by Chad Phillips
When Australian television began broadcasting in 1956, it entered a nation already shaped by migration. Yet for decades, the role migrants played in building the industry and the ways they experienced television as audiences remained less visible.
A new book, Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A New History (Routledge, 2025), seeks to correct that record by placing migrants at the centre of Australia’s television history.
Dr Kyle Harvey, a Research Fellow in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University and one of the book’s authors, says the project emerged from a clear gap in scholarship. “My co-authors Kate Darian-Smith, Sue Turnbull and Sukhmani Khorana have written extensively about both TV and migration. When they pitched their Australian Research Council grant, they realised no one had brought these histories together in a comprehensive way.”
The timing, Dr Kyle Harvey explains, was critical. “With the rapid changes in television, the digital revolution, streaming, fragmentation, it felt like the right time to examine how TV and migration have developed in parallel.” Looking back across seven decades reveals how deeply connected these transformations have been. “That long history shows how migration has changed over seven decades, how TV has changed, and how deeply intertwined those changes are.”
Migrants at the Foundations of Australian Television
One of the book’s most significant contributions is its documentation of migrant involvement in the foundations of Australian television. Australia was relatively late to adopt television compared to the United States and the United Kingdom. When broadcasting finally began, stations urgently needed skilled workers.
“Many migrants from Western Europe, the US, or Britain already had experience in TV or film,” Dr Kyle Harvey says. “They were recruited or responded to newspaper ads for roles as editors, directors, camera assistants, set designers, sound designers, and more.”
Migrant contributions extended well beyond creative roles. Dr Kyle Harvey points to the infrastructure that made broadcasting possible. “The major transmission towers in Brisbane were built by an Italian company (Società Anonima Elettrificazione), two brothers who migrated in the 1950s. Their company is now Transfield Holdings. That was one of their first major contracts.”
Television also generated new forms of migrant entrepreneurship. “We also found migrant-run TV sales and repair shops,” Dr Kyle Harvey says, describing a North Fitzroy, Victoria business founded in 1956 by a man from Kosovo. “His sons took over after he passed away, and the shop stayed open until only a few years ago.”
Together, these stories challenge the idea that migrants were peripheral to Australian television. “Migrants contributed across the entire ecosystem, not just in creative roles, but also in the infrastructure and servicing that made television possible,” Dr Kyle Harvey says.
Who Gets to Be Australian on Screen
Despite their foundational role, migrant representation on screen lagged far behind reality. The book traces how early television reflected assimilationist ideals, often reinforcing racial hierarchies and exclusion. Defining ‘Australianness’, Dr Kyle Harvey says, has always been contested. “It’s almost impossible to define, and it has been contested for decades.”
Television, he stresses, is not a mirror of society. “Representation is never reality, it’s shaped by writers, producers, directors, casting choices, and the conventions of the medium.”
The book documents deeply troubling practices from early broadcasting. “Early TV often used white actors in blackface to portray Aboriginal people, obviously unacceptable today,” Dr Kyle Harvey says. He notes that casting across ethnic lines remained common for decades, raising ongoing questions about authenticity and power.
Change came gradually. “In the 1980s and 90s, TV began catching up with official multiculturalism,” Dr Kyle Harvey explains, pointing to second-generation creators such as those behind Acropolis Now. While representation has improved, he cautions against overstating progress. “There is still a long way to go, particularly because commercial broadcasters have no regulatory obligations around diversity. ABC and SBS have inclusion charters, but commercial networks can do whatever they want.”
Television in Migrant Homes
For migrant audiences, television carried meanings far beyond entertainment. Oral histories collected for the book reveal how TV shaped settlement experiences, language acquisition, and belonging.
“We interviewed a woman from Vietnam who arrived as a refugee in the late 1970s,” Dr Kyle Harvey says. “She learned English largely through Playschool and Sesame Street while watching with her children.”
These varied experiences highlight how class, gender and labour shaped migrants’ engagement with media.
Creative Resistance and Industry Change
While systemic change was slow, Dr Kyle Harvey emphasises the importance of individual and collective advocacy. “Change often comes from individuals or small production companies rather than the system as a whole,” he says, citing Matchbox Pictures as an example of a company that placed diversity at the centre of its work.
Behind the scenes, migrant creatives also influenced Australian television in less visible ways. Dr Kyle Harvey notes the role of diverse production teams on Heartbreak High, where workshops led by Greek Australian dramaturg Nico Lathouris shaped the show’s realism. He also highlights director Richard Jasek, “born in Czechoslovakia,” who worked on Heartbreak High and later became executive producer of Neighbours, bringing inclusive practices into mainstream television.
Streaming, Advocacy and the Future
Today, global streaming platforms have transformed how migrants engage with screen content. “People used to import videotapes or DVDs, now everything is online,” Dr Kyle Harvey says. “Many migrants and their children prefer content from overseas or from streaming platforms like Netflix, mirroring the viewing habits of the broader Australian population.”
This shift has major implications for Australian broadcasting. “Streaming has fundamentally transformed screen consumption,” he notes. “Viewers have endless options, and there’s less incentive than ever to watch Australian broadcast TV.”
In this changing landscape, advocacy remains vital. “Advocacy is extremely important, especially because Australia has no diversity requirements for commercial broadcasters,” Dr Kyle Harvey says, highlighting the role of organisations like NEMBC in promoting multilingual content and inclusive storytelling.
Looking back, Dr Kyle Harvey is struck by how deeply television mattered to migrant audiences. Italian Australians recalled parents scanning end credits for Italian names. “Cultural identification mattered deeply,” he says. “It still does. And television provided those moments of recognition long before the age of streaming.”
Migrants, Television and Australian Stories: A New History reframes Australian television not as a monocultural tradition slowly becoming diverse, but as an industry always shaped by migration. As the book makes clear, the future of Australian broadcasting depends on recognising that truth.
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