Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemThe place of religion in commercial television in Australia from 1956 to 1978( 1980)This subject could be treated in different ways. In this thesis it is treated historically. The matter under examination is the failure of religious programming to find a secure, prominent and effective place in commercial television despite the apparent advantage of having the authority of the Broadcasting and Television Act (1956) and the Australian Broadcasting Control Board to support it. In particular, Section 103 stated that: A licensee shall telecast from his station Divine Worship or other matter of religious nature during such periods as the Board determines and, if the Board so directs, shall do so without charge. The Australian Broadcasting Control Board further specified in its Programme Standards, 1956 that station time and reasonable facilities should be provided free of charge to the churches, that time should be allocated among the various denominations in proportion to the number of adherants and that such arrangements should be made by mutual agreement between the commercial licensees and representatives of the churches. However, as the Royal Commission on Television had predicted in 1955 the question of control over licencees assumed pre-eminent proportions. Its recommendation that the Control Board should have a reserve of authority was not incorporated into the Act with the result that the Board was not empowered to enforce its Programme Standards. Even when it was apparent that the commercial licensees were resisting the attempts of the Control Board to administer the Act, the Liberal-Country Party Government refused to give any support to the Board. The thesis argues that the development of religious television in Australia was seriously impeded because the Broadcasting and Television Act gave the Control Board no power to enforce either Section 103 or the Programme Standards relating to Section 103. It is argued that the Liberal-Country Party Government consistently supported and protected commercial vested interests because it took for granted that the public interest in commercial television was best served by its being a successful business enterprise free to develop popular programming within a free enterprise system. Against the Board's advice, broadcasting legislation moved relentlessly towards self-regulation in programming for commercial licensees. S116 of the Constitution which stated that The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion or for imposing any religious observance of or prohibiting the free exercise of any religion and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth, was frequently used as an argument by commercial licensees against the legality of mandatory religious programmes. The question of whether S103 contravened S116 was never tested but the possibility of contravention further weakened the authority and the power of the Board. The Board itself, especially because of the ineptitude of its Religious Advisory Committee, and its failure to clarify the place and purpose of religious programmes in a pluralist society became a major cause of tension between the church agencies and the commercial licensees. The thesis further argues that the churches' agencies demonstrated a paternalistic attitude to television by attempting to impose their requirements, values, views, objectives and standards, all of which were characteristic of their particular denominations and incompatible with each other, without giving proper consideration to the nature of the medium or the needs of the audience. They therefore had little hope of dealing with a hostile industry. Such fragmentation also made it impossible to find the resources to compete with secular programmes. The churches also accepted the privileged position of being free to pursue their own vested interest in a commercial enterprise rather than to develop another concept of community television in the public interest. Nor were the churches able to resolve the basic theological dilemma of what image or concept of religion should be presented on commercial television. However, even if the churches had been able to present a form of Christianity that met the approval of all denominations, whether liberal or conservative, the question of its proper role would have remained. For religion to have a secure, prominent and effective place in commercial television the churches will have to establish a relevance not simply to the community but to the community by means of television. That is almost certainly beyond the resources of the churches in Australia and may be beyond the combined resources of the licensees, the Broadcasting Tribunal and the churches.