatic tapes and transmission glitches.

Back then the pair had to "pull riff-raff off the street" to make up a dismal studio audience. Now they turn people away from their weekly live show which has a new following of retro-mad teenagers.

With an average weekly audience of more than 150,000 in Melbourne (Chartbusting 80s is also broadcast on public stations in Sydney and New Zealand), they are one of C31's top-performing shows. Parrelli has quit hairdressing to work the MC circuit, and this year made her fifth appearance on the Logies red carpet.

With public television facing the frightening prospect of being left behind by the digital revolution, the only way may be up (to paraphrase an '80s chartbuster) for C31 personalities such as Parrelli.

According to the chairman of the C31 board, Peter Lane, if the Federal Government does not accommodate public stations in its "digital action plan", C31 will remain in analog territory, which is being vacated as households upgrade their televisions to digital. No money was allocated in the recent federal budget for public TV's conversion to digital, while commercial and national networks have been given a double helping of broadcasting spectrum to enable them to run analog and digital services in parallel. Analog services are expected to be switched off entirely in Australia by 2012.

"We're holding strong on our audience figures for the last 12 months and even went up last month, which indicates that we're getting an increasing slice of the diminishing analog audience. Undoubtedly, if we had digital, we'd be growing," says Lane, who notes C31 Melbourne had an audience of 1.395 million viewers in April. C31, which exists on advertising sales and sponsorship, is lobbying the government for a fixed share of the digital spectrum.

Parrelli is the first to acknowledge that her outlandish character would need taming to fit the mainstream ideal of the female presenter.

"I've had meetings with commercial station executives and they've said to me: 'Shut up, sit down, don't wave yourself around, Josie. Let Jeff do the talking and then you'll get picked up.

"When I was growing up, the men on TV always seemed so dominant. You had Daryl Somers being really rude to Jackie McDonald (on Hey, Hey, it's Saturday!). I remember thinking, 'I don't like that the girls just stand there being submissive.' So I wanted Chartbusting 80s to be the reverse."

Network bigwigs are not the only ones offended by Parrelli's style, or lack thereof. A few years back, a Green Guide critic penned an open letter to her, begging her to stop dancing. On her show, she reads out hate mail criticising everything from her thighs to her teeth to her racial origins. One night, she faced the camera Dixie Chicks-style, scantily clad with slurs written across her body.

As well as reliving the '80s ("such a positive time"), Parrelli wants to revive what she sees as the dying art of music television, and a music industry that has "lost its soul".

"In the '70s and '80s, artists had been working up to the point when they released a song. Their passion was there and we felt it. Whereas people from Australian Idol are going the opposite way. They're told they're talented and loved and then six months down the track, they have to do the hard work and they don't understand. They're over the songs they have to sing and so we're over it, too.

"Gone are the days when people would release two hit albums that would have seven songs that had charted in the top 10. Now, on the merit of one hit that's been downloaded by teenagers onto mobile phones, they're doing a promotional tour.

"Music in Australia is suffering without a show like Countdown. JTV's good because it offers alternative music. But generally speaking, unless a band gets picked up by Rove, or they do a guest program at 3am on Rage, no one knows who they are. Video Hits has kids presenting who have come off reality shows. They have no interest in the artists."

Perhaps such new talent should be cutting its teeth the old-fashioned way, on public television?

"C31 is a station now, like every other station. I've had crew who left the show say to me, 'Josie, you're still doing that caper, you're still on C31'. Yes, I am, but I'm doing something I love.

"It would be awful to think that if C31 doesn't get a digital licence that all these shows finish. People need an alternative. There's only so much reality TV we can be insulted by."

Chartbusting 80s airs live on Thursdays at 9pm (repeated Saturdays at 10.30pm) on Channel 31.

www.channel31.org.au

www.myspace.com/chartbusting80stv

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

May 26, 2007

Taping the source

Melinda Houston, The Age Newspaper

Some of TV's best talent learnt the ropes at Channel 31, says Melinda Houston. And that's why we need to save it.
It may be the impoverished cousin of both television and community broadcasting, but even as the Federal Government does its darnedest to make sure as few people as possible can actually watch Channel 31, the tiny Melbourne station continues to labour away, providing an outlet for an astonishing range of obscure interest groups and training up generations of serious television talent.

The most recent graduate to make the leap from remote tributary to mainstream is Vasili Kanidiadis. For five years the likeable Greek family man produced and presented Vasili's Garden, a weekly "lifestyle" program for C31. A sort of Wog Boys meets Gardening Australia, it blended horticultural advice, garden tours, recipes and accordion music in lively combination and has now been adopted by SBS, where it screens on Wednesday nights at 7.30.

