Australia

[leeturnbull]

I cannot believe that Farscape is not huge in Australia they should be very proud of it, I went to OZ in 2002 and they dont know what it is on the whole!

They have made an excellent show, Welcome James

[Afarscapefan]

Why? Why? Why?

I totally agree with you leeturnbull. I can't believe that there isn't a huge following of Farscape either. I have shared season 1 to 3 DVDs with three of my colleagues and they love it. Fans, like James, seem to pop out of the woodwork all over the place. Maybe it just doesn't register in the right polls.

There is some good news. The same day that our FMD "thank you" ad appears in the daily telegraph paper, I-Yensch You- Yensch is being shown on at 10.30 pm that night on free to air TV. I would call that either perfect timing for scaping more fans or just maybe the right people in the right places are finally taking notice at last. I hope this is the turning point for proper recognition. Keep your fingers, toes and tentacles crossed.

OK! Who can't cross their toes?

[somniac]

Yeh. It's amazing they don't know about it on the whole. There are some good websites though. Ozscaper and Aussie mafia are two worth checking. Being in the country of production, they quite often get news or sitings that we don't.
It's time will come there too though.

[scifinutter]

I think it's a shame that whoever the idiot in charge of advertising was at channel nine didn't capitalise on the fact that the majority of the guest actors are quite well-known Aussie actors. I mean there are many audiences that I'm sure were untapped purely because ch nine never targeted them properly. I don't need to list them, everyone knows where I'm coming from. I mean, first full ep I saw was Meltdown, and I grew up watching Mark Mitchell (Mu-Quillus) in shows like Lift Off and Round the Twist. For me, half the fun was picking out the actors from other shows.

I've found that's been the way to Scape people. First ep my sister saw was 'Rhapsody in Blue', and the bloke from Home and Away (Rhys) was a guestie. She spotted him instantly, so I continued to push eps that had familiar faces in them, and in the process she fell in love with the show.

So yeah, that's how I've been Scaping people. Shove an ep their way, tell them to try to spot the familiar face, then they just want more, and in the process, are Scaped!

I dream of the day when it's not 'Far-what?' but 'Farscape! I LOVE that show!'

[Sponge]

Perhaps now that Fox have finished televising series 4 (at least I think they have), there could be some way of getting ABC to put Farscape on free-to-air. Probably 10-11pm, in a similar timeslot to Red Dwarf, since quite a few eps would get a M15 or MA15+ rating. At least on ABC we (a) wouldn't get those frelling ad breaks spoiling the show, and (2) Everyone in Australia (and East Timor as well, I think), no matter how remote, would be able to see it.

Slightly OT : Are any of the Oz scapers posting here (at FMD in general, really) from Western Australia, especially in the South-West like me, or is it just me? I think Mark-Two from FAM posts here, occasionally at any rate, but not Bwuce, Jedi_Daniel, or any of the other personalities/leadership (unless they just lurk). But I'm not sure which town/city/village Oz posters here base out of.

[faustus]

yes FOX8 did finish season 4, 2 weeks ago. But who now owns the rights to show the show in OZ at the moment? does FOX still have it? did it revert back to 9 after FOX finished showing it? I don't know.

Anyone know how we could find out?

[scifinutter]

Fox most likely owns the rights to s3 and definitely s4. I'm not sure if s1 and s2 are still in the hands of channel nong as they co-produced those seasons. Any Foxtel subscribers know if s1 or s2 has been aired on Fox8?

I highly doubt the ABC would be able to afford to buy airing rights for Farscape. IMO, Foxtel have got SOME idea of just how special the show is, and aren't going to let go of it easy. Plus, with the funding the ABC gets, is it any wonder top shows like Something in the Air and SeaChange are allowed to end so easily?

The best (Australian) thing about the ABC atm: Wildside repeats at 11pm on Monday nights.

[faustus]

FOX8 originally showed the last ep of season 1. Then went off and showed the rest.

[The Keeper]

*shakes head* Do NOT get me started on Channel Nine...

Bah, to put it simply (and nicely), Channel Nine hates ALL things science fiction.

And on another note, I was quite disapointed that Farscape was not promoted here like it was overseas, even when the majority of the cast was Australian. *shrugs then sighs in defeat* I guess we'll never know the inner working minds of the advertisers and what not here in Oz...

[faustus]

Bah, to put it simply (and nicely), Channel Nine hates ALL things science fiction.
then why the Frell do the keep buying sci-fi shows?

[The Keeper]

*shrugs*
I really don't know.

[faustus]

you'd think they learned there lesson when they bough Star trek and Babylon 5.

[scifinutter]

The thing that irks me is the fact that the majority of guest stars on Farscape have been Aussie actors with a good deal of status, for example Barry Otto, Claudia Karvan, Rebecca Gibney, Magda Szubanski etc etc. Try telling me that pushing these names would not have sparked a bit of curiosity.

What about the 'AustrAlien' pun?

Given the succss/popularity of shows like Secret Life and All Saints, and the fact that Tammy and Gigi have both appeared in them, so why weren't these audiences targeted? I for one know All Saints fans will watch ANYTHING someone from the show has starred in. But to try to let them know when Farscape was on? Impossible. Given it's no longer on free-to-air doesn't help, either.

Heck, if I'd seen any ads for Farscape, I would've been hooked from the beginning! Gah, give me the advertising job, channel nong!

[The Keeper]

I for one know All Saints fans will watch ANYTHING someone from the show has starred in.

Heck, if I'd seen any ads for Farscape, I would've been hooked from the beginning! Gah, give me the advertising job, channel nong!

One of my friends actually told me a while back that they liked Farscape because it had so many of her ALL SAINTS actors in it.

And I agree, lets go invade the advertising department of channel NONG, we will show them what real advertising is!

