Free-to-air: a history of Sydney's commercial television programming, 1956-2012

This thesis presents a history of television programming on Sydney's commercial free-to-air (FTA) Channels 7, 9 and 10, set against Australia's social, political and economic milieu between 1956 and 2012. Beginning in 1956 with the launch of television in Sydney, Australia's largest television market, it maps the evolution of programming genres within the broad fields of information (news, current affairs, religion, sport and children's programming) and entertainment (light entertainment, drama and reality TV). In doing so, it reveals not a consistent process of development, but rather, one that is predominantly cyclical. Sydney, and indeed, Australian television are part of an international cultural system. By tracing broad, global trends through the prism of Sydney's commercial television in particular categories, the thesis provides insights into changes in the production and distribution, and to a lesser extent the reception, of Sydney television programming against a wider canvas.