In the early days it was pretty rough (as most C31 programs are). And - like most C31 programs - you could sense the employment of a quantity of gaffer tape, drinking straws and other Useful Box contents in its production, along with more or less constantly crossed fingers. But it was fun, it was fresh, it was quirky, and despite Vasili's occasional Con the Fruiterer moment, it provided quality content, whether that was how to keep aphids off your roses using a mix of milk and water or how to cook an eggplant once you'd harvested it.

As the years went by, both Vasili and Vasili's Garden became more polished (he made 150 episodes). But not too polished. And now he's producing essentially the same show for general consumption, in association with SBS Independent.
Which is precisely the way the University of Channel 31 works. And precisely its value. C31 alumni share a number of valuable qualities, not least knowing how to make watchable programs on the cheap. And there are plenty of them.

Rove McManus and his crew are perhaps the most famous. In the late 1990s he made 40 episodes of The Loft, an anarchic precursor to Rove Live in which he and mates Corinne Grant and Peter Hellier honed their skills and where they also had the pleasure of introducing some unlikely talent to Melbourne audiences, including John Safran (The Loft was his first television appearance) and Triple J presenter Dave Callan.

More recently, Hamish Blake and Andy Lee made six eps of their sketch comedy show Radio Karate before attracting serious mainstream attention. Fox FM's Jo Stanley hosted Boob Tube, another variety/sketch show. Gossip hound Adam Richard did likewise with Squeal (a gay variety/sketch show). In an uncanny bit of prescience, Stephen Hall, currently in the news for his portrayal of Bert Newton in The King, hosted Under Melbourne Tonight, his own warped version of IMT. A bevy of folk working in real-world news and current affairs got their start in C31's news and youth affairs programs. Plus of course the dozens of behind-the-scenes operators who have gone on to get real day jobs in the industry.

That's a lot of talent for a little station. And aside from their admirable cost-effectiveness, Channel 31 graduates - including Vasili - tend to share other characteristics that are crucial to the health of Australian television.
They are not in thrall to the networks, or big money. Sure, they'd probably all like network gigs with concomitant massive salaries. But the years spent building their own programs from the ground up tend to engender a certain independence and self-sufficiency.

Most of these people continue to work across networks, across radio and television. Rove, of course, has his own production house. Even Vasili has maintained a large degree of control through his own company, I Like It Productions. It means that what they do remains more wholly their own, relatively undiluted by the bean counters and ratings-watchers.

An important element of that self-sufficiency is that they all tend to maintain an element of anarchy, or at least of risk-taking, in their work. And that's always exciting. It's the nature of risk-taking, of course, that not all those risks will pay off. But it's an attitude that provides at least some insulation against blandness, which Australian television needs more than ever.
Which makes it all the more cruel that in the recent revamp of media regulations, the Federal Government didn't see fit to assign funds to convert to digital broadcasting or even digital broadcast spectrum to community television. Which means that as more and more households go digital (and in due course we all will be forced to go digital), fewer and fewer Melburnians will have the chance to actually experience the strange and wonderful cultural petri dish that is Channel 31.

For now, though, the great migration from small pond to large continues. The guys and gals of Salam Cafe, the young Muslim chat show, are preparing a pilot for SBS. Hosts of C31's breakfast show - Emma Race, Declan Fay and Justin Kennedy - look poised for greatness. Plenty of us are hoping that bizarre trivia show Hot Dog with the Lot turns up in a late-night mainstream spot sometime soon. And surely - surely! - one of the commercial networks will grasp the potential of Fishcam, and bring our finned friends out of retirement. Let's face it, they're no less entertaining than Quizmania (which, incidentally, is hosted by another Channel 31 chick). And they're cheap.

The 2007 Truelocal Antenna Awards (the community TV Logies) will be broadcast live on Channel 31, 8pm, Friday June 8. Nominees at www.c31.org.au/antennas.

READ MORE ...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

May 17, 2007

Greek green thumb

Paul Kalina, The Age Newspaper

An earthy migrant gardening show with a community-TV cult following is replanted on SBS.

VASILI Kanidiadis has pearls of wisdom that extend well beyond his calling as an accidental gardening show presenter: If you can't eat it, don't grow it. Greeks in Australia are more Greek than the Greeks who stayed behind. There's much to be learned from our ancestors' traditions.

Cultivating the food we put on the table reconnects us not only to an ailing planet but to our souls. Nothing in a harvest goes to waste; what can't be eaten can be preserved. Even an unloved raw pumpkin can be a refreshing autumn dessert.