[scifinutter]

Tragic, isn't it? People are still willing to watch (the tripe that has become) All Saints yet won't give our show the time of day.

*sobs in corner*

Oh, the injustice of it all!!

[faustus]

there, there. we'll make sure they pay!

[scifinutter]

My new motto for TV: If it doesn't involve humans, I'll watch it.

*gets on pederstool*

People will watch McLeod's Daughters - the most malodramatic and false representation of rural life I've ever seen. If the guys were so hot and the workload was so little, everyone would live in the country!

People will watch All Saints - do I even need to go there?

People will watch Blue Heelers - Mt Thomas, Australia's biggest crime town, where the criminals outnumber the residents. If a rural town even HAD a police station, they sure wouldn't have that many staff members!

People will watch Home and Away - one family saw their eldest daughter assaulted by the now husband of their second daughter, who grew up with a twin sister who actually isn't hers, she was switched at birth with another girl who is in fact daughter no. two's identical twin. Second daughter lied to family that she was pregnant with her husband's baby so her father wouldn't have her basically illegal marriage annulled. Turns out she is pregant, but then loses the baby due to kidney failure, to which she receives a kidney from her mother who was reluctant to even give it to her daughter. And that is just ONE family's peril in four months!

Yet people will not watch Farscape.

*gets off pederstool*

What is wrong with these people?!

[faustus]

so your telling us you watch this crap?

[scifinutter]

lol, my secret is out!

Seriously, though. I used to watch it all the time but now I occasionally watch All Saints. I watch McLeod's for a good perve. I don't need to watch Blue Heelers, the ads tell me what happens each week. Home and Away is like Bold and the Beautiful - miss two weeks' worth and you've missed nothing. So I may watch it once every two weeks, usually when I need something to laugh at.

[faustus]

Ok :loco:

[MarkTwo]

G'day Leeturnbull

Why isn't Farscape as popular as it is in America, or the UK, simple, a complete lack of promotion by Channel 9 and Hensons in Australia.
Somewhere betwen signing the contract to co produce the show, and Channel 9 airing the first episode, there was a purge of the senior management of Channel 9, and the incoming managers didn't like Science Fiction at all.
They cynically decided to run Farscape at 8:30 on a Saturday night, and after only 6 episodes announced that they were taking it off air because of poor ratings.!!
Farscape returned up against a small sporting event held in Sydney in September 2000. How many people given the choice would prefer to watch a totally unknown show or the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics.
Channel 9 made it abundantly clear that they hated the show, but because they had a contract they couldn't get out of, they would make sure that they would make Farscape as unpopular as possible.
Another big factor is the total lack of publicity from Henson in Australia. The only way that Aussie fans could read interviews with the cast and crew was in foreign magazine.
The closest that any Farscape actor got to tell Channel 9 to go suck eggs was an interview with Claudia last year, in which Claudia had the chance to really rip into 9 about being a pack of bastards.
Claudia was too polite to say anything, she knows that if she wants to keep working in the future, she has to be careful not to upset the biggest and most powerful network in Australia.
(The best example of this is Gigi and Lani appearing on Stingers!!)

And the best part was David Kemper saying that filming in Australia was like working in a coal mine, you only see the light when you leave Australia, boy did that ever burn the local fans up!!

I am still waiting for DK or Brian Henson ever saying something nasty about Channel 9 in the Australian media,

Quite frankly, it if wasn't for a bunch of dedicated fans, Farscape would be totally unknown in Australia. !!

Mark

[Bandana Girl]

Hi. I'm a Canadian and am absolutely mystified at how FS is run in Australia (from what I've heard). It's an australian show for goodness sakes, with an australian cast and crew. In Canada (since we are next to the states) there is a requirement of networks (and radio stations) to have a certain Percentage of their programing be Canadian. This canadian programming required by a network is called Canadian Content. We call it Cancon for short. It used to be that radio and television would sweep cancon into the timeslots where most of the country was asleep. That's changed in the last few years, especially with radio and Canada has it's own thriving music industry now. (It's slowly happenng with TV). Does Australia have anything similar?

Anything more you could tell me about channel nine would be good too.

[faustus]

yeah Australia has something similar there has to be a certain precentage of OZ shows on tv. but the oz version of who want's to be a millionaire, the price is right count for this so.

[scifinutter]

Okies, this is what the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) says:
"Australian programs must be at least 55% of all programming broadcast in a year by a licensee between 6am and midnight".

So yeah, basically 55% doesn't equate to much given that the first three hours of the day are usually taken up by morning news programs, the next three hours by morning talk shows and morning news bulletins, then between midday and 3pm there's a cooking show and a repeat of something Australian. Then from 3pm till six, there's kiddies shows (which also have to have a certain amount of hours on TV) and in house game shows. 6pm to 7pm sees news and current affairs, 7pm - 8:30 typically is imported programming.

Like faustus said, the majority of Aussie made stuff is cheap, in house entertainment. Atm I think we'd be lucky to say there are four Aussie made 1hr dramas going atm. Usually the networks only just meet that quota, that is, they'd be lucky to have 58% Australian content.

Bandana Girl, I've not seen many Canadian programs, the only one I can think of is Due South, and that was on eons ago! Do your content quotas count for programs that are made in Canada (for example, The X Files)? There are also specifications of what constitutes an Australian program, and channel nine were using Farscape to meet some of the Aussie content quotia. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it ever ran past midnight, so that it'd still fit into the 6am to midnight bracket.

Sorry for the rant, didn't realise I'd gone on so much!

[The Keeper]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it ever ran past midnight, so that it'd still fit into the 6am to midnight bracket.


I remember at the end of last year when they were playing season 3, a few times it went past midnight. *shrugs*