The year, and more importantly the year in television, is at an end. But as 2016 gives way to 2017 and the first summer sighting of a less than subtle My Kitchen Rules promo on Channel Seven featuring a bonkers comment about a contestant's souffle, it's worth noting that not every TV tradition needs to endure for another 12 months. Here is a selection of the annual elements that our screen culture doesn't need to keep alive.
Broadcasting Carols in the Domain
![Carols in the Domain are more mutant TV than family entertainment.](/web/20170104214340im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/h/u/g/3/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gthucy.png/1482709496808.jpg)
By all means continue to hold Carols in the Domain, but the broadcasting of it has turned the event into some kind of mutant television production that will one day be a case study in the university course that explores how marketing synergy destroyed our society. Aside from the fact that anything pre-recorded has a tin ear for tone, the supermarket branding of the event tied to the cavalcade of contracted players from Seven's stable combines to take away most of the joy – but not those Christmas Day bargains! – from what should be a simple family-oriented event. If we wanted to hear X-Factor contestants sing we would have watched the actual show.
The ABC's New Year's Eve Coverage
It hasn't even aired this year, but ever since it acquired the rights to cover the New Year's Eve fireworks above Sydney Harbour in 2013 the ABC's marathon broadcast has been a rolling disaster that's run longer than a biblical epic and featured almost as many crucifixions. How bad does a show have to be that the audience actively demands – while it's still airing – that the rights be returned to Channel Nine so that Richard Wilkins can once more bring his soothing professionalism to bear? The show is like a black hole that sucks up and disappears talented people for the evening – last year Justine Clarke and Eddie Perfect were lost to us; who's next?
The Parochialism of Nine's Test Cricket Coverage
It's not clear what brings out the worst in Nine's test cricket commentary team. Is it when the Australian team is winning, and the hosannas flow up to heaven like a revivalist church meeting offering praise to the Lord, or is it when the Australian team is losing and the lack of clear explanation and proffering of rote excuses would do a Senate Estimates hearing proud. The shared lineage between the commentary box and their successors on the field has made for a smooth commercial transition and a dulling of the critical faculties, although frankly an observational documentary about the machinations of choosing and contracting Nine's team would be a great deal of fun.
Questionable Mini-Series About Famous Australians
First there were so many Kerry Packer-based mini-series that they needed two actors to play all the iterations of the late media mogul, and then there were the potted musical histories where the terrible celebrity imitations – remember the version of Madonna that turned up in Molly? – had a kind of cringeworthy appeal, but now we're at the point where Paul Hogan and Olivia Newton-John are getting the biopic treatment because Peter Brock exhausted our tolerance for race-car drivers. Yes, there's a chance something as solidly insightful and entertaining as Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door could eventuate, but it's an increasingly slight one.
Commercial Networks Avoiding Australian Sitcoms
Yes, Channel Nine did go with (all six episodes) of Here Come the Habibs in February, and by March there went the Habibs to be consigned to a quiet digital corner, but the ABC has shown there is an audience for genuinely funny half hours with shows such as Upper Middle Bogan. If Seven and Nine made an Australian sitcom for every cop series they commissioned we'd have a lot more variety to choose from.
Tired Gender Roles
Why do only men host game shows? Surely there's at least one woman in the Australian television industry who is as fizzy as Grant Denyer or matey as Eddie McGuire, or can provide whatever other quality is required to keep audiences watching a well-worn format far too many nights a week. The Australian television industry is slowly making positive strides when it comes to diversity, but there's still a sense that that executives and producers feel that they have to inch their way forward, lest audiences are shocked. There are already many genuinely shocking things in the world – more women, or any other under-represented group, on our television screens would not be one of them.
Australian Reality Shows Don't Need Mythic Australian Traits
In all seriousness, there were more interesting turns, devious plots, and jaw-dropping moments in the initial 90 minutes of the final double episode of the recent Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X season than in the entire run of Ten's Survivor Australia. If you're going to show three episodes of Survivor a week, as the Australian version did, you need more than people passively clinging to a friendly clique for weeks on end. Just because there are no vehicles amid the tropical setting doesn't mean a little bit of car crash casting wouldn't help.
Green Guide Letters Complaining About Presenters' Pronunciation
Just kidding, that's a great tradition. Keep them coming!