Couldn't find a thread for this groundbreaking show.
Courier Express, 21 April 1974
AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION> ALMOST ANYTHING GOES by Patricia Angly.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, is a country which, until recently banned the sale of Playboy magazine and Portnoy's Complaint, TVviewers are having a field day watching one of-the-most rutty-sex-ridden half-hour programs in existence. It's called 96, the number of an apartment building, and it details the lives and loves of some 16 inhabitants there. In the past 18 months the program has developed into a national phenomenon, saved a TV channel from near bankruptcy, and become the subject of heavy debate in Parliament.
Some 4 million Australians-one third of the nation-watch the program, which is telecast at 8:30 p.m., and apparently identify with its characters. One of them is a homosexual lawyer. Two are Hungarian migrants. A fourth is the caretaker, or "conserge" as she calls herself, who keeps abreast of the problems of her neighbors. And what problems: insanity, lesbianism, murder, rape, incest, alcoholism and religious fanaticism. According to the show's producer, Robert Huber, an American who used to work in educational TV in Ohio and California, "The problems we deal with are normal and average."
"I think," he declares, "ours is one of the most moral shows I've ever been associated with, Evil never triumphs. We only show nudity when the occasion demands it. Characters in 96 take baths because people do bathe and they do continue conversations with their husbands or wives while in the tub."
"We are able," Huber elaborates, "to take up. causes and comment on life through our program. Take homosexuality. In Australia it was looked upon In with a great deal of disgust in comparison to other countries. We present our homosexual as a very normal person leading a very normal life. He's one of our favorite characters. He gets a tremendous amount of mail, especially from girls. They are obviously aware he is homosexul,, but accept him quite readily.
Despite an enormous public relations buildup including free T-shirts, a Sydney-to-Melbourne train-run, and a Number 96 photo album of the stars, not all the reaction to the show has been favorable.
EYE ON PRURIENCE
From the start of the series the Australian Broadcasting Control Board, the federal authority responsible for "good taste" on the Australian tube, has been keeping its eye on the more "prurient" aspects of 96. The board did not appreciate one scene in which a husband is indiscreetly fondling his pregnant wife. Although the control board here has some basic rules, such as no sex on the screen before 8:30 p.m., it has no explicit guidelines.
Miles Wright, chairman of the board, views the astounding success of 96 as an overreaction to the period when Australia severely censored its books and films. Other Australian TV producers are of course jumping on the same sex bandwagon. Channel 10, the originators of 96, whose owners include NBC, follows 96 on Tuesday and Thursday nights with a program called The Box .This series exarnines the innermost workings of a TV station. Its first nude scene, of a young lady getting out of bed, wandering around, and then bedding down again, was deleted by the control board, because as Wright explained, "there was no dialogue, so we didn't see any dramatic merit in it." Distressed as some factions of the TV audience purport to be, many viewers concede that 96 is habit-forming. Some even compare it to the once popular American soap opera, Peyton Place, which in comparisonis a sedate tea party. A few weeks ago one viewer wrote the editor of a weekly magazine about the trend in Australian TV and said: "Let us not despair, sir, in all our degeneracy. Comfort, if not salvation, lies in the fact that in these times of renewed national, - spirit, there's nothing that unites people like bad taste.
By
Paul Raven ·
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