The Live list
If viewing numbers are slipping, why have networks forgotten their one point of difference: Live TV?
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News, Top Stories
TV’s biggest drawcards, News and Sport, are predominantly Live on Australian television (at least for those living on the East Coast).
Yet as Free to Air numbers are facing increased challenges, other genres are limited in offering Live broadcasts.
Live Television is what TV did in its earliest days, capitalising on its sense of theatre. With Live there is a sense of danger, where anything can happen.
We now have next to no Live variety, which has arguably been usurped by Breakfast Television -or possibly The Footy Show.
Networks like Nine, Seven and ABC have great heritage in producing Live television. As Q & A reminds us, they also encourage social media interaction. It’s a dialogue between the show and the audience that can’t be pirated, and isn’t being offered by streaming alternatives.
Free to Air networks are increasingly guilty of overlooking one of their very points of difference.
Whether in News, Comedy, Variety, Chat, Music or Sport -broadcasters need to add more into their schedules if they want to keep viewers watching.
Excepting News and Sport, here are some select Live TV highlights:
ABC
7:30
Dirty Laundry Live
Lateline
Q & A
The Drum
Insiders
Offsiders
ABC News Breakfast
NINE
Today
The Footy Show
Mornings
A Current Affair
Footy Classified
Sunday Footy Show
SEVEN
Sunrise
The Morning Show
Daily Edition
Talking Footy
Today Tonight
TEN
The Project
The Bolt Report
Studio 10
RPM
FOXTEL
Paul Murray Live
Santo, Sam and Ed’s Sports Fever
AFL 360
Monday Night with Matty Johns
SBS
The Feed
Marngrook Footy Show
The World Game
ABC News 24, SKY News, predominantly Live news channels.
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- Tagged with Q&A, The Footy Show
18 Responses
Having been in the studio audience for RPM, I can assure you it’s definutely not put to air live. Apart from the regular segments & simulator race with the guests which is pre-recorded at the beginning of the show, everything is filmed “as live” including time for ad breaks – no reason they can’t though as Matt White is fantastic and faultless in his presentation. I’m pretty sure on the day though, the camera operators went out briefly to film news updates during the show for the News so I gues at the end of the day for networks it’s all about costs and try to be efficient with staffing where possible.
What the ……jeez……….I thought Masterchefy was live………..shocked and disillusioned
It is live; you just wouldn’t believe the distortions in time and space needed for them to fit a 90 minute cook into 45 minutes of show and have the contestants live-tweet at the same time.
The little explosions of fire are the release of temporal energy needed to pull the show back into our “real” time so that the ad breaks can be played out. This massive energy waste results in the life of the universe being shortened by several billion years. Best not start any long books…
Are you happier now that you know the truth? No, of course not – which is why they pretend it’s pre-recorded.
Phew…thanks Tex, I had a feeling that they were distorting time and space to give the impression it was recorded, but we all secretly know that its live. DK-Nox needs to update his live list
I really wish more producers were willing to go live. It always adds a better sense of fun without the safety net of another take. Makes presenters think on their feet and usually with a hilarious outcome. The biggest laughs from a studio audience at a pre recorded show are always when something goes wrong. Seems like wasted laughs for the audience at home to me
I do miss live TV shows like rove, the panel and hey hey. Live TV provides a different connection and vibes look at this years logies or last year’s Friday night crack up? People like live variety and along with drama has sadly been lacking on our screens as a result of greedy networks providing wall to wall reality.
Viewers usually had certain evening times when they switched on the TV and relaxed or ate dinner before retiring to bed, the programs shown like the news or games / variety shows benefited from those trends. Bad as it may be for free to air TV nowadays the optional choices are more diverse, and viewers can save up their shows for when it is more convenient to watch. The poor way that commercial TV programmers once tried to manipulate TV content is now effecting heir bottom line as viewers switch off.
It’s Daryl Somers’ fault Hey Hey got axed as he wanted 20 shows, ten more shows than what 9 originally planed to do. Now networks think variety shows are not popular and we wouldn’t watch them!
Your right, it was Daryl Somers fault, but not because of how many shows he wanted, but because he is stuck back in the 80’s & still thinks what was funny back then is still funny now, ok maybe it is…for about 1 episode.
Don’t forget about Dancing With The Stars, and I think the X Factor results shows are also live.
Live TV is too hard for today’s broadcasters. Much easier to show overseas shows or so called reality shows where they can cut and edit the scenes to create the agro and “emotional” reality they plug mercilessly.
Also you would have to wonder if the talent is still around that can do TV, both as performers and technical people.
Here in WA nothing is really live :/
Other than some WAFL and AFL matches, studio 10 does an extended broadcast for WA, and Sunrise/Today have WA specific news.
Nothing really interactive out of that list either…only real thing we have is sport for that purpose
TV used be done live because recording involved film or poor quality magnetic media, then because is saved on the cost of waiting between multiple takes, editing and post production. It’s being delayed after OS broadcast and being free high quality ad free content you can view whenever you want wherever you want that drives illegal downloading, not not being live.
Pre-recorded live feels somewhat live with audience reactions and excitement and a sense anything can happen. But it’s only when you have a connection to a definite time and adding interactions with something outside being TV viewing, they you create the excitement and sense of participation in the viewing audience. Streaming live is the same, just harder to get as large an audience.
In the US they have been doing live musicals to create that feeling.
So much of the project is pre recorded….. I know the desk is live but not much else
You only have to look at Dirty Laundry live to see how good live TV can be.
Most of the shows I watch on FTA at live, things like the news and sports or first run local shows, at though I do tend to record a lot of them to edit an burn to DVD for later viewing. But I agree the one advantage broadcast has over online is live content. Yes there is streaming but most of them are now streamed at the same time and depending on your connection not reliable, especially in 1080. Its also a big advantage when it comes to pirated content and a big reason why last season the BBC simulcast Doctor Who live here on the ABC.
More live and HD content is a huge boom for local TV be it FTA or Foxtel.
I could not agree more. Watching “Live” television is what we all loved growing up. Whether it was “The Don Lane Show”, “Vizard”, “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” … it was the live to air thrill that had the audience involved. Bring back the good old days.