Sydney Tonight versus In Melbourne Tonight: Television, Taste and Identity
In this discussion, I focus on the varying fortunes of Sydney Tonight and In Melbourne Tonight (IMT) in order to explore the very local nature of television in Australia in the 1950s and early 1960s. As part of this process, I document the way that the success of IMT and the perceived failure of Sydney Tonight became the basis for a sustained discussion in both the Sydney and Melbourne print media about the respective discernment of each city's viewers. Buttressed by continuing public anxieties about the sophistication of the developing Australian television culture, the rejection of inferior locally produced programs became understood as a marker of discrimination and maturity.