‘Mum Likes Bandstand Too’: Creating the Teenage Audience on Australian Television

Abstract

Television and rock'n'roll both arrived in Australia in 1956, twin symbols of modernity and Americanised consumerism. Television was crucial to the dissemination of rock'n'roll, amplifying its shocks but also rendering it palatable for a broader audience. While it was important in the articulation of the new youth culture, television — unlike film or even radio — had to be more mindful of the familial, domestic context of broadcasting. This article explores the ways in which television networks shaped, and catered to, a teenage audience in the first years of Australian television through an examination of the early teenage music programs, Six O'Clock Rock and Bandstand, with a particular focus on audience responses.