His show, Vasili's Garden, grew to cult status during its broadcast on community channel 31, attracting viewers from elderly migrants to teenagers. Now, after two years of discussions, the show has moved to SBS, where Vasili and co-creator and producer Peter Deske hope their eccentric, knockabout gardening show will win a larger audience.

READ MORE ...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

May 8, 2007

In Melbourne this morning

Daniel Ziffer, The Age Newspaper

First came Today. Then Sunrise muscled in. Now it's Channel 31's turn.

At least that's The Breakfast Show dream. From today the community station is taking on the big guns in the 7.30 to 8.30 weekday timeslot, hoping viewers will appreciate provocative, funny and Melbourne-based as the formula for which they've long craved in breakfast TV land.

Producer and host Emma Race will be joined by local comedians Justin Kennedy and Declan Fay, broadcasting from the station's studio near the Queen Victoria Market.

"It gives the people of Melbourne an option," Race says, pointing out the show's distinctions from its commercial rivals. "It's more for Melbourne and about it - like what Triple R's Breakfasters do on radio, but on TV."

The show, funded by "sponsorship announcements" (apparently what technically sets them apart from ads is the on-screen acknowledgement of financial support), ran over two hours on Fridays last year, mixing news with regular guests and visiting stars, but has been off-air since December.

"We always say it's like breakfast radio but with pictures. Unfortunately, the pictures are of us. It's like a group of friends who get together to have an irreverent chat," she says.

Race, who spent four years on Triple R, says the show's commitment to local events makes it a different beast to its Sydney-based rivals. "The Breakfast Show is all Melbourne. We effectively want it to be entertainment and information for people in this great city," she says.

The host has an intriguing TV pedigree, beginning in 2002 on the Channel 31 Saturday morning youth show Dawn's Crack. After moving to Sydney for a job with ABC TV's digital channel she hosted Inside Australian Idol for Channel Ten. She then joined Seven for the ill-fated sports panel show 110% Tony Squires.

"The catering's not quite as good," says Race of community television, "but to have creative control of what you're doing is amazingly exciting."

Breakfast television is not the highest-rating timeslot, but it is important in setting network audiences for the rest of the day.

Sunrise has almost double the number of viewers as Today nationally, (412,000 versus 226,000 last week), but in Melbourne the contest is much more tight. In the week to April 28, for example, Today averaged 87,000 viewers versus Sunrise's 75,000.

Sunrise producer Adam Boland has nothing but good wishes for his new competitor.

"My head was too ugly, so I started on community radio at a terrific little station called 4CCR," he says. "For that reason, I really value community media. It allows some rather wild experimentation."

Boland denies that his show is Sydney-centric, highlighting that producers from outside NSW have been employed along with commentators such as 3AW's Neil Mitchell.

"We're a national show, which allows us the luxury of using the best of the best - no matter its origin. We've also got significantly more Melbourne content than ever before, including a new commitment to sport and local traffic reports."

Humour will be an unavoidable element of The Breakfast Show: co-hosts Fay and Kennedy also spend a few days a week as writers with the Rove team on Channel Ten.

Fay's TV career began when he was a self-described "fat baby" on soapie Prisoner. "The biggest disappointment was when I was replaced by an even fatter baby. It devastated me for years," he says. "And my mum spent all the money - so I learnt how cruel the industry could be at 18 months."

At university he began writing comedy, working as a motivational speaker and has, with Chris Kennett, hosted The Pinch on Triple R since 2002. The pair have performed several well-regarded shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

Fay looks forward to taking on his male rivals on commercial TV, Karl Stefanovic (Today) and David Koch (Sunrise).

"In terms of Karl I won't have to work too hard," he says, mocking his wooden delivery. "People tell me that staff members of Channel Nine knock him for good luck as they go past. I don't think I'll ever be able to top the sound financial advice of (former business journalist) Koch, but in a few years - if things keep going as they are - I hope to top him for Biggest Chrome Dome On TV."

Stand-up comedian and actor Kennedy, who has just finished a run of his show Ladies... at the comedy festival, says The Breakfast Show has a "low-key" vibe.

"We cover a lot of issues related to the community, but it's not too beige - there's comedians and artsy-type people on all the time."

Kennedy stars in a commercial for Hairhouse Warehouse, which is on high rotation during Big Brother, and is becoming used to being approached by strangers.

"I've been doing comedy for years, but it's just now that people are coming up to me going 'you're the comb guy'," he says.

Channel 31's licence covers Melbourne and Geelong and shows are transmitted from Mount Dandenong on an analogue signal, reaching a potential audience of 4 million in the greater metropolitan area.

