For those of us who have still not succumbed to the lure of satellite TV, the parallel universe of CNN, MTV, NBC and the like may only represent one sad fact; that television now has the kind of primacy that enables it to be broadcast into space and back at outrageous expense just so someone like me in Bangkok can watch MTV. After just a little while channel-surfing the seemingly infinite networks that must be smothering up the earth like a spider-web of signals (how will SETI ever receive a message through that kind of cocoon?) it does indeed become obvious that there is far more to criticize about satellite TV than there is to praise. For one thing, here in Asia, it’s horribly popular. While back in Australia I never even knew a single person with satellite TV (which isn’t to say of course that there weren’t any), here in Thailand it seems every single building is graced with these dishes poking up at the sky like inverted mushrooms, as prolific as mobile phones, and just as unnecessary. Old arguments about brainwashing and breeding complacency aside, this does have one indisputable effect. It means that the local channels suffer, leading invariably to lower production levels and, perhaps even worse, increasingly westernized TV formats. Thai TV is slowly losing its distinctive quality in the face of global competition. Some would argue this isn’t such a bad thing, given the local standard of programming, but to me it’s a shame.
Perhaps it is only via a comparison to the slick, vacuous quality of stations like CNN that I come to the dubious conclusion that the shaky camera work, horrific scripting, histrionic acting and appalling sets of Thai TV are superior. But Thai TV does transmit the reassuring quality of a product made by people, whereas CNN and MTV seem like the overproduced creation of a machine. These two channels I single out because in all my hours of waiting for Bangkok rainy season floods to subside they struck me as the most relentlessly ‘global’ of the satellite channels, and the ones that best demonstrate to me why satellites should revert back to the purpose for which they were intended – spying. To receive and not to send.
Both channels are as thin and as pointless as inflight magazines, and, like inflight magazines, they stick to their formats with mindboggling predictability. Perhaps it is a deliberate attempt to project a reliable, consistent quality that is reassuring to those who tune in; much in the same way as inflight magazines plug you in to a huge network of skytravel that ignores your personal vulnerability and instead reassures you of your place in a greater continuity. On CNN this has the unintended effect, however, of making you feel that once you have watched one hour of it, you need watch no more. The CNN world is a seamless, reassuring place where even the most appalling disasters the world over are smoothed into a familiar format that reassures the viewer that everything is known, controlled, and continuous. Yesterday’s earthquake in Japan is replaced by today’s flood in India, creating the comforting illusion that disasters never have long-term ramifications once they have been eclipsed on prime-time TV. Everything reported on CNN seems to have been predigested and leeched of all national specificity and complexity, and after watching it for a while you get that full but unsatisfied feeling that you also get from eating copious amounts of international snacks like Pringles and instant noodles.
MTV doesn’t offer much more in the way of nutritional viewing. In much the same vein as CNN, an ‘international’ team of presenters are supposed to foster the sense of a channel deeply committed to a global audience and catering for all its many diverse tastes. Instead, the MTV presenters reflect the overriding influence of the west the world over; while they use ‘multicultural’ presenters, they all talk, dress and move like hip young Americans, even when they are speaking Thai. The proportion of music from other countries to the music of the west (particularly America and England) also reflects this imbalance and, after a night of viewing, conveys the depressing picture of a world sliding with increasing pace toward some bland western ideal of ‘cool’.
Much superior is the Star Channel’s [V]TV, which, despite employing Molly Meldrum for the Australian segment, has a different and richer flavor to the ‘global’ programming of MTV. Although I don’t know the facts behind the [V]TV, it seems to be centered in India. This channel has a refreshing quality embodied by it’s hosts; they are charismatic, distinct and relaxed, without having the affected manner of their MTV equivalents. The programming too is very diverse in comparison to MTV, covering all kinds of music from all over the globe without feeling the need to streamline it into a homogenous whole. Rather, the Indian top 10, followed by the ‘Malbu Jammin’ reggae show, creates the effect of making you feel like the world is a rich and diverse place musically, instead of a rapidly shrinking world of Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls.
The biggest surprise of all beaming down on Bangkok for me was Australia TV. I wonder how many people at home are aware of the kind of image that is sent all around the world by this station? The answer must be not very many, because otherwise we would all be too ashamed of our australianness to ever set foot abroad. I first tuned into Rosemary Church on the late-night news; a blonde, pink-suited woman with a husky voice better suited to 0055 than to international satellite transmission. She looked like the stereotypical ‘perfect’ Australian woman; blue-eyed, a little tanned, bad dress sense, and down-to-earth, but with a saucy edge conveyed by her voice. The powers that be at Australia TV (whoever you are) obviously didn’t think Indira Naidoo was Australian enough for export.
From here the programming descended rapidly into a kind of temporal vortex, where everything had that slightly nauseating late 70’s quality, regardless of how recent or how old the programs actually were. Mother and Son, Healthy Wealthy and Wise, Gardening Australia, G’Day Nashville, The Great Outdoors, Rex Hunt’s Fishing Show; over the next few days whenever I tuned into Australia TV there was another great cultural icon speaking in another ridiculously broad Australian accent against a backdrop of outback or backyard or suburban home. It was almost a parody of Australian TV; even the music program The Bridge featured a special run of filmclips set in backyards; the show seemed to be devoted entirely to white guys with lousy (in both senses of the word) facial hair and flannies swinging on hills hoists. These bands certainly weren’t big names in Australia (who’s ever heard of The Porker’s’ ‘Big Back Yard’?); leading me to believe that the programmers had hand-picked songs that best suited Australia tv’s idea of an essential national vibe.
I found myself entranced by the ludicrousness of the station’s entire programming. Who do they think would be watching and would those viewers now think that the entire Australian music industry revolves around a single hills hoist? Do they think, as this channel leads you to believe, that Australia is stuck in a late seventies time-warp of tan skivvies, backyard bbq’s and good-natured jocularity; as distant from the consciousness of the rest of the globe as we are geographically? It need hardly be said that the programming also suffered badly from a white bias, despite the fact that almost every advertisement was one appealing for students from Asia to study in Australia.
To be fair, jammed between debates about football and A Country Practice, there were a few decent programs, reflecting more accurately Australia today; but they were so hopelessly outnumbered by Rafferty’s Rules reruns they scarcely made an impact.
With the news of Pauline Hanson giving way now to ‘Travelgate’, and this station beaming out to space and back a completely dated (if indeed it ever was contemporary) version of Australian culture and lifestyle, what hope do we have of becoming a with it country in the world’s eyes? Surely they could just beam out SBS and that would be a more honest portrayal of modern Australia? Or at least the ABC? After all, it is a cause for concern when your national station makes reruns of Welcome Back Kotter and Punky Brewster on the IBC network seem entertaining.
The definitive act of resistance against both the embarrassingly parochial Australia TV, and the slick globalism of MTV and CNN, would of course have been to turn them off. But then I would have had to go out and really experience things. And then the world wouldn’t need satellite TV.
Tasha Sudan
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