Welcome to a midweek edition of Unmade, Today, how the viewing audience became savvy to TV editing techniques, plus, the Unmade Index captures a messy day on the ASX

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Post-postmodern television

In the end the stress became too much.

Early in the current season of Survivor Australia, I fell several episodes behind. My plan was to stack a few up and binge them in the final week of the show.

But it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid spoilers.

Somehow, I kept the plates spinning. I raced out of the room when promos came on during The Project. I skipped past Survivor tweets when I glimpsed them in my timeline (it helps that Twitter’s algorithm has fallen apart, so the feed is now mainly boring US culture wars). I surfed away when I saw Survivor headlines on the websites.

I’d see headlines like “worst Survivor blunder” or “biggest ever tribal Council” and somehow avoid absorbing the detail.

But it all became too much and during the long weekend public holiday which most of the country just experienced, I gave in and caught up. 10Play’s frequency capping is all over the place, incidentally. The same ad plays in every break. That ad with the car surrounded by military force in the desert - must have seen in 30 times. And I still can’t remember the brand.

As you may detect, I’m a big fan of Survivor. The worst thing about leaving Mumbrella was falling off the Ten promo list for the gift Survivor buff at the start of each new series.

And jeez, it’s been a well cast, well made series this year, made for ten by Endemol Shine. It’s artificial, of course, but it’s not dumb.

Now that I’m caught up, been a pleasure to get back to the old days of water cooler television, where I can jump onto the Survivor forums the moment an episode finishes, surf the new websites and listen to broadcast radio.

A couple of things occurred as I reopened the Reddit forums. One is that Survivor fans in other parts of the world are having no problem beating the geo-block to stream Survivor as-live or as broadcast video on demand on 10Play. They’re in the conversation from the moment the show has aired in Australia. I wonder what proportion of the 200,000 or so each episode is pulling in an BVOD are genuinely in Australia.

But more to the point is that matter of fact nature of discussions about TV editing techniques. Who is getting the villain edit, and who is getting the winner edit is a regular debate. So are the production interventions of when to plant an immunity idol, or rescue an exiled contestant.

It used to be that many people who watched reality TV did so knowing it was confected but thinking they were one of the only ones smart enough to work it out. Now, everybody knows that everybody knows.

There have been subtle moments of breaking the fourth wall in the production of this season of Survivor Australia that would not have made it on screen previously. During an interview, competitor George Mladenov got tearful, in a nice piece of television. Then, when he thinks the moment is done, he turns off the tears and acknowledges it to the camera. They left that part in too.

Then there’s fellow competitor Simon Mee, who comes from the media world, having worked at media agencies Ikon and Reprise, along with JC Decaux. Mee seems to be getting the utter clown edit, although his blunders kept letting him progress. He can’t resist glancing at the camera in a way that in earlier phases of reality TV would be edited out.

In one scene Mee delivered what could have been a nice sound bite while talking to a couple of fellow contestants. But he stuffed up the line, stopped, and with a glance at the camera, did it again. Again, the producers left the whole thing in. It’s a subtle new approach to bringing in the viewers on some of the artifices of television.

And it’s not just Survivor, where viewers are throroughly post-postmodern.

The participants of Married at First Sight on Nine are absolutely matter of fact about the unrealities of reality TV.

Yesterday Kiis FM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O hosted this season’s MAFS villain Harrison Boon.

It was 28 minutes of excellent, long form interview radio. The topic may have been the trivial one of reality TV, by the radio duo showed off all of their skills in delivering a bullshit-free conversation with Boon about the conventions of reality TV, and the deal that contestants know they are entering into

Now that producers are dropping the artifice that there’s anything real about reality television, I’m not sure where we go next. I like the trend though. Audiences are finally in on the joke.

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Blood on the Unmade Index

It was a brutal day on the Unmade index yesterday as Wall Street’s Silicon Valley Bank contagion rolled across the ASX. While the wider ASX All Ords fell by 1.5%, the Unmade Index dropped by 2.09%, taking the index down to 636.6 points.

Along the way, Southern Cross Austereo hit a new milestone, with the company’s share price briefly dipping to 88c, its lowest point since Southern Cross Media took over Austereo in 2011. In afternoon trading, the SCA price recovered slightly to 90c. The company’s market capitalisation now sits at less than $220m.

Nine shares also had a bad day, falling by 3.08%, taking the company’s market cap down to $3.2bn. Fellow TV network Seven West Media wasn’t far behind, with a fall of 2.35%. HT&E, owner of ARN, sank by 0.47%.

In the outdoor sector, Ooh Media dropped by 2.56%.

Time to leave you to your Wednesday.

We’ll be back with more soon.

Toodlepip

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

tim@unmade.media