What would humanity do without television? For better or for worse, the small screen holds such power that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed November 21 as World Television Day, to highlight the importance of the medium in the world’s social, cultural and economic development, and to emphasise the role of television in presenting major global and local issues to a large audience.

A range of different Australian television genres and eras feature on our home page this week in honour of World Television Day.

My Name’s McGooley, What’s Yours? dates from the mid-1960s and was Australia’s first sitcom success. The long-running serial The Sullivans centred around a Melbourne family during the Second World War and was a major hit in the 1970s and early ’80s.

Mini-series are represented by two blockbuster adaptations of beloved novels, made 30 years apart: A Town Like Alice (1981) and My Brother Jack (2001). Australian-Canadian co-production The Saddle Club was a hit with pre-teen and teenage girls around the world.

More recently, MDA cannily combines two television staples: legal and medical drama, while The Circuit is a courtroom drama with a twist. Produced by a mostly Indigenous Australian cast and crew, it is set in Broome and on the Kimberley Circuit Court that travels to remote Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

Read more about World Television Day on the United Nations website.

Browse over 300 television programs on australianscreen by year.