Publics of interest and the death of the critic on Australian TV

Abstract

This article charts a turning point in recent Australian broadcast television history, where enduring institutions of media criticism in popular formats rapidly disappeared from screens. We firstly situate media criticism and the roles of the ‘television critic’ within theoretical paradigms of Bourdieusian taste-making and publics of interest, before undertaking a close analysis of three case studies circa 2015. Examining Good Game, The Book Club and Movie Juice demonstrates variations in critical and presentational aims and tones, influenced by such factors as media types and associated cultures (games, literature and film, respectively), network/broadcaster interests, scope of media operations and engagement with online publics. Our assessments of these formats are then placed in their historical context of media production and consumption, whereby we retrospectively find that the retirement of the popular film criticism show At the Movies marked the beginning of the Australian television critic's extinction event.