ABSTRACT
Television has been called ‘overwhelmingly the most pervasive contemporary mass medium’. The years leading up to the introduction of television were preoccupied with political and stakeholder differences over the type of television service appropriate for the country. Television’s perceived role in moulding social and cultural attitudes and in educating the populace was too important to be left to capitalists and the market. The prime principle guiding the allocation of licences was ‘localism’. Television stations were licensed to service particular local areas, be they metropolitan or regional. A system of de facto networking emerged around program sharing and similarities of scheduling and station identity, based on the stations’ strengths in news, sports, drama and/or variety. Australian content established itself in this period as a consistent ratings success, and its growth into the present has been one of the main themes of Australian television history.
