Bloodbath a Memoir of Australian Television
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Bloodbath A Memoir of Australian Television Patricia Edgar EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd i 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY PRESS An imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Limited 187 Grattan Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia [email protected] www.mup.com.au First published 2006 Text © Patricia Edgar 2006 Design and typography © Melbourne University Publishing Ltd 2006 This book is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 and subsequent amendments, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means or process whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publishers. Every attempt has been made to locate the copyright holders for material quoted in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked or misattributed may contact the publisher. Picture credits: pp. 222–5, Patricia Edgar; p. 226, ACTF; p. 227 (top), John Lamb/Age; p. 227 (bottom), D. B. Simmonds/Sterio Stills/ACTF; p. 228, ACTF; p. 229 (top), Jeff Busby/ACTF; p. 229 (bottom), ACTF; p. 230, Patricia Edgar; p. 231, ACTF; p. 232 (top), ACTF; pp. 232 (bottom) and 233 (both), Greg Noakes/ACTF; p. 234, Patricia Edgar; p. 235 (top), ACTF; p. 235 (bottom), AFI; p. 236, Santo Amoddio/Patricia Edgar. Text design by Alice Graphics Typeset in Bembo by Egan Reid Ltd Printed in Australia by Griffi n Press National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Edgar, Patricia, 1937– . Bloodbath. Includes index. ISBN 978 0 522 85281 3. ISBN 0 522 85281 5. 1. Edgar, Patricia, 1937– . 2. Television—Australia—Biography. 3. Television and children— Australia. 4. Television programs for children—Australia. I. Title. 791.45092 This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australian Council, its arts funding and advisory body. EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd iiii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM To Don EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd iiiiii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd iivv 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM Contents Abbreviations viii Preface ix Acknowledgements xii Part I: Getting Started 1 Looking for Trouble 3 2 Getting into Television 31 3 Enter Bruce Gyngell 49 4 A Vision for Children’s Television 64 5 Showdown in Canberra 82 6 Towards a Children’s Television Foundation 95 7 Dirty Politics 109 8 Bad Blood 125 Part II: The Producer 9 Winners Indeed 153 10 Fraud and Recovery 177 11 Round the Twist 195 12 A Program for Life 237 13 From Dream to Reality 253 14 The ABC and Pay School 273 15 The Independent Producers 295 Part III: New Challenges 16 The Keating Years 311 17 Vulnerable People 337 18 A Partnership Unravels 362 EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd v 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM 19 Time to Go 377 20 Exit Left 394 Afterword: Children—The Miner’s Canaries 408 Appendix: ACTF Program Awards 420 Notes 431 Index 451 vi EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd vvii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM ‘For the reformer has enemies in all those who profi t from the old order, and only luke warm defenders in all those who would profi t by the new order …’ —Niccolò Machiavelli1 EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd vviiii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM Abbreviations AANA Australian Association of National Advertisers ABA Australian Broadcasting Authority ABCB Australian Broadcasting Control Board ABT Australian Broadcasting Tribunal ACCFT Australian Council for Children’s Films and Television ACTAC Australian Children’s Television Action Committee ACTF Australian Children’s Television Foundation AEC Australian Education Council AFC Australian Film Commission AFI Australian Film Institute CPC Children’s Program Committee CTW Children’s Television Workshop (United States) FACTS Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations FARB Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters FCC Federal Communications Commission (United States) FFC Film Finance Corporation Australia PBAA Public Broadcasting Association of Australia SACCFT South Australian Council for Children’s Films and Television SAFC South Australian Film Corporation SPAA Screen Producers Association of Australia VCCFT Victorian Children’s Council for Film and Television viii EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd vviiiiii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:20:50:20 PMPM Preface his is a personal memoir about my role in Australian television: a career that spanned thirty years, in an industry that is savage T when its commercial interests are challenged. I began in an era when women found it diffi cult to have a say in educational institu- tions, government and the media without being ridiculed. Yet it was also a time when it was possible to implement social change, when politicians and leaders would respond to ideas for social change and I believed I could help build a better future. My roles in the develop- ment of television policy, regulation and children’s production were part of a broad movement aimed at developing Australian culture— its fi lm, literature and arts generally—to showcase our country, its people and its place in the world. The success of Australian content policy—despite strong and vitriolic opposition—led to the building of an Australian fi lm and television production industry of world standing. This year 2006 marks fi fty years of broadcast TV in Australia. Bruce Gyngell, the presenter who welcomed Australians to television in Channel 9’s inaugural broadcast, played a pivotal role in my life. As chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal (ABT), he gave me an opportunity that opened up ideas, friendships and possibilities that fuelled me for the next twenty-fi ve years. I once promised Bruce, in the midst of yet another controversial moment in his own career, ix EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd iixx 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:21:50:21 PMPM x Preface that I would one day write the history of children’s programming in Australia. But the main reason this book was written was the persistent and gentle persuasion by my husband Don Edgar. I was full of reasons why not: it would take too much time; I didn’t want to revisit painful periods in my life; and didn’t want any self-justifi cation for events that were contentious. There were practical problems: I am a hoarder of papers, and they would need to be sifted and put in order; I couldn’t write with psoriatic arthritis in my hands. And so it went until we decided to clean out the accumulation of forty-fi ve years of our working lives. I rediscovered many boxes of fi les in the roof of our home, including fi ve years of papers covering all the meetings of the Children’s Program Committee (CPC) of the ABT held in Gyngell’s time there. The tribunal had gone, along with offi cial records; my papers were the only surviving record. As I began to read details I had long forgotten, I was surprised by the pas- sion and confl ict that emerged from the pages. I relived the struggle to establish offi cial Standards that would promote quality Australian con tent and children’s television programming. It was my experience as chairman of the CPC that led me to the most signifi cant role of my career, as founding director of the Aus tral ian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF). Reading through my papers I started to think of reasons to write the whole story down. I remembered my promise to Bruce Gyngell. And I refl ected that the quality of Australian children’s television is now taken for granted. Those who had had to fi ght for it and knew the history were dead or growing older and no longer in the public eye. I wanted to pay tribute to the creative pioneers of the industry who were very close to me and are no longer with us—Frank Meaney, Garth Boomer and John Morris, in particular. As often in my life, I was also provoked: this time by gossip about events in my career that was misleading and inaccurate. I started writing and I didn’t stop. The more I wrote the more I saw the point of writing. That I was at the centre of controversial events over a thirty-year history of the development of Australian television gave me a rough ride but it was an extraordinary adventure. Don was right: it is a story worth relating about an experiment that was unique in television history, and it has not been documented before. EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd x 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:21:50:21 PMPM Preface xi Although this book is written in large part about children and pro- gramming, it is also a story about the broader world of television in Australia and globally. EEdgar_06.indddgar_06.indd xxii 77/31/06/31/06 22:50:21:50:21 PMPM Acknowledgements hen a book concerns a life that spans seventy years, there are innumerable debts of gratitude. I hope that within the W pages of this book I have adequately expressed my sense of gratitude and obligation to friends, allies, colleagues and supporters for their support and affection. The major contributors to my life have been my family: my parents Reg and Eva Etherington, my husband Don, my daughters Sue and Lesley and my grandchildren Adrian, Luke, Emily and Ace. Their sustaining support has given my life purpose. My son-in-law Greg Buck took charge of my technical needs and traumas, installed voice software and taught me what I needed to know with great patience and tact.