But that number is falling as people buy digital set-top boxes - which stops them from picking up analogue signals. The station, and others like it around the country, have been lobbying Communications Minister Helen Coonan to secure its future.

Without the switch, Channel 31's analogue licence will end in August 2009 and it will stop broadcasting.

Peter Lane, the chairman of the not-for-profit station, says audience numbers are stable at about 1.3 million viewers a month.

"However, within 12 to 18 months it will significantly affect the survival of the station if we don't have digital (transmission) in that time," he says.

Every free-to-air channel - ABC, SBS, Seven, Nine and Ten - is simulcast on digital and analogue. Lane says the community station wants to convert to digital, but needs a commitment of future support from the Federal Government.

"Regional and remote commercial stations have been promised around $250 million to transfer to digital," he says, "and the ABC and SBS have been pledged a billion."

The slow spread of digital television has been a headache for the Federal Government, which has already had to push back the date when it will "switch off" the analogue signal most televisions receive. About 29 per cent of Australian households have a set-top box, according to Government figures.

A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Helen Coonan says community television was not in danger of disappearing. "The Government has to take many decisions before the switch-off (of analogue signals)," she says.

Good news, at least perhaps in the short-term, for viewers who do jump on board Melbourne's new breakfast show alternative.

Daniel Ziffer is an occasional guest on The Breakfast Show.

BREAKFAST MENU
HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK
- Jess McAvoy playing live
- Crime report by Damian Marrett (author of White Lies and Undercover)
- Holistic health for animals with Dr Bruce Syme
- Sport with Rebecca McConnell (former professional cyclist, reporter for SBS show Cycling Central)
- Dan Walmsley's nerd report

LINK
http://www.thebreakfastshow.net.au

LINK TO THE AGE ARTICLE
http://www.theage.com.au/news/tv--radio/in-melbourne-this-morning/2007/05/06/1178390129649.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

March 7, 2007

Floundering fish-cam is cut adrift

Daniel Ziffer, The Age Newspaper

ONE of the longest-running programs on Melbourne television has been axed.

Channel 31's Fishcam — which consisted of a camera trained on to a fish tank — was an enduring filler program for the community station, calming late-night audiences since 1994. READ MORE

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Feb 19, 2007

There's hope yet for Community TV

eNews staff and agencies

Is there a chance the country's struggling community TV channels might be thrown a lifeline by the Howard Government?
It would seem there is after a little noticed report from the House of Reps Standing Committee on Communications, IT and the Arts, last week received a cautious tick from Media Minister, Senator Helen Coonan.
It recommended in a report that community TV be carried in a digital simulcast on the new A digital channel which could be sold off this year.
More importantly the Committee recommended that whoever buys Channel A be obligated to carry the Community TV simulcast, with a subsidy from Canberra. READ MORE

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7 December, 2006

The future of community television

Radio National's The Media Report

"On the Media Report this week...
What does the future hold for community television? It's shaking off its hokey image and gaining more and more viewers across Australia, but at the same time it's also beginning to lose audience share as consumers switch from analogue to digital. Marooned for the moment on analogue, what chance does the sector have of finding a space on the digital platform before the sponsors and viewers run out?"

Click Here to hear Antony Funnell's report on "The future of community television"

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thursday 5 October

Digital TV Talk Back

ABC 774

C31 was a topic of conversation on ABC 774 on Thursday 5^th October, with the Green Guide's Debi Enker and host Chris Clarke.

Click Here to hear Laura Kelly discuss the possibility of a Digital Licence.

Click Here to hear a caller's views on the subject.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Joanna McCarthy Talks About Community Access to Digital TV

ABC Radio National

When Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan released her blueprint for Australia's media future, one small but vibrant sector of the industry was left out - Community Television. The Minister has predicted that by 2012 we'll all be watching digital telly, and Australia's old analogue system will be switched off. To ease the transition, the government is helping the ABC, SBS and the commercial channels to simulcast their transmissions in both formats - but Community TV remains stuck entirely in the analogue age.

Click here to download Joanna McCarthys interview. (mp3 - 10MB)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

April 13, 2006

C31 Viewers Talk About Their Favorite Shows

on ABC Radio 774

On April 13^th, 2006, ABC Mornings Presenter Jon Faine invited C31's Programming Manager Christine El-Khoury to join him on his regular "Television Talkback" segment. Christine was inundated with phone calls and text messages from enthusiastic viewers talking about the importance of community broadcasting, their favorite shows, and digital TV.

Click here to download Christine's interview .MP3
(This audio has been provided with the permission of ABC 774).

Click here to download a transcript of Christine's interview.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Read an Arts Hub Article about why more people are tuning into Community Television.