Lecture Six

Commercial media plays an interesting role in Australia. While it is generally favoured by the majority of people for entertainment, sports coverage and special events, 


Essentially because commercial media is driven by the profit margins and dollars, ensuring high ratings is the only way they can receive sponsorship. Channels Seven, Nine and Ten compete in bidding wars to secure the rights to televise large sporting events and popular TV programs. For example this year Channel Nine will be programming the majority of the 2012 London Olympics which has a huge audience Australia-wide. 


News is presented in a variety of ways on commercial station. Each have their own nightly news, factually based presentation in addition to various current affairs programs (where one can learn about shady car dealers, police out to get drivers and how to save on groceries each week) and morning shows. Although the latter contains bursts of factual news, the focus of programs such as Sunrise, Mornings with Keri Anne or Today is far more 'wider entertainment.' These programs often have guests, 'experts' on issues like relationships/health/wellbeing and a myriad of infomercials. 


The boys from ABC's Chaser's War on Everything frequently produced segments about what they had learned from Today Tonight or A Current Affair (from Seven and Nine respectively), making light of the often idiotic story angles they propagate. It can be quite amusing:

Chasers War on Everything - Current Affairs 08/05/07

I concede that it is quite likely that as a journalist I will be working for a commercial station at some point, in part due to the size of the industry but also because of the income potential. Despite this, I still think I would prefer to work for a public network like the ABC as I believe I'd be far more likely to be able to write investigative stories about less 'popularised' issues, particularly in politics. I have no intention of letting a pushy editor force me to compromise on my own morals though. Earning good money isn't that important, I want to give the public correct information.


Not all comercial news is bound to be false or misleading, however the fact that so many journalists do not verify information is somewhat concerning. This video is from the ABC program, Hungry Beast, where a bunch of young journalists created a false survey and released it to see if any of the media outlets would bother to verify it. The results are scary.